A new poll of registered voters across Puerto Rico provides new information on some of the lasting misconceptions about Puerto Rico. One of these misperceptions is that Puerto Ricans are Democrats.
Some truth to it
Among the voters surveyed, 47% described themselves as identifying with the Democratic Party. According to recent data from Pew Research, 49% of U.S. voters overall identify with the Democratic Party — not a very different number from the results in Puerto Rico. Just about the same proportion of voters in Puerto Rico are Democrats as in the United States as a whole.
The proportion of Republicans is larger in the U.S. as a whole. 48% of Americans in general identify as Republicans. This is fewer than the Democrats, but Pew considers it a pretty even split. Among the Puerto Rico voters, just 22% said they were Republicans.
A few percentage points are independents, but the majority of these voters described themselves as “leaning” toward one side or the other, and they were included in the figures for Democrats and Republicans. Among the Puerto Rico voters, however, 24% didn’t prefer one national party over the other.
So it looks on the surface as though Puerto Ricans are more likely to be Democrats.
But wait — there’s more
That question asked only which national party the voters felt drawn to. Republican and Democratic parties are not the major political parties in Puerto Rico, and people rarely vote on the basis of a candidate’s membership in a national party. Running mates, such as Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon and Pedro Pierluisi in the last election cycle, may be from two different parties. Choosing a national party doesn’t mean the same thing in Puerto Rico as it does in the states.
The same survey of Puerto Rico voters asked about the candidates the respondents intended to vote for.
For the governor’s race, Republican Gonzalez-Colon had 44%, far and away the largest following. The next candidate in the list has 21% in favor — less than half the following of Gonzalez-Colon. That candidate doesn’t even have a membership in either national party.
For the presidential contest — if they were able to vote — respondents would choose Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. But the difference is 39% to 38%.
Voters may be more likely to identify with the Democratic Party, but they are not voting that way.
It’s complicated
The survey also found that voters were more likely to hold socially conservative positions. On questions about gun control, abortion, same-sex marriage, and immigration, the respondents answered in ways that are more strongly associated with the Republican Party than with the Democratic Party.
The survey also found that voters in Puerto Rico did not always vote a straight ticket and that younger voters were more likely to choose a candidate on their own merits than on their party membership.
We can expect that voters in Puerto Rico will be open to candidates’ policy positions, and that they will vote for the candidate or party that best addresses their concerns.
Why does this matter?
When Congress considers admitting a new state, it should not matter which way that state might vote. For one thing, the United States is a democracy. Trying to exclude people who do not agree with us is unseemly and unAmerican. Having said that, we have to admit that there is plenty of precedent. Many of the current states were quickly shepherded into the Union in order to get more voters for one party or another. It’s definitely happening now: Republicans are not shy about saying that they don’t want to admit Puerto Rico because the voters might vote for Democrats.
In addition to the abstract fitness of voting against admitting a state on the basis of its party identity, there’s also evidence that the strategy doesn’t work. Hawaii was expected to be a red state and Alaska was expected to be a blue state. Right now, the opposite is true. Arkansas was a blue state until 1964, wavered till 2000, and has been a red state ever since. Colorado has been blue since 2008, but has voted Republican more than 60% of the time since statehood. We could go on, but most states show that being either a red state or a blue state is temporary.
Rational or not, we know that the possibility that Puerto Rico might vote Democratic is one of the issues that causes people in the states to favor or to disapprove of statehood for Puerto Rico. When that issue comes up, you should feel completely comfortable reassuring people that Puerto Rico shows every sign of being a classic swing state.
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