Politics

The Puerto Rican vote in Pennsylvania could have a powerful impact this election

Published

1 year ago

November 11, 2024

The Puerto Rican vote in Pennsylvania could have a powerful impact this election

The Thursday before Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign dropped an ad appealing directly to Puerto Rican voters. Unlike a previous video released a day after Trump-supporting comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” this new video was a master class in how to pull at the heartstrings of Boricua identity and pride.

If there is one presidential campaign truth coming out of Sunday’s garbage joke, it’s that Puerto Ricans are fired up to vote in 2024.

The video, called “Somos más” (we are more), featured a Spanish-speaking narrator, with his very noticeable Puerto Rican accent, listing the many reasons why Puerto Rico and its people should never be disrespected. It was a rare moment when Democrats got their message right for Puerto Rican voters and their Latino allies.

Of course, the ad was not for Puerto Ricans living on the island. Being a colony means that Puerto Rico’s 3 million residents can’t vote for president even though they are American citizens. It’s complicated as to why, and with just days until Election Day, the Harris campaign was not about to have the uncomfortable yet necessary conversations about why Puerto Ricans continue to be ignored by both Republicans and Democrats. Colonialism has that effect.

No, this ad was all about the nearly 1 million Puerto Ricans who can vote in swing states, where they live. And if there is one presidential campaign truth coming out of Sunday’s garbage joke, it’s that Puerto Ricans are fired up to vote in 2024, and the Harris campaign is wise to make sure they do.

They could in fact be the next swing state power brokers, particularly in states like Pennsylvania, where more than 300,000 voters of Puerto Rican descent are eligible to vote. In 2020, Joe Biden won the state by around 81,000 votes. If the last week has significantly raised the Boricua desire to not vote for Trump and to vote for Harris, then the state will stay in the Democratic column.

According to The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, Florida residents of Puerto Rican descent represent 5.7% of the state. Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin are at 1%. In Arizona, Puerto Ricans account for 0.9% of the state, with Nevada coming in at 0.8%. In these races where just thousands of votes will determine Electoral College winners, playing up the events of last week and raising awareness among Puerto Ricans have a real chance of making a difference for Harris.

Understandably, the Trump campaign is doing everything it can to diffuse that possibility. Biden’s response to the “garbage joke” could have given Trump a lifeline; at a Tuesday rally in Allentown, where the population is about 25% Puerto Rican, Trump insisted he “will deliver the best future for Puerto Ricans and for Hispanic Americans.” At the same event, Zoraida Buxó, a Republican Puerto Rican pro-statehood supporter and a “shadow senator” of the island’s current pro-statehood government, publicly supported Trump, saying, “We need this man back in the White House. We need this man to be our commander-in-chief. He will make us feel safe. And he will protect us.”

But Buxó’s Trump endorsement lacks the star power and influence of a number of prominent Puerto Rican celebrities who have publicly voiced their support for Harris, from Jennifer Lopez to Bad Bunny to Ricky Martin to Puerto Rican-Dominican reggaeton star Nicky Jam, who in September was all for Trump, but on Wednesday, took it all back.

“Never in my life did I think that just one month later a comedian would show up and criticize my country, and speak poorly of my country. And for that, I revoke any support for Donald Trump and I’m stepping aside from any kind of political situation. Puerto Rico is to be respected,” Jam posted on social media.

This sentiment is strongly echoed on the island itself, where people in Puerto Rico are fed up with their colonial status, as political anthropologist Yarimar Bonilla explains in her excellent New York Times opinion piece, in which she highlights how Puerto Rico’s younger generation “is determined to reclaim the island’s future.” Puerto Rico’s general election this year falls on the same day as the United States’s presidential election. History would be made if the island were to elect its first pro-independence governor, Juan Dalmau.

If Puerto Ricans in the diaspora mobilize and vote in record numbers, they will be issuing a declaration that they cannot be marginalized. Their message: Respect for Puerto Rico and its people is no longer optional.

As both Election Days approach, Puerto Rican voters in swing states can remain reactive to the predictable cycle of political neglect — or use this moment to signal their collective power. The Harris campaign’s recent ad is an acknowledgment of their potential, but it’s only the beginning. If Puerto Ricans in the diaspora mobilize and vote in record numbers, they will be issuing a declaration that they cannot be marginalized. Their message: Respect for Puerto Rico and its people is no longer optional.

Increased Puerto Rican electoral participation in the 2024 U.S. election could mean something even more significant than keeping Democrats in the White House. Despite the perceived tension between Boricuas in the diaspora and those who live in Puerto Rico, the reality is that stateside Puerto Ricans can flex their political power on Election Day to raise awareness of the ongoing injustice on the island caused by years of neglect from federal government disaster relief, inept power companies, a federally appointed fiscal control board supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and a desire for Boricua voices to be heard after the votes are cast.

Puerto Rican voters on Election Day can do just that.

Julio Ricardo Varela

Julio Ricardo Varela is an award-winning journalist and the founder of The Latino Newsletter.

Politics

2028 Dem veteran? Uncle Sam wants you.

Published

11 hours ago

March 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

In the 15 days since President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on Iran, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is approaching nearly a dozen media appearances, offering his often visceral reaction to the conflict.

Gallego, a 46-year-old combat veteran who deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in 2005, has emerged as a blunt, clear voice for the Democratic Party on foreign policy, speaking as someone whose own generation experienced the forever wars.

There he was on BLN’s “The Source with Kaitlin Collins” saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio was doing “CYA” and noting that the “MAGA base is pissed.” There he was sitting down with the AP speaking “as someone who lives with PTSD,” adding “it’s not been an easy week.” And there he was on Derek Thompson’s podcast, speaking about “going town to town searching for insurgents” 21 years ago, “but there was no clear direction of what victory looked like, what the end goal was, what was going to be the after-action report on Iraq.”

Gallego isn’t alone. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a Navy captain who flew combat missions during Operation Desert Storm in 1990, has also racked up a run of high-profile media appearances, as has former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who served in Afghanistan in the Army’s 82nd Airborne, went on local radio this week to link Americans’ affordability woes to the war.

In a year after many Democrats pined for a metaphorical fighter, the party is now having a conversation with itself about whether it needs a literal fighter — a veteran who can speak with credibility on issues of war and national security.

In an interview with Blue Light News, Gallego spoke of “dodging bullets, IEDs, RPGs, clearing towns and then coming back to the same towns with insurgents” and of “losing friends and still not understanding what the end goal was the whole time.”

“It leaves a mark on you, and you start seeing it happening again, you know, you don’t really think about the politics,” Gallego said. “You think about the people who are going to be potentially dying. And that’s why I think I was not hesitant to speak my mind on that.”

Later this month in San Antonio, Texas, Gallego will join VoteVets Action for its third town hall featuring potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, promising “fresh voices to the national conversation — those who have worn the uniform and served alongside us, who connect with everyday Americans others can’t,” according to a promotional video. (They’ve also done town halls with Buttigieg and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin.)

“On foreign policy, the Dems need a candidate who is seen as strong/tough — not in rhetoric or bravado political platitudes but who conveys a sense of judgement and resolve with which voters connect instinctively,” said Doug Wilson, the former assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during the Obama administration and co-lead of Buttigieg’s 2020 foreign policy team.

The “Iran war underscores the need” for such a candidate, Wilson added.

Whomever the Democrats select as their nominee could potentially face a Situation Room-steeped ticket deep with national security credentials, including a Marine Iraq war veteran in Vice President JD Vance or Rubio, with his secretary of State experience.

Depending on how the many conflicts the U.S. is engaged in at the moment resolve, that experience could cut against them.

But right now, Democrats who can match those bona fides have some currency others without them can’t.

“That’s obviously going to be helpful to them,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. “It’s gonna be a big part of what they’re talking about for the next little while. But you know, how long does it last? We just don’t know, right? In my professional lifetime, foreign policy stuff and national security has mattered in a presidential race once — in 2004. That’s it. Otherwise, it comes up, but it’s not driving the conversation.”

Some potential Democratic candidates without such credentials have still managed to break through amid the Iran news cycle. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has said the White House has treated aspects of the war “as a video game,” in a clip gaining traction on X. “When American service members killed in action are returning to the United States in flagged-draped coffins, and even more Americans have lost limbs or suffered terrible brain injuries or are fighting for their lives, this White House treats war like a game, and it’s a disgrace,” Ossoff said.

When asked whether military service is an essential for the party’s eventual nominee, Gallego acknowledged there is a benefit for someone who can “speak with that type of credibility.”

“I’m not the type of person that’s like, ‘you have to be a veteran — Iraq War veteran,’” Gallego said. “This is a democracy. We’re still one, and there’s a lot of people that can bring valuable experience and knowledge. But you know, someone that actually has a nuanced understanding of foreign policy; that doesn’t go to the total knee-jerk reactionism that sometimes we see where we go to the point of, you know, isolationism; or the other way, where we go to full neocon. There needs to be a very balanced way to how we approach the world.”

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