Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) was recently filmed talking about Puerto Rico’s political status. In the video, McCormick said that Puerto Rico’s political status is “something we should talk about.” He also said, in response to a question pointing out that Puerto Rico has strong representation from Republicans, that “Statehood for Puerto Rico should not depend on which national political party benefits but on the principles that all Americans share.”
The national political parties are not the big players in politics in Puerto Rico, which has its own political parties. The current Puerto Rico governor, however, is a Republican, and the governorship is one of only two island-wide elected positions, along with Resident Commissioner. Puerto Rico has elected both Republicans and Democrats to each of these two major political positions over the years. In fact, the last two governors are both members of the same political party in Puerto Rico (the New Progressive (“statehood”) Party) yet are members of two different national parties, Democrats and Republicans.
In addition, Puerto Rico has conservative social laws, including on the controversial issue of reproductive health, which are much more like those characteristic of red states than those of blue states.
Given both the historic and present day Republican support and involvement in Puerto Rico issues, as well as current strong red-state social conservative in Puerto Rico today, there is a path forward for Republican candidates to draw voters from the Island if it becomes a state.
McCormick’s constituents
As Senator for Pennsylvania, McCormick represents nearly 500,000 Puerto Ricans. In his remarks, he recognized that the topic of statehood is “a big issue” to many of his constituents, and said that “those people should have representation.” He said that Puerto Rico statehood should therefore be discussed.
The senator also said that he does not have “a formal position” on the subject. However, his openness to the discussion was made clear in his remarks.
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