Exodus from Puerto Rico could upend Florida vote in 2016 presidential race
By Mary Jordan July 26 at 9:02 PM
KISSIMMEE, Florida — Puerto Rico’s economic crisis meant Jeffrey Rondon, 25, struggled to find even part-time work, so he recently joined the growing exodus from his Caribbean island to Florida. Now he holds a full-time restaurant job and something that could upend the 2016 presidential election — the right to vote in Florida, the biggest of all swing states.
“It’s important to vote and be heard — it’s a privilege,” said Rondon, who is one of thousands of Puerto Ricans who have moved to Florida in the past year.
As U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans are relatively easy to register to vote, and they are attracting unprecedented attention because they could change the political calculus in a state that President Obama won by the thinnest of margins in 2012: 50 percent to 49.1 percent.
“It’s a potential game changer for the state,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic Research at the Pew Research Center. “It’s the biggest movement of people out of Puerto Rico since the great migration of the 1950s.”
[Is it lights out for Puerto Rico?]
Puerto Rican voters tend to lean Democratic, but a great number of the newcomers do not identify with any party, making them appealing targets for politicians and recruiters on both sides. Like those living in other U.S. territories, people in Puerto Rico cannot vote for president in the U.S. general election.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who is leading the large number of Republican presidential candidates in Florida polls, recently made a high-profile visit to Puerto Rico. On Monday, he will address three separate gatherings in Orlando, and among those with whom he is meeting are many Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, has visited the island in the past and polled very well with Puerto Ricans when she ran for president in 2008.
“I think you are going to see a hyper-focus in Florida, the likes of which we have never seen. I do think Puerto Ricans can change the political landscape,” said Cristóbal Alex, president of the Democratic-backed Latino Victory Project.
Jennifer Sevilla Korn, who works on Hispanic outreach as the Republican National Committee’s deputy political director of strategic initiatives, said that the GOP has been watching the shifting demographics of Florida and that the Puerto Rican vote “is definitely rising in importance.”
“It’s been growing for years,” she said, adding that in 2016, “you have to get a good portion of Puerto Rican votes to win Florida.”
She said Republicans are building community relationships, opening offices in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods, going door to door and showing up at Latino events of every size, “from 30 to 30,000 people” and setting up GOP booths
“I see the vote as up for grabs,” she said.
[Puerto Rican debt crisis forces its way onto presidential political agenda]
Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, has been struggling with $72 billion in debt and soaring unemployment. The Pew Research Center calculates that the island’s population dropped by 11,000 people a year in the 1990s, but between 2010 and 2013, the loss accelerated to 48,000 a year.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/exodus-from-puerto-rico-could-upend-florida-vote-in-2016-presidential-race/2015/07/26/d73bc724-3229-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html
