Puerto Rico delegates at odds over DNC platform despite unanimous support for Harris

Puerto Rican delegates at the Democratic and Republican national conventions backed their respective presidential nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — even though both parties changed their official platforms on Puerto Rico, not aligning with some delegates’ views on statehood or the future of Puerto Rico.

The platform approved at the Democratic convention in Chicago this week states the party’s explicit support for a bipartisan bill that seeks to change Puerto Rico’s territorial relationship to the U.S. through a federally binding vote — leaving out Puerto Rico’s current territorial option.

Under the terms of the bill, known as the Puerto Rico Status Act, Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. territory would choose among three nonterritorial status options: statehood, independence and sovereignty in free association with the U.S.

By contrast, Democrats broadly included Puerto Rico’s current territorial status in their 2020 and 2016 platforms, saying it should be up to the people of Puerto Rico to determine their status.

Last month, the Republican platform removed language supporting Puerto Rican statehood, which it had included in 2020 and 2016.

In their 2020 and 2016 platforms, Republicans supported the “right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state.” 

In their 2024 platform, Republicans included no mention of the issue, saying only that they “will protect Americans in the territories,” including Puerto Rico, because they “are of vital importance to our National Security, and we welcome their greater participation in all aspects of the political process.”

A candidate’s stance on Puerto Rico’s status is a top-of-mind issue for Puerto Rican voters in the mainland.

Puerto Ricans living on the island are U.S. citizens who can’t vote for president or participate in other federal elections. That changes once they move to the mainland U.S. and can register to vote in U.S. elections, making Puerto Ricans the second-largest group of Latino eligible voters in the country.

While people in Puerto Rico can’t vote in presidential elections, both the Democratic and the Republican parties allow them to participate in presidential primaries and send delegates to their national conventions.

The island’s status issue is an incredibly divisive one, in large part because of how local political parties in Puerto Rico are organized.

Traditionally, most people have supported either the pro-statehood New Progressive Party or the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the current territorial status. A smaller percentage of “independentistas” support the Puerto Rican Independence Party, which advocates for independence from the U.S.

United for Harris but divided over DNC platform

All of Puerto Rico’s 60 delegates attended the Democratic National Convention this week. Forty-three of them are from the pro-statehood party, 16 are from the party supporting the current status, and one isn’t affiliated to any party on the island.

Charlie Rodríguez, president of the Puerto Rico Democratic Party and a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, referred to the island as “the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the next state of the United States” during the Democratic convention’s roll call, surrounded by his fellow pro-statehood delegates, who held “USA” signs.

Before the start of the convention, the governing board of the Popular Democratic Party backing the current territorial status had agreed to abstain from endorsing the Democratic Party’s new platform based on its language supporting the Puerto Rico Status Act.

Jesús Manuel Ortiz, president of the Popular Democratic Party and a candidate for Puerto Rico governor, said Sunday in a statement in Spanish that party supporters “reject any undemocratic effort to exclude the commonwealth,” a term referring to the current status.

Most convention delegates affiliated with the Popular Democratic Party didn’t attend the vote to approve the new Democratic platform Monday, El Nuevo Día, a Puerto Rican national newspaper, reported.

Despite their political differences at home, all of them voted in favor of Harris as the presidential nominee Tuesday night.

Last month during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Puerto Rican delegates who support statehood found themselves in a similarly strange situation when Republicans removed language supporting statehood for Puerto Rico from their party platform.

All members of the Puerto Rico Republican Party’s executive board also belong to the pro-statehood New Progressive Party on the island. Trump received their full support during the convention even though the platform excluded statehood. The Puerto Rico Republican Party also pledged all 23 of its delegates to Trump.

Support for the current status has been eroding on the island as more Puerto Ricans see their territorial relationship to the U.S. as the root cause of many crises they have endured over the past several years. They include a botched federal response to Hurricane Maria, a decadelong financial crisis and the federally imposed oversight board overseeing the largest public debt restructuring in U.S. history — resulting in tough austerity measures that prompted layoffs of public workers and cuts to the health care and education budgets.

Despite changes in how Puerto Ricans view their current status, both the New Progressive Party and the Popular Democratic Party have significant support on the island.