GAME CHANGER: How the influx of Puerto Ricans Will Change the 2024 presidential landscape!

By Franklin D.  Lopez, former United Press International and The Associated Press news writer and former Director for Ethnic Affairs of the Carter Campaign in 1980

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“If you don’t get it, you don’t get it!- Yogi Berra!

The preliminary numbers from the U>SA> Census are in! More than 500,000 American citizens from Puerto Rico have moved to the principal battleground states; Ohio, Florida, Goergia, North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania. We need to wait ountil Augusto 2021 to find out in which states thay have settled in. Its is evident that i the Biden Harris Administration wants to have a successful  domestic policieis agenda passed by the U. S. Senate and eliminate being extorted by the 50 democratic senators with their own pet projects, Biden must make the Distrcit of Columbia and Puerto Rico both states of the Union before the mid term elections. The writing is on the wall. The time to act is now! Barack Obama in the eulogy of Congressman john lewis said it very clearly : “By guaranteeing that every American citizen has equal representation in our government, including the American citizens who live in Washington, DC, and in Puerto Rico. They’re Americans. ” It is alway the right thing to do what is right!”_ Dr. Martin Liuther King.

The Admission of Hawaii as a state with 400,000 citizens in 1959, proved to be the catalyst, to attract population and in the 2020 census Hawaii ha 1.420,000 citizens, a population net gain over a million!  The admission of Puerto rico as a a state will bring back a great part of the 5.4 million living in the lower 48! Do you get it?

Since the baptism of the so-called “commonwealth” (“free Associated State”) status on July 25, 1952, Puerto Ricans have moved to “swing states”, or “battleground states”, in record numbers. From 1952 to 1960 around 1 million Puerto Ricans moved to the United States. The massive wave of population was not caused by hurricanes or natural events, but by the economic collapse of the colonial creature engendered by Washington and San Juan that was labeled the final solution of the 3.6 million American citizens (in 1956) living in the territory of Puerto Rico. President Jimmy Carter was the first U.S President to recognize the colonial nature of the commonwealth “non status”.

On July 25, 1979 President Carter, with the strong support of Dr. Robert Pastor, his Latin America national security adviser at the White House N.S.C., enacted and adopted through a presidential proclamation named The Political Status of Puerto Rico: Alternative Futures granting american citizens the right to self determination, to choose between statehood, independence or remain as a territory. The presidential proclamation buried the Washington policy that was adopted in 1952 that the status of Puerto Rico was finally resolved when Puerto Ricans accepted the territorial constitution approved by the U.S. Congress.

Puerto Rico’s metropolitan traffic used to be heavy and slow. Rivera is a part of a wave of Puerto Ricans fleeing the island’s beleaguered  recession stricken economy and transforming the Florida electorate.

Each week, as many as 1,000 Puerto Ricans arrive in central Florida, according to some estimates, joining a community of more than 1 million Puerto Ricans across the state that has grown tenfold since 1980.  There is a new milestone in Florida’s rapid changing ethnic demography; Puerto Ricans is the largest Latino voting block in Florida. Jorge Duany, director and professor at Florida International University’s Cuban Research Institute, has described the “massive population displacement” in his new book, “Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know.” Puerto Ricans have been the state’s fastest-growing Hispanic-origin group over the past decade, and thousands more arrived from the island following Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017 – part of a broader movement of island residents to the U.S. mainland in recent years.

 2016 Presidential Election Results

Turnout	55.7%[1] 0.8 pp
Nominee Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Party Republican Democratic Home state New York New York Running mate Mike Pence Tim Kaine Electoral vote 304[a] 227[a] States carried 30 + ME-02 20 + DC Popular vote 62,984,828 65,853,514 Percentage 46.09% 48.18%
Presidential election

Between 2005 and 2016, about a third of these migrants settled in Florida, in an area between the Orlando and Tampa Bay metro areas known as the Interstate 4 corridor.

Florida’s PuertoRican population now rivals that of New York, the main destination of the mid-20th century’s migration from the island. Puerto Ricans in Florida is the new political force to be reckoned with.  Senator Rick Scott, fomer governor of Florida  defeated Senator Bill Nelson, by 10,033 votes of 8.2 million votes cast. Senator Marco Rubio recognized his winning to the support of Puerto Ricans in Florida! according to a poll conducted for the Orlando Sentinel the issue with the highest intensity of the Puerto RIcan voters is the admission of Puerto Rico as a state. Do You get It?

In another swing state, North Carolina, The U.S Census Bureau in 2014 estimated 89,212 Puerto Ricans lived in that state, and accounted for 1.7% of all Puerto Ricans living in the United States. The number of Puerto Ricans in North Carolina almost tripled from 31,117 in the year 2000 to 89,212 in 2014.

This contrasts with President Trump’s discriminatory policy of freezing the $9.3 billion dollars approved by Congress for the reconstruction of Puerto Rico. Trump has gone as far as calling all Puerto Rican elected officials corrupt and crooks! Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article128081289.html#storylink=c

Each week, as many as 1,000 Puerto Ricans arrive in central Florida, according to some estimates, joining a community of more than 1 million Puerto Ricans across the state that has grown tenfold since 1980.

The U.S Census Bureau recently published a report on the influx of Puerto Ricans to swing states. Both the GOP and the Democrats should read it with great care! The massive exodus has changed the presidential landscape for the 2020 elections. Just see where 20,000 or  50,000 thousand  Puerto Rican votes can do in the following battleground states in the 2020 electoral contest: