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The Republican Party’s Puerto Rico chapter has formed a committee with the objective of demonstrating that if Puerto Rico were to achieve statehood, it would align with the Republican side.
This move by the local GOP occurs despite the national Republican Party omitting the territory’s status from its political platform. A majority of Republicans believe that should Puerto Rico become a state, it would lean Democratic.
In its current territorial status, residents of Puerto Rico are unable to cast votes for the presidency. Nonetheless, islanders can express their alignment with either of the two primary national political parties: the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
Puerto Rico’s Republican Party Chairman Ángel Cintrón García announced over the weekend that the party has designated a committee of Republican advocates, headed by Alfredo Ocasio, a legal adviser for the GOP, with co-leadership from Zoraida Buxó, a statehood delegate in the U.S. Senate, to promote the success of the Republican Party’s current ballot and its presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
In July, the local GOP committed all its 35 delegates to Trump during the Republican National Convention.
“Today, the Republican Party of Puerto Rico is excited to announce the launch of the campaign, striving for a cohesive statewide effort to engage the conservative voter base to show the United States that, if Puerto Rico becomes a state, it would be Republican,” the party stated.
Ocasio promotes conservative principles and is part of the Puerto Rican group that exercised its voting rights during the last Republican Party Convention in Wisconsin, where Donald Trump was officially nominated as the party’s presidential candidate.
The committee’s leader emphasized that the initiative would be extensive, incorporating discussions and social media aimed at activating the conservative voter base in Puerto Rico.
“We will remain transparent, ready to address inquiries and dispel uncertainties about what the conservative movement entails on the island,” Ocasio remarked. “How we think and how we aspire to thrive within our nation.”
“The Republican Party advocates for halting illegal immigration, ensuring integrity in all elections—allowing only U.S. citizens to vote as per the Constitution—and for defending the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, chiefly the right to free expression under the First Amendment and the right to bear arms in the Second Amendment,” Ocasio stated. “Additionally, it champions the principles of the free market.”
The GOP also stands by the right to private property.
“We are campaigning for the removal of taxes on tips, overtime earnings, and Social Security income, which aligns with our candidate Donald Trump’s platform,” Ocasio noted.
“We aspire for the resurgence of manufacturing industries to foster job creation, the enhancement of our energy sector to reduce dependence on countries like Venezuela, seeking for ‘every citizen to enjoy maximum freedom,’” he added.
Ocasio argued that conservatives “pursue the reduction of federal governmental authority in favor of states’ rights, paralleling the recent Supreme Court of the United States ruling that empowered the populace to decide on critical issues such as the right to life.”
“We uphold the values of family cohesion, ensuring every child receives an education free from ‘woke’ culture, gender ideology, and groups that aim to instill hatred towards democracy and freedom,” he elaborated.
The GOP adviser contended that, contrary to some beliefs, “this vote is not merely symbolic; it holds substantial significance if the Republican Party prevails, as it would represent a crucial advancement towards statehood, shattering the final barrier of the claim that we would become a Democratic state.”
“We advocate for the statehood vote to revert to its rightful place within the Republican Party, as it has been proven that Puerto Rico will not achieve statehood under the Democratic Party,” Ocasio asserted. “This perspective is informed by the fact that during the last electoral cycle, the [ticket of] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris promised statehood to Puerto Ricans, yet even with their control of the House and Senate for the initial two years of their term, they chose to sideline and betray that promise.”
