Joe Biden is bulking up his policy commitments to Puerto Rican voters in Florida, as he tries to build support among Latinos in one of the most competitive states in the presidential race.
In a plan released before his Tuesday visit to Kissimmee, Biden detailed a recovery plan for Puerto Rico, which has struggled to rebuild after a major economic crisis, hurricanes Irma and Maria, and widespread earthquakes earlier this year. The majority of Hurricane Maria evacuees who left the island have settled in Central Florida.
Biden’s plan, and comments he made in Kissimmee, went further than he’d gone to that point: He laid out a proposal to end federally imposed austerity measures in Puerto Rico and forgive some of the island’s debt, and he said he personally supports statehood for the island, though he prefers to leave the question up to Puerto Ricans.
Biden’s visit to Florida came as polls find him ahead of Trump among Latinos in the state, but trailing Hillary Clinton at the same stage of the 2016 election. Trump ultimately won the state by a margin of just 1.2% in 2016. Florida is home to nearly one million people of Puerto Rican descent, including hundreds of thousands who moved to the state after Hurricane Maria tore through the island. According to a 2018 paper from the Pew Research Center, the state has seen a 6.2% increase in Latino voter registrations since 2016, bringing the total to 2.1 million. Puerto Ricans accounted for around 31% of potential Latino voters in the state, whether or not they’re registered — the same as the number of potential Cuban voters, according to the researchers.
Biden was joined Tuesday by Puerto Rican musical icons Luis Fonsi and Ricky Martin, along with actor Eva Longoria, a founder of the Latino political advocacy group Latino Victory.
“Donald Trump doesn’t seem to grasp that the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens already and they deserve to have leadership in government that understands that in America there is no room for the idea of second-class citizens,” Biden said at the Hispanic Heritage Month event at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee.
The former vice president may have an edge among Puerto Rican voters in Florida partly because of Trump’s flippant response to various crises in Puerto Rico, including the number of people who died as a result of Hurricane Maria and the inadequate federal response. An August poll by Democratic pollster EquisLabs found that among 1,081 Latinos polled in Florida, 61% of those who identified as Puerto Ricans preferred Biden, compared to 28% who back Trump.
Both parties attempted to attract new Puerto Rican voters in Florida during the 2018 midterms — Latino turnout overall in the state did increase between the 2014 and 2018 midterms and between the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. But, the Orlando Sentinel reported, early voter data in 2018 suggested that evacuees turned out in lower numbers than other Latino voters, perhaps in part because they had immediate concerns, especially finding secure housing, to consider in the aftermath of the hurricanes. Keep Reading>>
