Puerto Rico Could Be About to Elect Its First Pro-Independence Governor
Something unprecedented is happening in Puerto Rico which, like the U.S., will hold its general election on November 5th. For the first time ever, the island could elect a governor who favors Puerto Rico’s independence from the United States. That could herald the beginning of the end for a 125-year-old colonial relationship.
Historically, Puerto Rico’s electoral politics have been defined by its parties and leaders’ views on the island’s political status. The pro-statehood (PNP) and pro-status quo (PPD) parties have alternated power since 1948 — when the U.S., already 50 years into its rule of Puerto Rico, finally allowed Puerto Ricans to choose their own governor. The Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) had always run a distant third, garnering single-digit support.
But times have changed in the last decade, as Puerto Rico has been battered by both natural disasters and man-made crises. Hurricane María killed thousands, and the U.S. government’s failures went far beyond Trump throwing paper towels. A historic debt crisis led to a U.S.-imposed financial board that has forced crippling austerity on Puerto Ricans. Massive protests ousted a pro-statehood governor for moral turpitude and corruption.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court reminded Puerto Ricans that they have no political sovereignty, refused to reconsider the legal framework that undergirds the colonial status, and even denied disability benefits to some of the most vulnerable island residents. Congress, for its part, has continued to dash many Puerto Ricans’ hope for statehood despite three local votes since 2012 in which that option won majorities — albeit contested ones.
As everyday life has worsened on the island, and it’s become increasingly clear that the United States isn’t coming to the rescue, Puerto Ricans have started considering new political alternatives and reconsidering their perspective on the status question.
In the 2020 election, a new center-left party (MVC) won 14% of the governorship vote. The progressive Independence Party won another 14% in a five-way race that the pro-statehood PNP governor won with just 33%.
The PIP and MVC have now joined forces, with leaders from both parties running on essentially the same ticket led by the PIP’s Juan Dalmau. A dynamic figure with a Harvard degree who cut his teeth engaging in civil disobedience to force the U.S. Navy out of Vieques — and spent weeks in jail for his trouble — Dalmau achieved that historic result as his party’s 2020 nominee. Now, with a broader coalition at his back, he is mounting a formidable challenge for the governor’s seat.
The most recent major poll of the Puerto Rican election shows Dalmau in second place in a four-way race: with 25% of the vote to pro-statehood (and pro-Trump) Jenniffer González’s 37%. That may seem like a wide margin, but the poll has been known to overestimate support for the pro-statehood and pro-status quo parties, and in 2020 underestimated support for Dalmau by 8 percentage points.
There’s also increasing recognition in U.S. politics that a pro-independence candidate like Dalmau and his electoral alliance represent a force for progressive change in Puerto Rico that deserves support. Recently Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the two most influential representatives of Puerto Rican descent in the U.S. Congress, endorsed Dalmau and the alliance.
Whether he wins this election or not, for a pro-independence gubernatorial candidate to have a legitimate chance at victory was unthinkable as recently as a few years ago. This seismic shift speaks to broad discontent among the Puerto Rican electorate, but also to the rapidly growing support for Puerto Rican sovereignty.
In that same poll, 25% of Puerto Ricans said they favor sovereignty in free association with the United States, and another 19% back full independence. That combined 44% puts sovereign status options in a tie with statehood, which also garnered 44% support in the poll. Notably, among the youngest Puerto Ricans (ages 18–34), support for sovereignty and for Dalmau is significantly higher.
Of course, Dalmau’s election would not automatically lead to independence for Puerto Rico. After all, there have been seven pro-statehood Puerto Rican governors in the past 55 years, and they have brought the island no closer to becoming the 51st star on the U.S. flag. But Dalmau, the PIP, and the MVC have committed to pursuing an inclusive decolonization process that might achieve what previous pro-statehood plebiscites have not: compel the U.S. government to reckon with, and ultimately end, its colonial rule of Puerto Rico.
That’s a responsibility that the United States has skirted for far too long, often arguing that Puerto Ricans have been too divided on the issue for Congress to act. Those divisions remain, but they are not the cause so much as the consequence of American silence and inaction. For more than a century, the U.S. government has dangled the possibility of statehood but invariably denied it, refused to explore a potential transition to independence — when it wasn’t violently suppressing the independence movement — and instead perpetuated an undemocratic political condition in Puerto Rico.
For that to change, the United States must be challenged and shaken out of its colonial apathy. The dwindling pro-status quo leaders in Puerto Rico, increasingly irrelevant precisely because they cling to their support for colonialism, will not do it. Pro-statehood governors and resident commissioners have had decades to try; they have instead chosen to plead for statehood and retreat when they’re invariably refused, only to rinse and repeat the process a few years later.
But a pro-independence governor like Dalmau would bring much-needed clarity and courage to this issue. The former is necessary for both Americans and Puerto Ricans to seriously grapple with the political realities in the United States that maintain the status quo. The latter will allow him to do what no Puerto Rican elected leader ever has: stand in front of the President and Congress and not merely ask for the end of U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico — but demand it.
That’s a message the United States has not yet heard from a Puerto Rican leader. It could be the first step to dismantling a colonial relationship that has endured for far too long.
