What happened in the 2024 Puerto Rican election?

The historic election finally happened. Although we are still waiting for the final numbers, nevertheless, the important trends are already visible. The Puerto Rican left has demonstrated incredible growth, and this election creates a path away from the PNP/PPD bipartisanship that has dominated the electoral process for so long. The Alianza didn't win the governorship, and it actually lost ground in key positions.

But before we dive into that, let us re-establish the context and key players for this election. Puerto Rico has historically been dominated by The Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), recently allied with the Republican Party and advocating US Statehood, and the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), allied with the establishment branch of the Democratic Party and advocating continued colonial status. The exciting new development has been the leftwing Alianza, which is the name for an alliance between the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (MVC) and the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP), both of which advocate for Puerto Rican decolonization and against the current austerity program and was discussed in a previous PoliEd article. Finally, there is the Proyecto Dignidad (PD) which is a recent far-right formation that does not advocate for any particular status regarding Puerto Rican status. The PNP is the incumbent party in the governor’s race.

What happened, and how have things changed? Copied!

In summary, the PNP won the gubernatorial race with 39.44% of the vote and the majority of both chambers in the legislature. Additionally, the PNP defeated Alianza in San Juan's mayoral race, with 46% and 41.2% respectively. In an interesting twist, the Congressional seat was won by the PPD. The PD national candidates grew less than expected. The big news was that around 32.66% of votes were for the Alianza gubernatorial candidate Juan Dalmau, having the amazing achievement of outright winning in the capital city and at least 13 other municipalities. While Alianza was not able to win the governor's race, arriving in second place within an electoral system dominated by the PNP and PPD proves that the Puerto Rican Left has made monumental progress and that the electoral field of struggle is worth engaging. The other surprising fact is that the independence option got 293,224 votes on the non-binding referendum, which held a historic second place with at least 30%.

One of the primary takeaways from this election is the fact that the PPD candidate finished in third place for the first time since it was founded in 1938. This is the party that banned the use of the Puerto Rican flag during the height of the nationalist movement. This is the party that negotiated the terms of the current colonial relationship with the US. The decline of the PPD is the decline of the legitimacy of US colonialism among Puerto Ricans and that on its own should fill us with joy. Even now, with Republican victories in the US and PNP victories in Puerto Rico, this demonstrates that there is still hope for the Left.

This election maintained two trends: first, the number of registered voters kept decreasing, this time less than 2 million, lower than any other election since 1992. This reduction has been faster than the population decline, which means we are seeing people abandoning electoral participation altogether. Second, is a decline in the votes for the entire party slate, further proving both PNP and PPD are dealing with a political crisis.

Like in the US with Trump, in Puerto Rico, the PNP won the most important race of the event, controlling the legislature and the governor seat. We should expect a government that won't confront the Supervision Board (soon to be controlled by Trump appointees) and will cooperate with the next steps of the austerity program while paying an unpayable debt to Wall Street. We should expect the incoming government to deepen corruption and defend the interests of US colonial capital. At the same time, these very conditions will continue to fuel the social movements that supported the Alianza in the first place. Even if the PNP won, it demonstrated how big the political shift has been these past years and the political potential for the future.

Electoral Results by Party Copied!

Partido Nuevo Progresista - PNP

The Partido Nuevo Progresista has just been crowned the single biggest political organization in the country. The belief that Puerto Rico should become a state, supposedly the PNP's political goal, has won the last 3 non-binding referendums. We should have no doubts that the PNP has been growing, and it will only be defeated with a united opposition. Even though they won, the way they ran their campaign and the results demonstrate that its influence is declining, just like the PPD. In this campaign, the PNP became the voice of the local elite. Several big companies donated big money for a campaign based on the fear of communism and independence, which unmasked the class struggle behind the electoral process. As always, the class consciousness of the elites is far more developed than that of the working class. The local elites identified Alianza as a menace to their class power and responded as such.

The PNP used every Republican trick possible to minimize the effect of the Alianza. They banned formal party alliances (before this, a single candidate could run under several parties for one position). They kicked MVC candidates for Senators and Representatives off the ballot at a national level. There are even allegations of youth voter suppression in San Juan, though people are still gathering evidence.

Jennifer Gonzalez won the governorship with at least 447,962 or around 40%. This number can be read in several ways. First, there were 20,000 more votes than the last PNP candidate who won in 2020. The PNP claims this proves that the negative trend in votes for the PNP has stopped. But we must also consider: She got 60,000 fewer votes than in the last election when she ran for Congress, the amount of party slate votes was reduced by 30,000 since 2020 and by 247,000 votes since 2016 statehood had at least 100,000 more votes than her

In the end, the extra support most likely came not from her fans but from PD and PPD voters who got scared by the anti-communist propaganda. That would explain why the PPD won 45 Municipal races, but the PNP won the gubernatorial race in most of those towns. The PNP will enter the next election cycle drunk with power, but they will also confront two new realities. First is the rise in support for the far-right PD in rural areas of the country's northwest. Second, they lost in the capital and some surrounding cities. They are being challenged from the left and right.

In the capital city of San Juan, we can see some of the PNP’s strengths and weaknesses. There, the PNP’s mayoral candidate received 12,000 more votes than their gubernatorial candidate. Those 12,000 voters felt they could punish the incumbent PNP at the gubernatorial level, but not at the city level. Some even voted for Juan Dalmau which is supposed to be the ideological opposite. Regaining these people will be a main goal for the PNP.

Either way, the PNP won. With less than 40% of the votes, they will have the governor's office and over 66% of both chambers. But its growth is an illusion, its base is shrinking, statehood won't come under a Trump administration, and the wealth extraction by The Financial Oversight and Management Board (i.e. “the Junta”) will continue to affect the economy, thus fueling the resistance. Their victory depended on mixed votes that came from PPD, PD, and independents. The fact that they lost most of the mayoral races and the congressional seat is evidence of this.

Partido Popular Democratico - PPD

Probably the biggest loser of the night was the Partido Popular Democratico, which not only got third place in the gubernatorial race but, for the second time, third place in the San Juan mayoral race, which the PPD won in 2012 and 2016. For the last 20 years, the PPD claimed to be the united opposition of the PNP, but its base was decreasing; they only won in 2004 and 2012 with the support of leftist groups that weren't collaborating with PIP. Those groups are now collaborating with the Alianza and they took with them a third of the PPD support.

Even though the PPD is hurt, it is not necessarily a mortal wound. Their biggest life-saver is that they won the congressional seat with just under half a million votes, the single candidate with the most votes in the event. Hernandez (the PPD candidate who is also the grandson of the ex-governor Rafael Hernandez Colon) declared himself a Democrat and allied himself with the most conservative wing of that party. With a republican majority, his work in Congress will be limited (he can participate in some committee meetings but he doesn't have the right to vote on the floor), giving him the time and funding to reorganize the PDD for the next election. A PPD party with a young leadership could gain back some of the lost space, especially since they won 45 out of 78 mayoral races, 18 seats in the House, and 7 seats in the Senate which is significantly higher than the Alianza.

In any case, the forces that work against PPD won't disappear soon. The PPD achieved its political dominance in the 20th century based on a message of fear. The fear that independence will inevitably come with an economic collapse and the fear that statehood will inevitably kill our culture and identity as a nation. Using these fears, the PPD argued for years that the current political status was the best of both worlds and that we were not a colony because we could elect our government officials. The last 20 years have demonstrated that the current status is not a guarantee of economic prosperity, and the existence of the Junta demonstrates the absolute power that the US government has over the Puerto Rican elected officials. Even worse, the decisions of the junta has demonstrated that they are not interested in fixing the Puerto Rican economy and stopping corruption but in defending the economic interest of American capital. The PPD’s destiny is tied to the current status of Puerto Rico and its legitimacy has been fracturing. As the current reality hits hard in the minds of PPD voters some are giving in to the fear of independence and have supported, at least temporarily, the PD and PNP while others have been radicalized by the austerity measures. In any case, they are losing from both sides of the political spectrum.

Proyecto Dignidad - PD

Proyecto Dignidad had the worst night in terms of what was expected. Instead of increasing thirty or forty thousand votes, they lost approximately 10,000 votes in the gubernatorial race. In other words, they didn't win or lose. Just as before, they will have 1 senator and 1 member of the House. However, these results masked their actual growth. This time, they had around 20,000 fewer votes for the party slate. Unlike with the PDD and PNP, these should not be interpreted as shrinking of their base, those 20,000 people most likely went to Gonzalez and the PNP just for governor but not other races. They didn't win any other race but had significant increases that shouldn't go unnoticed. Jimenez, the gubernatorial candidate, is the current mayor of San Sebastian town, where he got second place, defeating the alliance by 1400 votes or 8%. In addition, there are 4 house districts just north of San Sebastian where the PD candidate got third place, beating the Alianza candidate. Last time, PD didn't even have candidates for the house in 2 of those districts. The growth of an independent Christian nationalist party, even if small, should be taken seriously. They will function as agitators of the most conservative wing of the PNP and PPD to move against abortion rights and the LGBTQ+ community. Since the PNP aspires to gain back some of these conservative voters, we should expect unity among them.

Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana + Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño - Alianza

The Alianza managed to win even after losing. It can be said without any doubt that the sentiment of anti-bipartisanism is the fastest-growing political movement in the country. The fact that their gubernatorial candidate, Juan Dalmau, landed in second place, and won in 14 or 15 towns is historic and must be acknowledged and celebrated. Dalmau got 370,904 votes, 17,000 more votes than the split total of the leftwing PIP and MVC from 2020. The towns won by Dalmau are not limited to San Juan areas but include the west coast and some mountain towns.

But not everything was as expected. The PNP did everything it could to complicate things for the Alianza. Primarily, the PNP changed a previous law that allowed for formal party alliances in which multiple parties could nominate the same, shared candidate for a given seat. With this law removed, each party was forced to put forward its own candidate. The working solution for the Alianza was to have their members and supporters vote for the agreed Alianza candidate in a given race, even if that candidate was not formally of their party.

But in practice, this was not easily implemented, causing the benefits of the Alianza to spread unevenly for its component MVC and PIP. For example, in the San Juan mayoral race, the agreement for the Alianza was that Dalmau would run under the banner of PIP for governor and Ana Rivera Lassen as MVC for congressperson. However, the MVC candidate barely got 1,400 votes, but the PIP’s fake candidate for Congress got 56,000 votes, severely undercutting MVC's performance. Lassen ended with 107,888 votes, less than a third of what Dalmau got. In San Juan, Dalmau got 8,000 votes more than the MVC mayoral candidate.

In the House of Representatives, 3 districts were close last time. The Alianza divided them: 2 for MVC and 1 for PIP. These races are so close this time, that we need to wait for the final count to know. It looks like Eva Prados from MVC is barely winning in the third district but Adriana Gutierrez from PIP is 500 votes ahead in the fourth district. Once the mail-in vote is counted, we will know. But Adriana from PIP is in a better position to keep her lead. These are the races where the young voters that the PNP disenfranchise may make a difference.

The PIP started with one senator and one house representative. Both were reelected with an increase of 30,000 votes. And if Adriana keeps her lead, they will increase the legislative power by one house member. On the contrary, MVC started with 2 senators and 2 house members and right now it only has Eva’s seat in the house and she may very well lose it. The 2 candidates MVC promoted via direct nomination failed to gain enough votes to enter. PIP looks like it achieved more growth than MVC during this experiment and no doubt this difference will define the framework for any Alianza renegotiation in 2028.

Redirecting our analysis to the bigger picture, this increase in support does not belong exclusively to either party: it is the unintended consequence of decades of resistance, strikes, and fights against the riot-specialized, police-driven state. Above all, it is the aftermath of the Ricky Renuncia movement. As such it recognized in Dalmau a temporary leadership, but we should not confuse these results as assuming that PIP has the upper hand in the alliance. We will have to observe how many recruits PIP maintains for the next election cycle. The MVC has a more complicated situation, since their official gubernatorial candidate had so few votes they are no longer recognized as an official party. MVC is an alliance in itself, each partner must negotiate its position within MVC before it starts talks with PIP again. Will they try to get the party recognized through endorsements and then renegotiate with PIP? Will they merge with PIP? Will PIP and MVC register a new party? All of these questions will be discussed in the next few months.

Conclusion Copied!

What can the American Left take from this? First, is to recognize the Puerto Rican Left as an ally that is currently growing. The Puerto Rican Left needs allies in Congress elected by the American Left so they can be greeted with open doors when going to DC to demand the end of colonialism. Second, the current austerity program came as a response to the public debt, a problem shared by states like New York and Illinois. The American left could benefit from understanding the Puerto Rican experience to avoid such an austerity program as a response to their state debt. Third, the Puerto Rican Left could learn a lot from the experience of the American Left regarding electoral challenges and strategies. The American Left could compare the decline of the Democratic Party in the US with the decline of PPD in Puerto Rico. Finally, both the US and Puerto Rico are entering dark times with the worst kind of people in power. In both countries, those of us who believe that class struggles go beyond electoral politics are now responsible for organizing and resisting as much as possible until the next election cycle. Hopefully, the current rise of the Left's support in Puerto Rico will be contagious. Meanwhile, see you in the streets.