Competing US factions seek to sway arrivals from Puerto Rico

MIAMI (AP) — Political operatives, pollsters and politicians in at least four states are working hard to find Puerto Ricans who are eligible to vote and whose loyalty may be up for grabs in this year's elections.

The efforts are particularly aggressive in Florida, where tens of thousands of people from the island relocated after Hurricane Maria, but political activists are also busy in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The attention is new for Puerto Ricans, who are accustomed to not having much political clout. While they are U.S. citizens, they cannot vote in the presidential election while on the U.S. territory.

But their votes have the same weight as other Americans when they move to the mainland, as hundreds of thousands have done over the past decade.