Gov. Wanda Vázquez asks Puerto Rican diaspora to vote for President Trump

Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez endorsed President Donald Trump in a televised interview on Monday and rallied Puerto Ricans in the diaspora to vote for him in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

“I ask all Puerto Ricans that are listening to go vote. They have to go vote, exercise their right to vote, and evaluate who has Puerto Ricans and their needs in the hardest moment...It’s Donald Trump,” said Vázquez in an interview with the local Telemundo station.

Regarding Trump’s throwing of paper towels at a crowd of Puerto Rican residents after Hurricane Maria in 2017, Vázquez, a pro-statehood Republican, said that people should move forward because “no one is perfect.”

Vázquez, who lost the island’s local pro-statehood primary in mid-August, was sworn in as governor after former governor Ricardo Rosselló was forced to resign in the summer of 2019, following weeks of historic protests calling for him to step down.

Vázquez was supposed to travel to Central Florida and participate in a Trump campaign rally in Sanford last Friday. However, Trump’s rally was canceled after he tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Vázquez said that besides campaigning, she had also planned to meet with the president to discuss “subjects about Puerto Rico.”

“Biden thinks so little of Boricuas that he believes that by playing ‘Despacito’ we will forget how his horrible policies hurt Puerto Ricans,” said Juan Carlos Benitez, a Latinos for Trump board member who is Puerto Rican, of Vázquez’s endorsement. “But Hispanics have not forgotten how Biden presided over the most ‘despacito’ economic growth since the Great Depression.”

Central Florida, where Sanford is located, is a hub of the state’s Puerto Rican community. According to Census data from the American Community Survey, there are about 385,000 Puerto Ricans in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, and Lake counties.

In recent months, both the Trump and Biden campaigns have been battling for the Puerto Rican vote in Florida. Polling data from Equis Research, a Democratic Latino research firm, shows that “nearly two-thirds of Puerto Rican registered voters in Florida disapprove of Donald Trump,” and that 63% intended to vote for Biden.

In mid-September, Biden unveiled a recovery plan for Puerto Rico to handle its natural disasters and multibillion-dollar debt ahead of campaigning in Kissimmee. During the visit, he said he “personally believes statehood” was the way to go for the territory of the United States.

The Democratic National Committee released a statement about the endorsement.

“Governor Vázquez Garced continues to fail to put Puerto Ricans first, from her track record after earthquakes shook Puerto Rico earlier this year, to the 29 instances of femicide we have seen in Puerto Rico this year,” said Angelo Fernández, Democratic National Committee spokesperson, who is Puerto Rican. “Nobody is perfect,’ said Governor Vázquez Garced of Donald Trump, a truly ringing endorsement for a candidate who has treated Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens.”

On Sept. 18, the Trump administration announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had approved $13 billion to rebuild the island’s vulnerable power grid and education system.

The Trump campaign has also been pushing Spanish-language ads in Florida that tout the president’s pledge to revitalize the pharmaceutical industry on the island. In recent ads, his campaign has also recently sought to brush over his controversial record after Hurricane Maria, instead attacking Biden over his vote to repeal Section 936, a tax exemption that gave broad incentives to pharmaceutical companies to operate on the island.

Vázquez has consistently supported Trump during the course of his administration and said she was “grateful for the constant collaboration with FEMA to keep Puerto Rico as a priority” regarding the funds announced on Sept. 18. According to the local outlet el Nuevo Día, Vázquez said in February that “if she fought with him [Trump], we [Puerto Rico] wouldn’t get anything.”

Some of the island’s top-ranking, pro-statehood officials are Trump supporters, such as Vázquez and Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez. Trump said in a Fox News interview recently that “a lot of Puerto Ricans don’t want statehood,” and that they are “doing better the way it is now.”

This is a developing story.