The Puerto Rico Democratic primary (well it WAS a primary, now more of a caucus) will be held on Sunday, June 5.
A few weeks ago, I would have confidently predicted a huge Clinton victory for a number of reasons. One of the most important of these was that Puerto Rico was holding its local primaries on the same day, insuring massive turnout.
This advantage was even more pronounced in that only the Statehood Party (Partido Nuevo Progresista or PNP) was holding a competitive gubernatorial primary. Why would this advantage Clinton? Because the vast majority of Sanders support is likely to come from non-Statehooders. Thus a high turnout in the Statehooder primary would necessarily be a big advantage to Clinton.
Yet, in what appears to be a result a parochial infighting among Clinton supporters, this advantage appears to have been thrown away.
Instead of insuring the maximization of this advantage for Clinton. the local Democratic Party has instead agreed to cut the polling places by two thirds and require voters to find 2 different polling places in order to vote in the Dem primary! Ignorantly, Think Progress spins this as anti-Sanders:
Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are up in arms about the polling place reductions, calling it a “fix” and drawing parallels to Arizona’s disastrous primary. Arizona’s most populous county closed two-thirds of its polling locations ahead of its April primary, forcing some voters to wait in line more than six hours to cast a ballot.
This has it exactly backwards — the reduction in polling places is a HUGE boon to Sanders’ chances. This is because the bulk of the electorate that day will likely be Statehooders who will have much higher levels of support for Clinton than Commonwealth and Independence Party supporters. Making it much harder for these folks to vote is a disastrous development for Clinton, not a help to her. This is great news for Sanders.
As Think Progress notes, in 2008, in “the island’s last competitive Democratic primary, there were more than 2,300 polling places.”
So why did the Puerto Rico Democratic Party do this? Think Progress states:
The island's debt crisis has also gotten so bad that the government can barely carry out its basic functions, like keeping schools and hospitals open. The primary elections cost $15 million to administer in 2012. This year, the island's election commission received only $7.2 million.
Yet the Democratic Party did not cite any of these reasons when it announced the poll closures. Rather, the head of the island's Democratic Party, Clinton supporter Roberto Prats, defended the move by arguing there would still be four times as many polling places than were open during the Republican primary back in March. But the island's population leans sharply Democratic, so far more people will be voting Sunday than in March's Republican contest.
So what’s the reason? I can speculate — (1) The Puerto Rico Democratic Party is led by mostly Commonwealth Party members whose party is going through very tough times right now. They may want to depress Statehooder Democratic turnout to keep control of the Puerto Rico Democratic Party; (2) they may be settling personal petty scores; and (3) maybe money was an issue.
In any event, this is a truly bad development for Clinton in Puerto Rico. What should have been a huge win, may just be a squeaker, or even a loss.
Bad job by the Clinton team here imo.
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