By Carmen Sesin - NBC News
Before the early voting phase started in Florida last Monday, the Biden and Trump campaigns
intensified their efforts to mobilize Puerto Rican voters
who reside outside the island, in the United States.
And they even targeted those who do live on the island, hoping they will encourage their family members to vote.
This is an electoral tactic that had not been given much prominence in previous elections.
But when Florida's 29 electoral votes are at stake, both campaigns are focusing on Puerto Ricans, of whom 1.2 million live in that state.
In total, there are about 5.6 million people of Puerto Rican origin who live outside the island in the United States.
[Follow our full electoral coverage]
Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, was in Orlando, Florida, a city with a strong Puerto Rican presence on Monday.
From there, he attacked the president, Donald Trump, for knowing "inside information" that the coronavirus would be much more deadly than influenza and for not spreading it publicly.
Harris, who said that the vote will also be on key issues such as
health, climate change and criminal justice
, also gave an interview to one of the main media in Puerto Rico, WAPA TV.
Just over a week earlier, Vice President Mike Pence held an event of the Latinos For Trump organization in Orlando.
[For Latinos, health is a priority thanks to the Trump administration's attempts to eliminate Obamacare]
Biden's campaign has launched digital and print ads in Puerto Rico, as well as in Florida and Pennsylvania - another state considered key to the final result of the elections - with the
slogan "HazloXMi
.
"
The Democratic campaign urges Puerto Ricans to push family and friends who live outside the island, in the United States, to vote.
"With your vote there you help us here" is another of the messages broadcast.
Puerto Ricans living on the island, which is an unincorporated territory of the United States, can vote to elect the governor but not the president of the nation.
While
Puerto Ricans who live in one of the 50 states of the country can vote in the presidential elections
.
Natascha Otero, who leads the Boricuas organization with Biden (Boricua is another way of referring to Puerto Ricans), affirms that this strategy is effective.
"Florida is the state with the highest percentage of Puerto Ricans born on the island," he says.
"When a person is born on the island, they have most of their contacts on the island, among family, friends and neighbors," he adds.
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Puerto Rico's main newspaper, El Nuevo Día, announced last weekend its support for Biden.
It is the first time in its 50-year history
that the newspaper officially supports a US presidential candidate.
The editorial reads: "The votes of our extended homeland in favor of the Biden Plan for Puerto Rico will make our island and the world safer and more prosperous places for all."
Trump, for his part, has received the support of the current governor of the island, Wanda Vázquez.
In an interview with Telemundo Puerto Rico, Vázquez expressed his support for the president by saying: “I ask all Puerto Ricans who are listening to me that they have to go and vote (…) And evaluate who has represented being a person who thinks about Puerto Ricans and his needs in the most difficult moment: he
is Donald Trump
”.
[Trump thought about swapping Puerto Rico, a "dirty" and "poor" country, for Greenland, says former DHS official]
The president's campaign has run television and radio ads criticizing Biden and promoting the billions of dollars that the Trump Administration has pledged to help Puerto Rico.
Trump has come under fire for his slow response to the devastation caused in 2017 by Hurricane Maria, which caused an estimated $ 100 billion in damage and nearly 3,000 deaths.
The president recently announced $ 13 billion in aid for the island, which
is the amount approved by Congress in 2018
.
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Sept.
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Abe López, a Puerto Rican volunteer who is part of Latinos for Trump, and a member of the national committee of the Republican Hispanic National Assembly, said that people who live in Puerto Rico are telling family and friends that they are in other parts of the United States "Don't make the mistake of voting for Biden - Trump can't win the Puerto Rican vote, but he's going to make a dent," he said.
[Puerto Rico suspends primary elections in some parts of the island due to lack of ballots]
Trump won in Florida in 2016 by less than 113.00 votes
and now he needs to get a victory again in this state to have a chance of being reelected.
While polls reflect how older white voters have turned their backs on Biden, his campaign has focused on Latinos.
Although Puerto Ricans tend to register to vote without indicating their political affiliation, Democrats have registered more Hispanic voters this year than in 2016. This increase is evident in areas with a high presence of Puerto Rican population such as Orange County.
With information from El Nuevo Día, Telemundo Puerto Rico.
Translation for Noticias Telemundo by Francesco Rodella.