All Eyes Turn To Puerto Rico

by Todd Beeton [courtesy of MyDD]

The next primary contest is in Puerto Rico on June 1 and both candidates have taken their campaigns to the Carribean island territory this weekend.

During a one-day stop on the largely Spanish-speaking island, front-runner Barack Obama talked about veterans issues and his Republican rival Sen. John McCain before going on a parade-style walk through San Juan. [...]

She has one rally on Saturday and events on Sunday in the territory which is enjoying its moment in the political sun because of this year's prolonged Democratic primary season.

There are 55 pledged delegates + 8 superdelegates at stake in Puerto Rico. So far, according to DemConWatch, 4 supers have declared for Clinton and 2 for Obama. While, I agree with kos that the delegate tally does look absurdly hefty for a territory without general election voting rights, it should be remembered that PR was awarded 4 bonus pledged delegates for keeping its primary so late in the schedule.  

The most recent poll I could find, which was from April 10, showed Hillary Clinton leading 50%-37% with 13% undecided (h/t Talk Left.) Certainly Hillary is favored there, as would be expected, but if this is a baseline poll, then we're likely to see that margin close, especially since Barack is actually competing there, although one suspects Hillary will spend more time than he will in the territory.

But will it be enough for Hillary to gain enough in the popular vote to bolster her popular vote argument? A huge gain in Puerto Rico can probably put her over the top in the most inclusive of popular vote tallies, but lately there have been signs that she may not be able to count on as much of a net vote total out of PR as previously thought.

...Manuel Alvarez-Rivera, a Puerto Rican election expert who scoffed at the widely accepted estimate here on the mainland of a turnout of 1,000,000 voters in Puerto Rico's June 1 primary. [...]

...the one million figure is based on the astronomical turnout that marks some Puerto Rican elections that deal with the fraught issue of that island's status, and as Alvarez-Rivera told me, that sort of intensity probably won't spill over to a presidential primary. He suggested the real number would be around 600,000.

Add to this that...

Puerto Rico's Democratic Party has asked the Commonwealth Elections Commission to cut the number of polling places by 1,000, apparently due to a failure to find poll workers.

Hmm. The culprit, according to Alvarez-Rivera: the widely held belief that the nomination is all but secured and thus is merely a very expensive "irrelevancy." Perhaps visits by the candidates will reduce the level of apathy among the electorate there. Personally, I hope there's some real excitement regarding the vote n PR. I'll be in San Juan on the 31st & 1st to cover the primary in advance of the SEIU convention there, so here's hoping there's plenty to see.