Question for an expert: Is Puerto Rico set up to be winner-take-all?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I have heard this more than once recently. I know all the Dem primaries are proportional, but it seems the PR caucus is exceptional in some way.

A winner take all contest that Hillary is certain to win, with as many delegates as Wisconsin (59, I think), coming as the very last contest seems like a real bomb in the process.


Any details?

[angie_love]

1. I wouldn't count on PR going to Hillary if I were you.

Latinos in PR are different than in CA, I know this, some of my family is from there. BTW, PR went to Jesse Jackson in the 80's so its not that they won't vote for a black candidate b/c they will and they do.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Not a race thing. She has the whole political class there.

[mohc]

3. Proportional

Link

Districts based on their Senate districts as they have no house members.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Thanks. I found an explanation... it is proportional on paper, but rigged to be winner take all

Puerto Rican Poll Power
February 06, 2008 01:41 PM ET | Michael Barone | Permanent Link


The following thought occurred to me while preparing for my stint on Fox News on Super Tuesday evening. The Democratic nomination may be determined by the delegation from Puerto Rico.

The delegates will be chosen, technically at least, in a caucus in early June. Puerto Rico has 63 delegates to the Democratic convention, more than similarly sized South Carolina (54), Oklahoma (45), or Connecticut (60). The Democrats, in line with their traditions of welcoming and celebrating minorities, have long given Puerto Rico about as many delegates as it would get if it were a state, while the Republicans long gave it only a few delegates and today give it somewhat fewer delegates proportionately.

But one group of 63 delegates is more equal than another. Democratic delegates are supposed to be allocated by proportional representation. But that notion is alien to highly competitive Puerto Rican politics. In practice, the dominant figure in Puerto Rico identifying with the Democratic Party has seen to it that his faction gets all the territory’s delegates. This was true of Govs. Carlos Romero Barcelo and Pedro Rosello of the New Progressive Party (PNP) as well as Gov. Rafael Hernandez Colon of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). PPD politicians almost always identify with mainland Democrats (an exception was Sila Calderón, governor from 2000 to 2004, who identified with neither party and concentrated, successfully, on persuading Congress and the Bush administration to close the artillery range on Vieques Island). It’s not clear to me at this distance whether the current governor, Aníbal Acevedo of the PPD, will have similar clout. He’s at odds with Rosello, and the legislature is in the hands of the PNP. But if Acevedo doesn’t determine who gets Puerto Rico’s 63 votes, someone else will. And they aren’t likely to be proportionately distributed.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/2/6/puerto-rican-poll-power.html

[Colobo]

5. It's basically winner take all, and Hillary will win there.

She's got the support of the main figures of the Dem party over there.

[mohc]

6. So they do it

by controlling participation in the caucus? Democracy....Fantastic!