political parties

On November 5, 1996, I counted the number of cars supporting each of the three political parties competing in that election: the New Progressive Party (PNP), the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), and the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP). I was 10 years old, sitting on my grandparents' balcony along PR-172, a road that runs from Caguas to Cidra.

Cars waving the PNP’s blue palm trees flags dominated my informal survey, followed by those with the PPD’s red “pava” (straw hats) flags. A few cars with green flags bearing the PIP's white cross trailed far behind.

Those waving any of these flags likely cast their votes with a single cross under their party's emblem - what's known as 'straight-ticket voting,' where voters choose all candidates from the same party with one mark rather than selecting individual candidates crossing party lines.

Today, nearly 30 years later, measuring each party's “corazón del rollo” (die-hard supporters) is challenging, if not impossible. Electoral experts and analysts from all sides agree there's no precise way to gauge it. They suggest different methodologies, from analyzing primary participation or cross-referencing straight-ticket votes across the three ballots (national, legislative, and municipal), measuring votes for each party's gubernatorial candidate, or identifying municipalities where the same party consistently wins.

They also agree that the concept of die-hard supporters has been eroding as straight-party voting, or "rajar la papeleta," has declined. For instance, in the 2012 elections, the PNP received 870,324 straight-ticket votes, or 47% of the total votes, according to the State Elections Commission. By 2020, that number had dropped to 368,573, or 29% of the total.

The PPD’s decline is even steeper: from 866,232 straight-ticket votes in 2012, or 46% of all votes, to 323,733, or 25%, in 2020.

To explore where each party's most loyal supporters are concentrated, I visited areas with the highest proportion of straight-ticket votes on each party’s gubernatorial ballot — and where cars with flags are still seen.

The “Alianza” Makes Headway in a North-South Corridor

At three in the afternoon, Roberto Velázquez Nieves prepares flyers and pamphlets at the PIP's municipal committee in the central mountain region town of Aguas Buenas. They feature candidates from the Alianza de País, a coalition between the PIP and the Citizen’s Victory Party (MVC) to mutually support a single candidate in some contests and compete amicably in others.

In Aguas Buenas, there will be a friendly competition for the mayor's office.

"Our mayoral candidate is Omar Falcón Velázquez, a teacher at the Sumidero Second Unit School for 24 years. A teacher by vocation. [...] He comes from a family of teachers. I know because I'm his uncle and I was a teacher too. More than twenty teachers in the family," says Roberto, 73, a PIP member since high school and a municipal assemblyman since 1992.

The PIP committee, located above a storefront in the town square, resembles a classroom. It has a large green chalkboard, terrazzo floors, and a table with folding chairs in the middle. Aguas Buenas is part of a well-organized region for the green and white flag party, which, along with nearby towns like Caguas and Cidra, ranked among the top precincts for straight-ticket PIP votes in the last election.

Roberto attributes the support to a strong representation of PIP coordinators and polling station officials. He points to a giant poster listing the schools serving as voting centers, alongside the names of the PIP officials assigned to each.

"We managed to fill the entire poster with at least two officials per polling station. In Aguas Buenas, we don't go with one; we go with two and three [PIP officials]. That's not the case in other towns," he says proudly.

He then describes a painting of a copy of "El Árbol Genealógico de la Libertad” (Liberty’s Family Tree) by Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell, depicting a tree whose leaves are the flags of each Latin American country, according to the year they gained independence.

"The first country in America to gain independence was? Let's see if the journalist knows," Roberto asks like a good teacher, looks, and then answers.

"Haití. Well, the first was the United States, but I mean from here. After Haití, it was Venezuela, and then Colombia. They keep growing and growing. And there we have Puerto Rico at the top, which will soon get there, because despite everything, we are an independence party," Roberto asserts.

However, the word independence doesn't appear once on the main page of Patria Nueva, gubernatorial candidate Juan Dalmau’s platform. As part of the Alianza (coalition) , both parties agreed to promote a status assembly, where the PIP would advocate for independence. The MVC, on the other hand, will educate about the alternatives (independence, free association with the USA, and statehood) and leave it "to the free conscience of its members to decide how they will vote."

An Alianza event held in El Poblado de Boquerón, Cabo Rojo.
Photo by Luis Valentín Ortiz | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

According to the platform, the priority of an administration led by the Alianza will be "well-being, sustainable development, and environmental protection," as well as eliminating corruption.

In Aguas Buenas, Roberto mentions as part of the future agenda, increasing the number of specialized public schools, parking spaces in the town square, and lighting in pedestrian areas, but he says the focus will be on eliminating corruption and political favoritism. In 2022, the then-PNP mayor, Javier García Pérez, and his predecessor, PDP party member Luis Arroyo Chiqués, pleaded guilty to corruption for receiving money in exchange for garbage collection and road paving contracts.

"We want to be in charge of Puerto Rico administration. And as you can see, there wasn't a single resolution asking for independence to be declared in Aguas Buenas. Right? Because I know I can't declare it. But I call myself an ‘independentista.’ And that's why we say Juan Dalmau (the Alianza’s candidate) can't declare it either, to be honest. Juan Dalmau will have a good administration, an excellent administration. And there will be people from all parties [in his government]," Roberto says, convinced that a victory in November is possible.

An Alianza event held in El Poblado de Boquerón, Cabo Rojo.
Video by Wilma Maldonado Arrigoitía | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

Precinct 81, which includes Aguas Buenas’s nine neighborhoods, was one of the places with the most straight-ticket votes for the PIP in the 2020 election, with 7.5% of the total voters in that precinct. Also topping the list were precincts 82 and 83 in Caguas, and 76 in Cidra.

In the 2020 elections, the PIP and MVC gubernatorial candidates together garnered 28% of the votes island wide. This is a figure the Alianza frequently mentions in its campaign.

Looking at a map of Puerto Rico, this combined support for the PIP and MVC stands out in a consolidated strip in the San Juan metropolitan area, extending South toward Caguas, Cidra, Cayey, and Ponce, as if following the PR-52 highway and then PR-2 to Cabo Rojo in the southwestern coast.

It smells like food cooked over firewood, Ismael Rivera's music is playing from the inside, and cars pass in front of El Cocotazo, a roadside bar on the edge of PR-174 in Aguas Buenas.

"The first alliance happened here," claims Wilfredo López Montañez, while eating fried pork meat with boiled root vegetables.

Wilfredo, a veteran community leader, wears a gray T-shirt and a black cap, both with a V and a star, the MVC insignia. He is running for the Aguas Buenas municipal legislature under the MVC in this year's elections.

He recalls that in 2020, before the Alianza de País officially existed, there was an agreement between the MVC and the PIP to campaign for the PIP candidate for mayor of Aguas Buenas, Luis Alberto Díaz Ocasio, a local businessman, staunch ‘independentista,’ and known by his business’ name, “El Cocotazo." This was after the MVC was left without a candidate on the municipal ballot.

El Cocotazo is an emblematic bar in Aguas Buenas whose owner, Luis Alberto Díaz Ocasio, was well known pro-independence local leader.
Photo by Luis Valentín Ortiz | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

"We thought of Luis because we knew about his work toward unity and working together, and we told him he could count on our votes for the PIP and his candidacy. And he agreed. I don't know if that was his decision or if he consulted with fellow independentistas, but the thing is he said yes, and that's how it was," says Wilfredo. "Luis got more votes in that election than ever before," he asserts.

In that 2020 election, the PIP and the MVC achieved results unseen in Puerto Rico in a long time. Dalmau came second in Guaynabo’s precinct 7 —the first time a candidate other than PNP or PPD achieved that position in an election. In San Juan, the MVC candidate, Manuel Natal, was on the verge of becoming mayor of the capital city amid irregularities in the general scrutiny.

Citizen’s Victory Party consolidated its straight-ticket votes in precincts 1, 2, and 3 of San Juan, Culebra, and Trujillo Alto.

However, although that "first alliance" between the PIP and the MVC in Aguas Buenas bore fruit, the collectives did not agree to support a single mayoral candidate in the elections on November 5. It is one of 36 municipalities that will see friendly competition.

The Alianza de País defines these competitions as "those cases where both collectives present one or multiple candidacies for the same position and there is no agreement of Non-Competition and Mutual Support." Only 11 municipalities, led by San Juan, have non-competition and mutual support agreements at the mayoral level. There are 31 towns where, although one of the two parties does not have a mayoral candidate, they do not support the other's candidate.

With the death of Díaz Ocasio in 2023, the PIP's mayoral candidacy in Aguas Buenas passed to Omar Falcón Velázquez, a teacher and former wrestler. In the MVC's case, their candidate is José "Pepe" Córdova Iturregui, a lawyer.

"My wish would have been for us to have had a single Alianza column," says Pepe Córdova, who accompanies Wilfredo at El Cocotazo.

The MVC, founded in 2019, is running 70 candidates for the November elections.
Photo taken from the MVC's Facebook page.

Pepe Córdova Iturregui's brother, retired UPR professor Javier Córdova Iturregui, is the gubernatorial candidate the MVC nominated despite the institutional support of the Alianza being for Dalmau.

For the position of resident commissioner, the PIP candidate is Roberto Velázquez Correa, even though they favor the lawyer Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, of the MVC, as part of the Alianza. His father is Roberto Velázquez Nieves, the PIP assemblyman in Aguas Buenas.

Despite many meetings and discussions of mutual support, there was no agreement. As if they had made a gentleman's pact, neither Roberto nor Wilfredo said why there was no agreement this time on the mayoral candidacy.

Project Dignity Seeks to Consolidate in the North

"If God touches the hearts" of voters, Project Dignity (PD) will win the next elections. But we must be realistic, says Moisés Pagán, 60, retired and a resident of the Sabana Hoyos neighborhood in Arecibo, on the North coast. The party has been organized for five years only and is still getting on its feet, he pointed out.

"But if we get more than 200,000 votes and put several more candidates in the House and Senate, and [win] a mayor’s office, that's a victory for us," he assures. This would need more than twice the number of votes PD received in 2020 and having a mayor who is neither PNP nor PPD for the second time in over 70 years. (In 1988, Santos "El Negro" Ortiz Ruiz was re-elected as an independent candidate, although he won his first election under the PPD.)

Along with a group of friends, Moisés waits in front of his bus on the side of road PR-140 for the “PD JJ Power Rally” political caravan to start, which will go through neighborhoods in the municipalities of Florida, Hatillo, and Arecibo. “JJ” refers to their gubernatorial candidate, Javier Jiménez Pérez, a certified public accountant, mayor of San Sebastián, former PNP member, and founder of the “Pepino Power Company,” a municipal leader's initiative to restore electricity in his municipality after Hurricane María in 2017.

The message of Project Dignity seems to have taken root in northern municipalities such as Florida, Manatí, and Arecibo.
Photo by Luis Valentín Ortiz | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

In 2023, Jiménez Pérez left the PNP and became Project Dignity's leading candidate.

Moisés joined the party in November 2022 but recalls voting for Project Dignity candidates in the last elections. He says he is attracted to the party's defense of "family, values, and free trade," where the government does not impose more significant burdens and restrictions on small and medium-sized businesses.

The party's page describes itself as one of conservative values, "founded on our trust in Almighty God." Project Dignity supports Puerto Ricans' right to political self-determination, environmental protection, and debt auditing; it also defends life from conception and education without "gender ideology."

Shortly after 3 p.m., the horns and alarms blare loudly and consistently, and the cars start the caravan with their hazard lights on.

The JJ Power Rally, a caravan by Proyecto Dignidad, went through the streets of Florida on Sunday, September 29.
Video by Luis Valentín Ortiz | Center for Investigative Journalism

The route includes some communities in the northern coastal towns of Florida, Barceloneta, and Arecibo, such as Pajonal, Betania, Las Selgas, La Vega, San Agustín, Pueblo Viejo, Las Carrionas, and Bajadero. We see more than 20 churches of different religious denominations along the route.

In 2020, precinct 24 in Florida was where Project Dignity received the highest percentage of straight-ticket votes on the state ballot. Among the 10 precincts with the highest concentration of straight-ticket votes for PD are also Manatí (precinct 21), Arecibo (26 and 27), Hatillo (28), and Barceloneta (25), all in the northern region of Puerto Rico. Naguabo (95), Adjuntas (55), Canóvanas (104), and Las Piedras (90) round out the list.

In the mid-afternoon, rain falls, but nothing stops the JJ Power Rally. Families with children, young people, and older adults travel in all types of vehicles, from vespas and luxury cars to minivans and pickups, most with flags and banners bearing the party's insignia: a turquoise tree growing from the ground.

Moisés has a wine-colored bus with Javier Jiménez's name painted in white shoe polish on the rear window. Further ahead is the tumba coco, a sound truck, as well as the campaign vehicle with its makeshift stage for Senator Joanne Rodríguez Veve, Representative Lisie Burgos Muñiz, and the mayoral candidates for Florida and Arecibo, Félix Claudio González and Luis Enrique "Ricky" del Río Morales, respectively.

Along the way, people come out of stores and homes to have a look. There's no way to ignore the music, horns, and alarms that enter uninvited through the doors and windows of houses along the route. Still, some go on with their Sunday without looking: cleaning their balconies, playing basketball, fixing their cars, having a beer at a business.

More than four hours later, at night and to the merengue music of Toño Rosario and Olga Tañón, the caravan continues along PR-2. Upon reaching the intersection with PR-639 in Arecibo, the sound truck and the campaign vehicle with its makeshift stage pulled aside. At the same time, dozens and dozens of cars continue their journey, not without first honking and showing their Project Dignity flags. It's the turquoise wave, says the announcer, that ends for today.

Moisés, who stayed until the end and stopped to talk to me, thinks the event was good and that there was a good turnout.

"This is long-term. We keep fighting to get those two parties that have been in power for so long and have brought us to this historic moment. And that's one day at a time, election by election," he says.

¡Fuego popular!

The PPD, whose members are known as “populares”, will win the election against all odds, says Jesús Manuel Ortiz González, the party’s gubernatorial candidate. He says this while greeting supporters from a campaign truck fitted with a raised platform, gripping a pole to keep his balance as they drive through the streets of the East central town of Caguas.

The back of this vehicle, a staple of any political caravan, is covered with metal sheets and pipes fully exposed to the sun. In Caguas, the sun shines bright today, and at 100 degrees Fahrenheit — ¡Fuego Popular! — there's nowhere to hold onto that isn't hot metal.

According to CEE data, just over 150,000 people voted in the PPD primary in June, well below the 217,000 who voted four years earlier amid a pandemic.

In these elections, the PNP has invisibilized the populares not considering them their primary opponents. The Alianza de País between the PIP and the MVC points to the PNP and the PPD when talking about corrupt bipartisanship, having been part of the government in Puerto Rico for the past 70 years, leading to bankruptcy, austerity, and shortage in public services. In Washington, D.C., the Commonwealth formula that the PPD defends is off the table, and within the party, populares, like former Senate President Eduardo Bhatia, former resident commissioner candidate Rafael Cox Alomar, and former senator and political analyst Ángel Rosa question the party's path. Cox Alomar and Rosa even suggested that the useful vote in this election, or the one that can defeat the PNP, is with the Alianza, not the PPD.

Ortiz González, a legislator since 2017 and former aide of the last PPD governor, Alejandro García Padilla, acknowledges that these have been difficult times. He says he has been strong in the face of corruption cases in the PPD, that his party is the only one that can achieve control of the Legislature and mayors’ offices, and that the issue of political status is not the point, but rather the well-being of the people and the economy.

"Certainly, we have challenges, especially in the metropolitan area, but I am sure we will prevail in this election against all odds because we populares have that commitment not to allow the PNP to govern for four more years. It's unacceptable for us; it's been uphill, and even after the election, winning as I hope, I must start a deeper change process within the party, for which I need time to do it, and I am determined to do it both in the government and the Popular Democratic Party," he adds.

A PPD caravan, with its candidate Jesús Manuel Ortiz, went through the streets of Caguas on Saturday, October 12.
Photo by Luis Valentín Ortiz | Center for Investigative Journalism

Next to him is the mayor of Caguas, William Miranda Torres, who greets, points, and smiles from the campaign truck. Since the 1970s, Caguas has been a PPD stronghold, led by the late Ángel O. Berríos and William Miranda Marín. When Miranda Marín died in 2010, Miranda Torres, his eldest son, took office after a special election and has been mayor ever since.

When the caravan arrives at the Santa Elvira urbanization, the mayor asks the announcer speaking through the tumba coco to greet doña Reina, who lives there. Miranda Torres needs every one of those votes: in 2012, he received 43,763 votes, more than 60% of the total vote in Caguas; in 2020, he prevailed with only half of those votes and a margin of just four percentage points over the PNP candidate, Roberto López Román.

Doña Reina comes out of her house, and both politicians get off and greet her, take a photo, say goodbye, and return to the campaign vehicle. I ask Ortiz González to define the popular party’s "die-hard supporters."

A PDP caravan, with its candidate Jesús Manuel Ortiz, toured the streets of Caguas on Saturday, October 12.
Photo by Luis Valentín Ortiz | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

Regarding Bhatia's column, he says he didn't read it. I summarize it for him: Bhatia notes that at some point, the party decided to turn toward a more conservative sector, which alienated many populares. "Some have that theory. As an elected official of the Popular Democratic Party, I can't tell you that I have perceived that or that I’ve been told that there was a need to turn to the right," he assures.

Ortiz González says the PPD is "a center-left party, but conservative on economic issues." He also says he sees the PPD as part of an alliance among "the forces of change," or those parties that are not the PNP.

"All the polls, regardless of who they show winning, agree on one thing: the forces of change are more. Here, the decision has to be who is the person who has the most possibilities, not only to stop Jenniffer González (PNP), but also to lead a government, to be able to execute an agenda. And in this case, Juan Dalmau (PIP) doesn't have the tools to govern; he won't have a legislative assembly, he won't be able to confirm Supreme Court judges because he doesn't have a (majority) team, and he won't have one, that can align with his policy," he said.

A PPD caravan, with its candidate Jesús Manuel Ortiz, went through the streets of Caguas on Saturday, October 12.
Photo by Luis Valentín Ortiz | Center for Investigative Journalism

Shortly after, I get off the campaign truck, which will continue eastbound in a caravan to San Lorenzo, Juncos, Las Piedras, and Humacao. There, in front of just over 100 people, Ortiz González will again say he will win the elections and ask for a single cross under the “pava” logo on all three ballots.

PNP is Strong in Puerto Rico's Central Mountainous Region

The mayor of Orocovis, Jesús "Gardy" Colón Berlingeri, prefers house visits over campaign walks.

"What's the difference between one and the other? That I go and visit the person at their home and have coffee calmly. When it's a campaign walk, you pass quickly, there’s noise, with many people, etc., and the message doesn't get across as effectively as when we do the visit," he explains.

The mayor of Orocovis, Edgardo “Gardy” Colón Berlingeri, joined a caravan with legislator Thomas Rivera Schatz.
Taken from the Facebook page of Orocovis Mayor Edgardo “Gardy” Colón.

Once a week, Colón Berlingeri usually makes the hour-long trip to San Juan. Today he is in the capital, where we met at a Starbucks in the Hato Rey area, but he told me that the day before, he visited families in the Bauta Abajo neighborhood. Although he wears a blue shirt with his name embroidered on it, no one here seems to recognize the PNP mayor who has been in office uninterruptedly for 26 years, only surpassed by the PPD mayor of Dorado, Carlos López Rivera, who has been in office for 37 years.

Orocovis, located in the island’s central mountainous region, is one of the places in Puerto Rico where most straight-party voting occurs in favor of the PNP. In the last election, two out of every five people in precinct 66 of Orocovis put a single cross under the palm tree for the ticket of now-Governor Pedro Pierluisi and Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, and one in three people voted straight-ticket for the PNP on the legislative ballot. Something similar happened with its neighbors, Barranquitas and Corozal, where 42% and 37%, respectively, of all votes were straight-tickets for the PNP on the gubernatorial and resident commissioner ballot.

"When I was in college, I said I was a statehood supporter and pro-American. Many people hide. I don't hide, and the people from the heart [of Puerto Rico] don't hide to say it either," says Colón Berlingeri.

In the upcoming elections, Puerto Rican voters will see a ballot for the fourth status plebiscite since 2012. None of these consultations have had the federal government's commitment to act in favor of the winning option. The 2022 Bill 8393, presented by Puerto Rican Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez of New York and Resident Commissioner González, which would establish a Congress-approved status voting process, stalled in the federal Senate.

The straight-ticket voting for the PNP has decreased from 47% of the total votes in the 2012 election to 29% in 2020, according to data from the Puerto Rico State Election Commission.
Taken from the Facebook page of the Mayor of Orocovis, Edgardo “Gardy” Colón.

"The traditional PNP is the one who believes in statehood, who believes that don Luis Ferré founded the party to bring social justice to the poor, so young people could vote at 18 years, to bring the Christmas bonus. When you meet with those people, they mention that. And little by little, they have been passing that gratitude toward the United States. Those are the statehood supporters, those are the die-hard PNPs," he says.

In his analysis, Colón Berlingeri warns about a difference: the die-hard supporters in the mountains are not the same as those in urban areas, even within the same town of Orocovis. While in the town’s urban center, people live in urbanization developments, public housing, or Section 8, in the countryside, there are the humbler houses, with lower income, mostly dependent on agriculture to subsist, the mayor said.

Volunteers were answering phones at the PNP Radio Marathon to boost fundraising efforts.
Taken from the Facebook page of the Partido Nuevo Progresista.

Colón Berlingeri noticed this change in the last elections.

"The message we constantly give is 'straight-ticket vote.' Give us the full team. And that has worked. But still, last term, mixed voting increased, but we are one of the towns where the most straight-ticket voting happens," he said.

Promoting the straight-ticket vote has been a hallmark of the PNP.
Taken from Orocovis Mayor Edgardo “Gardy” Colón's Facebook page.

I ask what concerns the die-hard blue supporters the most, according to his perception. The mayor doesn't mention federally funded programs, not even LUMA or the lack of specialist doctors. He mentions corruption.

"Many times, we are embarrassed by people who stumble along the way and fail us as a party. But what we want as a party is to achieve statehood," he says.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office has charged eight mayors, two cabinet secretaries, three legislators, and one governor in corruption-related cases over the past six years. Except for three PPD mayors, the rest are from the PNP.

For Colón Berlingeri, these cases are the exception, not the rule, as projected by opposition parties like the Alianza de País and Project Dignity.

PNP militants wait for a caravan in Orocovis, a municipality in the interior of the island.
Taken from Orocovis Mayor Edgardo “Gardy” Colón's Facebook page.

He takes the opportunity to let me know again that there is an important difference: the metropolitan area votes differently from the rest of the island. For the November 5 elections, in Orocovis, the mayor assures that the PPD remains the PNP’s main opponent, not the Alianza or PD.

"Frankly, at the island level, I see active campaigns from both populares and penepés. I don't see the Alianza campaigning in the mountains, outside the metropolitan area," he says.