With draws such as the Walt Disney World Resort, which is the largest single-site employer in the United States, many Puerto Ricans leave their homes in the island in search of better opportunities. NASA is also a prominent recruiter, going to Puerto Rico looking for new bright minds to add to their roster, particularly engineers from the University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez campus.
President Barack Obama greets patrons at Lechonera El Barrio, a local restaurant in Orlando, Fla., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012.
Puerto Ricans in Florida might be the most important demographic in this year’s presidential election.
When it comes to that southern state and its 29 electoral votes, the fact that the Puerto Rican population has grown so much, plus the fact that they’re already American citizens when they come to the states — facilitating the voter registration process — means that their vote has become an item highly-coveted by presidential candidates this election season.
Call it the beat for the boricua ballot.
“One of the challenges we have is talking to our people, educating them, giving them information about how to connect with the electoral process, because the Puerto Rican vote is important,” Betsy Franceschini, a Puerto Rican community leader in Central Florida, told VOXXI.
“The entire nation is keeping an eye on the Puerto Rican vote here, we could very well decide the election, especially in a state where we’re in — the battleground of the battleground,” Franseschini said, referring to the Florida vote.
The Puerto Rican community in Florida has been on the rise for years and is expected by many political analysts and observers to have an impact in the November election, in which much attention has been given to the Latino vote.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 847,550 Puerto Ricans live in the state—the number is second only to New York, where there are more than a million Puerto Ricans. The population has grown dramatically in the past ten years.
Back in 2000, there were 482,027 “Boricuas” in Florida.
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