MIAMI (AP) _ Residents of Puerto Rico can’t vote for president. Yet Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton will be campaigning there, as two other 2016 White House hopefuls already have done.
Despite its crimped political clout, Puerto Rico is seen as one path to presidential victory because 5 million Puerto Ricans live on the U.S. mainland, nearly 1 million of them in pivotal Florida. And they care about what happens back on the island.
Rubio and Clinton are both visiting the island Friday. Republican Jeb Bush and Democrat Martin O’Malley came earlier.
The parade of presidential hopefuls to the territory speaks to the growing power of Puerto Rican voters on the mainland, almost exclusively Florida, the top destination for those fleeing the island’s 12 percent unemployment rate and economic slump.
