Puerto Rico’s Leading Newspaper Just Backed Biden in Historic Endorsement

President Donald Trump tosses paper towels into a crowd in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, in 2017.Evan Vucci/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Puerto Rico’s leading newspaper, El Nuevo Día, has endorsed Joe Biden in what his campaign says is the first presidential endorsement in the paper’s 50-year history.

In an editorial published on Sunday, El Nuevo Día concluded that the Trump administration “has shown an overwhelming amount of inattention, disdain and prejudice against our people.” Along with President Donald Trump’s infamous paper towel throwing, it mentions the president asking about whether the United States could trade Puerto Rico for Greenland. More broadly, the editorial catalogues his disastrous response to Hurricane Maria. (For more on this front, be sure to read Mother Jones reporter AJ Vicens.)

After Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans are the second largest group of Latino voters in Florida, where polls show Biden only slightly ahead of Trump. Compared to Cubans, Puerto Ricans are much more likely to support Biden, but they’ve tended to vote at lower rates. Biden traveled to the Orlando area last month to make his pitch to Puerto Rican voters.

In contrast to Trump’s actions, El Nuevo Día wrote that Biden has promised to create a Puerto Rico working group that would report directly to the president, expand Puerto Ricans’ access to Medicaid and food assistance, and increase federal funding for education on the island.

The editorial concludes by stating that endorsing Biden puts El Nuevo Día on the side of “our most democratic values” and in opposition to the “politics of hate, division and chaos that President Trump and a significant part of the Republican Party have supported.”

“The world is a much more dangerous and unsustainable place, in large measure, because of this President’s domestic and international policies,” the editorial argues. “The votes from our extended homeland in favor of Biden’s Plan for Puerto Rico will make our island and the world safer and more prosperous places for everyone.”

Read the editorial in English and Spanish here.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate