Puerto Rico's main opposition party leads in polls for November's election, as voters look for a change after the economy struggled under the current administration.
New Progressive Party gubernatorial candidate Ricardo Rossell- Nevares leads Popular Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate David Bernier by seven percentage points, according to a poll by the El Nuevo Día newspaper and news web site. In the poll of 1,000 people, the news organization found that 42% said they supported Rossell- Nevares and 35% support Bernier. In a separate El Nuevo Día NPP resident commissioner candidate Jennifer González led PDP candidate Héctor Ferrer 49% to 36%.
"As the NPP's candidates, the ticket has the benefit of running against an extremely unpopular incumbent party," said Robert Donahue, analyst at Court Street Group. "The past four Puerto Rican gubernatorial elections have favored opposition parties. This election should continue recent trends given the PDP's highly unfavorable ratings. Dr. Bernier, Gov. [Alejandro] Garcia Padilla's [former] secretary of state, will suffer from his close association with an unpopular lame duck governor."
Rossell- also benefits from high name recognition as the son of a former governor, Donahue said.
The El Nuevo Día poll conducted Aug. 7-10 indicated that 11% had not made up their minds and the remainder either supported other candidates or planned not to vote.
García Padilla, a member of the PDP party, chose to not run for reelection as his administration lobbied for help from Washington after he said the island's debt was unpayable given the island's weak economy. He has instead promoted Bernier's candidacy. The PDP currently is in the majority in the Puerto Rico Senate and House of Representatives.
Rossell- Nevares's NPP, which favors statehood for the island, is the main opposition party. Support for Puerto Rico Independence Party candidate María de Lourdes Santiago, who favors independence from the U.S., remains at about 3%, according to the El Nuevo Día poll.
In the resident commissioner poll 8% said they had not made up their mind. The rest supported other candidates or said they would not vote. El Nuevo Día didn't indicate when this poll was taken. The results were posted after the gubernatorial poll results.
The resident commissioner serves as the island's nonvoting representative in the United States House of Representatives.
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi ran to be the NPP's gubernatorial candidate but lost to Rossell- Nevares.
While the NPP supports Puerto Rico becoming a U.S. state, the PDP supports it remaining in some form of the current non-state/commonwealth/territory status.
The United States' imposition of a control board on Puerto Rico reinforces Puerto Rico's colonial nature, said Carlos Vargas, research associate at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College. The board has shown to the Puerto Rican people that the PDP's story that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth but not a territory is wrong, he said.
At the end of June, President Obama signed the PROMESA bill into law. Among other things this law is supposed to set up an oversight board to review and potentially overturn Puerto Rico government policies. The law says the board is to be set up by Sept. 15.
"Whether the new governor cooperates or opposes the [U.S. government] oversight body will play a large role in the commonwealth's emergence from the control period and reentry into the credit markets," Donahue said.
On Thursday El Nuevo Día released a poll conducted earlier this month showing that 62% of Puerto Rico's adults support having a control board and 39% oppose it.
