The New Progressive Party is a political party in Puerto Rico that advocates statehood. The PNP is one of the two major parties in Puerto Rico with significant political strength and currently holds both the seat of the governor and of the resident commissioner.
The governor of Puerto Rico is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and commander-in-chief of the Puerto Rico National Guard. Currently, Pedro Pierlusi is serving as the 189th governor of the archipelago and island.
Luis Guillermo Fortuño Burset is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the governor of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, from 2009 to 2013.
General elections were held in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, to elect the officials of the government that would serve for the next four years, most notably the Governor of Puerto Rico.
Jenniffer Aydin González Colón is a Puerto Rican politician who is the governor-elect of Puerto Rico and currently serves as the 20th Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico. González has served in leadership positions in the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico (PNP) and in the Republican Party of the United States. These positions included being the chairwoman of the Puerto Rico Republican Party, speaker and minority leader of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico, and vice-chair of the PNP. González is the second-youngest person to be elected Resident Commissioner and the first woman to hold the role.
Pedro Rafael Pierluisi Urrutia is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer currently serving as governor of Puerto Rico since January 2, 2021. He has previously served as secretary of justice, resident commissioner, acting secretary of state, de facto governor of Puerto Rico and as private attorney for Puerto Rico's fiscal oversight board under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act. He is a member of the New Progressive Party and the Democratic Party of the United States.
General elections were held in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, November 6, 2012, to elect the officials of the Puerto Rican government that would serve for the next four years, including the governor, resident commissioner and members of the Legislative Assembly. A status referendum was held on the same date.
The 2008 New Progressive Party primaries were the primary elections by which voters of the New Progressive Party (PNP) chose its nominees for various political offices of Puerto Rico, namely the position of governor, for the 2008 general elections. Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño was selected as the nominee at the primary elections held on March 9, 2008. He would go on to win the 2008 general election as well.
The 2012 New Progressive Party primaries were the primary elections by which voters of the New Progressive Party (PNP) chose its nominees for various political offices of Puerto Rico for the 2012 general elections. They were held on March 18, 2012 and coincided with the Republican Party primaries in the island.
General elections were held in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, to elect the officials of the Puerto Rican government to serve from January 2017 to January 2021, most notably the Governor of Puerto Rico. Ricardo Rosselló was elected governor and Jenniffer González-Colón was elected Resident Commissioner. The elections saw a 23 percentage point drop in turnout and was the lowest voter turnout in Puerto Rican history.
The 2016 New Progressive Party primaries was the primary elections by which voters of the New Progressive Party (PNP) chose its nominees for various political offices of Puerto Rico for the 2016 general elections. They were held on June 5, 2016, and also coincided with the Democratic Party primaries in the island.
United States gubernatorial elections were held on November 3, 2020, in 11 states and two territories. The previous gubernatorial elections for this group of states took place in 2016, except in New Hampshire and Vermont where governors only serve two-year terms. These two states elected their current governors in 2018. Nine state governors ran for reelection and all nine won, while Democrat Steve Bullock of Montana could not run again due to term limits and Republican Gary Herbert of Utah decided to retire at the end of his term.
Wanda Emilia Vázquez Garced is a Puerto Rican politician and attorney who served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 2019 to 2021. Prior to her tenure as governor, she served as the 19th secretary of Justice, from 2017 to 2019. A member of the New Progressive Party and Republican Party of Puerto Rico, Vázquez is the second female governor in Puerto Rican history, after Sila María Calderón. She assumed the office following the resignation of Ricardo Roselló, and the judicial annulation of Pedro Pierluisi's short-lived government, in the aftermath of the Telegramgate Scandal. On August 16, 2020, she failed to secure the New Progressive Party nomination for Governor of Puerto Rico in the 2020 elections, losing to Pedro Pierluisi.
Events in the year 2019 in Puerto Rico.
Telegramgate, also known as Chatgate or RickyLeaks, was a political scandal involving Ricardo Rosselló, then Governor of Puerto Rico, which began on July 8, 2019, with the leak of hundreds of pages of a group chat on the messaging application Telegram between Rosselló and members of his cabinet. The messages were considered vulgar, misogynistic, racist, and homophobic toward several individuals and groups, and discussed how they would use the media to target potential political opponents. The leak came in the midst of allegations by former Secretary of Treasury of Puerto Rico, Raúl Maldonado Gautier, that his department boasted an "institutional mafia" that Rosselló was involved in. The leaks also came a year after a previous scandal, dubbed WhatsApp Gate, involving other members of Rosselló's cabinet.
A referendum of the status of Puerto Rico was held on November 3, 2020, concurrently with the general election. The Referendum was announced by Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced on May 16, 2020. This was the sixth referendum held on the status of Puerto Rico, with the previous one having taken place in 2017. This was the first referendum with a simple yes-or-no question, with voters having the option of voting for or against becoming a U.S. state. The New Progressive Party (PNP), of whom Vázquez is a member, supports statehood, while the opposition Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) oppose it.
General elections were held in Puerto Rico on November 3, 2020, to elect the officials of the Puerto Rican government who will serve from January 2021 to January 2025, most notably the position of Governor and Resident Commissioner. In addition, there was a non-binding status referendum to ask voters if Puerto Rico should become the 51st state of the Union.
Gubernatorial elections were held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, to elect the governor of Puerto Rico, concurrently with the election of the Resident Commissioner, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the mayors of the 78 municipalities. This election is historic as it marks the first time since 1952 in which a candidate from the Puerto Rican Independence Party came runner-up in a gubernatorial race, the first time since 1964 in which the incumbent governing party was re-elected after two terms in office, the second time Puerto Rico has elected a female governor, with the first time being in 2000 with Sila María Calderón. This election also saw the Popular Democratic Party lose control of the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico and finish third for the first time in its entire history in a gubernatorial election, albeit retaining a majority of mayoral races and its candidate for Resident Commissioner, Pablo Hernández Rivera, won in a landslide.
The government of Wanda Vázquez Garced was formed the week following the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares as a result of the massive protests resulting from the Telegramgate scandal, and a Supreme Court decision that vacated the office from an invalid occupant.
The government of Ricardo Rosselló Nevares was formed in the weeks following the 2016 Puerto Rico gubernatorial election and ended prematurely on the first week of August 2019.
