Puerto Rico votes narrowly in favor of statehood

(Image credit: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Image)

published 5 November 2020

Puerto Rico has once again voted to become a state. What happens next is up to Congress.

With 95 percent of the island's vote in, 52 percent of Puerto Rico's voters said they'd like to be admitted to the U.S. as a state, while 48 percent disagreed. But with Republicans likely retaining control of the Senate, the non-binding referendum likely won't make it to shore.

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The statehood vote will now be up for Congress to act upon. But Republicans are poised to keep control of the Senate and don't support what they see as the likely creation of two new Democratic Senate seats. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) explicitly warned Democrats would grant Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., statehood when campaigning this fall, even though the Republican National Committee's platform has supported Puerto Rican statehood in the past.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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