Trump ally elected governor of Puerto Rico
Islanders ignored U.S. media circus over "floating island of garbage" joke amid prominence of power grid issues in their own election.
Puerto Rico’s nonvoting delegate to Congress has just been elected the island's governor, and she's an ally of President-elect Donald Trump.
Election commissioners certified preliminary results on Tuesday night that declared Jenniffer González-Colón, whose first name is spelled with two f's, the winner with "nearly 40% of the vote in a five-way race," The Huffington Post reported Wednesday morning.
The lifelong Republican, the first elected governor in 16 years, is also a statehood advocate, as is her New Progressive Party. One of the first congratulations González-Colón received, which noted her Trump alliance, was from real estate and renewable energy developer Greenbriar Sustainable Living.
Its chief counsel Luis Baco, her former chief of staff, praised the new president for a nearly 10% margin in votes counted thus far and her platform "that prioritized energy resilience and the reconstruction of Puerto Rico's obsolete power grid."
The media circus around a comedian calling Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally didn't particularly interest Puerto Ricans in the thick of their own election, according to a San Juan Daily Star article.
Increasingly common blackouts have overtaken the island and "prompted an unusual burst of political engagement, in part because they are harming small businesses that make up an important piece of the economy," it reported.
All candidates in a televised debate said they supported canceling Puerto Rico's 15-year contract with Luma Energy, which could "cost hundreds of millions of dollars" but also requires approval of a U.S. Congress-appointed fiscal board that has overseen the island's finances for eight years, the newspaper said.