Pedro Pierluisi Is the New Governor of Puerto Rico

The PNP candidate beat PPD’s Charlie Delgado by 16,000 votes.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—Pedro Pierluisi is the new governor of Puerto Rico. The New Progressive Party (PNP by its Spanish initials) candidate had a wide advantage over his main opponent PPD candidate Charlie Delgado, winning the election with 406,830 votes. Delgado obtained 389,896 votes.

Puerto Rico’s  State Elections Commission (CEE by its Spanish initials) made the announcement on Saturday night, after days of counting ballots.

“I asked the people for a strong vote for statehood and they gave it. Now no one can question this result. That is powerful,” Pierluisi said in his acceptance speech, despite the State Electoral Commission (CEE by its Spanish initials) only granting him a “preliminary certification,” stating the amount of uncounted absentee and early vote ballots was still unknown, El Nuevo Día reported.

Pierluisi became the official candidate of the party in August when he defeated the current governor, Wanda Vázquez in primaries.

His political career includes being secretary of the local Department of Justice (1993-1997) and former resident commissioner in Washington, DC. (2009-2017). Pierluisi is a Democrat; he was co-president of Barack Obama’s campaign on the island during the 2008 election. In 2019, he was briefly Puerto Rico’s governor after the resignation of Ricardo Rosselló. His oath was nullified following a petition from Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz to the Supreme Court.  

Among his campaign promises is to declare a state of emergency for the murder of women on the island, a situation that has worsened in recent months.

This is a developing story.