Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens, but they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland. Phones across the island of 3.2 million people were ringing minutes after the speaker derided the U.S. territory Sunday night, and they still buzzed Monday.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is competing with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Shortly after stand-up comic Tony Hinchcliffe said that, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced he was backing Harris.

After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

    • dutchkimble@lemy.lol
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      3 days ago

      Got it, so North Carokota, South Dakolina, and DC and Puerto Rico. I think it’s a great idea.

    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I was gonna say it’s ridiculous to make DC a state, it’s just a city!

      Turns out more people live in DC than Wyoming or Vermont LOL. So I’m down!

      Also I’ve heard that monkey’s brains, although popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often found there.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        3 days ago

        But it doesn’t have an airport. Or a car dealership. There’s a car dealership a few blocks from the Capitol building, but it doesn’t have one.

        (This was an actual argument from the GOP on the floor of Congress.)

        • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          “The Constitution doesn’t say a state has to have an airport or a car dealership.”

          “WeLL It ShOuLd! We DoN’t WaNt sHiThOlE sTaTeS!!1!!”

      • KmlSlmk64@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        IIRC if DC became a state, only specific federal buildings, such as the white house, scotus & the capitol buildings would remain as a territory (due to the constitution), but, because of a amendment to the us constitution giving DC the same amount of voters _(members of the electoral college)_for the president as the lowest-representation (essentially always 3), which only citizens living inside the area would be allowed to vote for, only the citizens of white house would be able to vote for 3 whole electors.

        I might be incirrect, as I am not a US citizen, but I’ve seen this mentioned somewhere long ago

        • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          If DC were converted to a state, presumably this would be changed so there would be no district. The federal buildings would just be buildings in that state.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          3 days ago

          I’m not sure if that’s right or not, but there’s been some loopholes around DC’s status before. For example, all members of Congress are considered city alders for DC. In practice, they delegate that to local elected officials and everything works like a normal US city.

          Same trick here. Delegate those EC votes to follow the popular vote of the city.

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        3 days ago

        If we combined Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, and both Dakotas into one mega state, they’d have about the population of South Carolina.

        But somehow they get 17 electoral votes to SCs 9 and 10 senators to California’s 2.

        So I vote for Monomskakota!

      • dh34d@lemmynsfw.com
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        3 days ago

        As a GA resident right across the river from SC, I understand that sentiment. SC sucks. Those bastards stole our city name and our fuckin baseball team.

      • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        But think about all the food down there in SC, y’all can claim it. Maybe they’ll take some of the empathy and intersectional community minded mutual aid networks y’all got and we can all be a little fatter and happier.

        Plus, we all get more papusas and salpicon!