Puerto Rico governor concedes defeat in primary upset

Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi (D) was upset in a primary election Sunday, defeated by Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón (R). Both candidates represent the island’s pro-statehood party.

The result finalizes an acrimonious split between Pierluisi and González-Colón, four years after they ran together on the same ticket. The relationship between the island’s two highest offices quickly soured when González-Colón announced her challenge to Pierluisi last year.

“What happened is very painful, and I didn’t expect it, but let no one think that I’m going to slow down in the remainder of this four-year period,” Pierluisi said late Sunday as he congratulated González-Colón.

She received about 56 percent of the vote to Pierluisi’s 44 percent, The Associated Press reported. She will be the New Progressive Party’s first female candidate for the governorship.

“Positions do not belong to politicians … they belong to the people,” González-Colón said during a speech shortly after Pierluisi conceded. “I commit to being on the streets, to listen to people.”

González-Colón serves in the House as Puerto Rico’s only nonvoting representative. Her pick to succeed her, Elmer Román, trails Pierluisi’s candidate, Puerto Rico Sen. William Villafañe Ramos by about 6 percentage points, with thousands of votes left to count early Monday.

The Popular Democratic Party, the island’s pro-commonwealth party, selected Puerto Rico Rep. Jesús Manuel Ortiz to be its gubernatorial candidate. The party will mount an attempt to return to power this fall after last holding the office in 2017.

The election was marked by some chaos, with the territory election commission website crashing, delaying vote counts. Severe weather also knocked out power across parts of the island and caused landslides.

Puerto Rico still feels the impacts of 2017’s Hurricane Maria and multiple powerful storms since, which have severely weakened its power systems and infrastructure. The island also faces a shortage of doctors and other skilled professionals.

González-Colón campaigned on stemming the exodus of doctors, cracking down on corruption and working against violence against women.

“That’s one of the reasons why I’m aspiring to governorship, because I believe that we should not get used to not having electricity, we should not get used to not having water,” she said early Sunday.