New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio both flew to San Juan over the past 72 hours with promises of help, acting as de facto representatives for Puerto Rico. | Getty Puerto Rico's allies in New York, Florida push for aid

Top lawmakers in New York and Florida are rushing to champion aid for Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria's devastation — a sign that even as the island territory lacks power in Washington, its diaspora wields growing political clout in major states.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio both flew to San Juan over the past 72 hours with promises of help, acting as de facto representatives for Puerto Rico. It’s a tacit recognition that political leaders from the states with the two largest and most influential populations of Puerto Rican descent are essential to keeping Washington’s attention on the unfolding disaster, which follows the implosion of the island’s economy and an ugly fight over financial assistance in Congress last year.


“They could be left with the scraps in Congress,” said Rep. Darren Soto, a Central Florida Democrat who last year became the state’s first member of Congress of Puerto Rican descent. “It’s something that we as the Florida delegation, New York and others are going to be pow-wowing about to make sure the devastating damage in Puerto Rico is taken care of.”

It’s also a political necessity for officials in both states.

Rubio, a bilingual member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly said the federal government needs to stand by its territory — and last year, he was the only Republican in the GOP presidential primary to visit Puerto Rico. He won all 23 of its delegates.

After flying to San Juan Monday, he got a hug on the tarmac from the island’s non-voting member of Congress, Jenniffer Gonzá lez-Colón, who posted the picture on Twitter and thanked him “for being our voice in the Senate.”

Cuomo, a Democrat who is positioning himself for a possible presidential bid in 2020, got there even earlier; he flew to San Juan on Sept. 22 along with emergency supplies, power grid experts and legislators including Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez of Brooklyn and Assemblyman Marcos Crespo of the Bronx.

“We are family,” Cuomo said during a press conference next to Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. “You don’t have to ask family for help. Family shows up, and we are family.”

Velázquez said New York’s 27-member House delegation would push for assistance and called for the immediate suspension of the Jones Act, a nearly century-old law that limits which ships can dock on the island. Velázquez and Cuomo then held a rally in Manhattan Sunday to raise supplies and donations; the governor was introduced by Jennifer Lopez and stammered a few lines in Spanish about unity. On Monday he called out President Donald Trump for tweeting about the NFL but not speaking up about Maria’s aftermath — and did no fewer than four radio and television interviews about Puerto Rico.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Monday for more aid for Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rican voters have long been a critical bloc in the Empire State. Political consultant Evan Stavisky, a partner in the Manhattan-based Parkside Group, notes that there are 1.3 million Latino voters registered to vote in the state, the vast majority of whom are of Puerto Rican descent, and an estimated 700,000 Boricuas living in the five boroughs.

“Every Puerto Rican who moves to New York is immediately eligible to register to vote," Stavisky, noting that aiding Puerto Rico is good policy and good politics for New York officials. "Latinos have been an important part of the governing coalition in New York City for generations.”

Those officials include Velázquez and Crespo as well as New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. She didn’t join Cuomo’s trip but is working with city officials to raise supplies. Crespo notes that Cuomo’s trip was not an anomaly: The governor opened an office on the island, which has a population of 3.4 million, during his second term and traveled there with his Medicaid experts to help with the fiscal crisis.

Trump, meanwhile, is facing increasing criticism for not focusing on Maria's aftermath.

“A lot of us felt the disaster there was not getting its fair share of attention,” said Crespo, who chairs the Bronx Democratic Committee and the State Legislature’s potent Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force. “To have a governor use his role and his platform and his resources and his relationships targeted toward the crisis is exactly what we want leaders to do.”

Similar dynamics increasingly apply in Florida, where, unlike in New York, much of the Puerto Rican community is made up of relatively recent arrivals who began flocking to the state as the island’s economy cratered. According to Edwin Meléndez, director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at CUNY Hunter College, the Puerto Rican community in Florida has doubled in the last two decades and now numbers more than a million.

In San Juan, Rubio also met with Rosselló, with whom the senator had been speaking when Hurricane Irma swiped the island early this month. Even then, before Maria was a named storm, Rubio said it could take a long time to rebuild Puerto Rico.

“In Florida, our utilities go down and you can drive trucks down from North Carolina," Rubio said. “In Puerto Rico, how do you get there? By sea.”

As Soto’s election shows, the community in Florida is concentrated not around Miami — where Cuban expats have held sway for two generations — but further north near Orlando. At one point, about 1,000 families from the island were moving to the Orlando area weekly. That pace could pick up now that there’s no power, little phone service and dwindling supplies of water, food and fuel. Central Florida and South Florida will likely see the most evacuees.

“We are getting in front of this as evacuees are already coming,” said state Rep. Bob Cortes, who announced Monday the establishment of the “FL2PR Response Team” with a fellow Republican in the state House, Rene Plasencia. “Florida is ground zero and the closest to the island.”

Cortes should know. He told POLITICO he might have as many as seven relatives evacuate the island, and said it’s not unreasonable to expect that 10 percent might want to bring their loved ones — meaning an influx of at least 100,000 new residents in the coming months.

Rubio and his Democratic counterpart from Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson, have requested aid for Puerto Rico in letters to Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Nelson also called on the military to boost support and said he might visit the island later this week with other members of Florida’s House delegation.

Rubio spoke with Vice President Mike Pence and White House chief of staff John Kelly about relief efforts, and, his office said, he’s working to set up another meeting with the White House this week.

While Cuomo has taken a leadership role in advocating for Puerto Rico, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has started to draw fire from Democrats for not doing more. Former Representative and current Democratic candidate for governor Gwen Graham called on Scott to send Florida National Guard troops to Puerto Rico, as long as they’re not involved in Hurricane Irma response in Florida.

Beyond its historical foothold in New York and its growing presence in Florida, the Puerto Rican diaspora now features a significant community in Chicago — Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez called for FEMA to respond “as quickly as humanly possible” — and a growing presence in other southern states like Texas.

Net migration from Puerto Rico to the mainland has already quickened from around 50,000 people a year over the last decade to 60,000 in the last three years. CUNY’s Meléndez predicted Maria would create evacuees and could push that number up to 200,000 for the coming year.

That’s going to have political ramifications in congressional races — and ultimately in presidential campaigns.

“I expect that the Puerto Rican community in the United States — and all those people vote, too, by the way — will expand,” he said. “As we move forward, Congress is going to make decisions about Puerto Rico, and all of those people are going to have something to say. … We don’t have representation, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have import.”

Natasha Korecki and Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.