Referendum: Many Puerto Ricans have no clue, but majority supports status quo

[ag]

PR would be fairly reliably Dem in the US elections. Once the statehood is decided for, it is very unlikely that this would remain an issue, so there will be a natural realignment in the local politics. This would mean a split in the NPP, with a large minority of its members and activists joining w/ PDP to form the dominant Puerto Rico Democratic party and the rest of NPP becoming a semi-permanent opposition.

[ag]

But that would be odd, considering most of PR's senior officials right now are NPP and Republican.

Yes, because the main fault line in PR politics today is, whether to become a state or not: NPP is for statehood and PDP is for the Commonwealth. However, once that fault line is removed, national politics would take precedence, at least in federal elections. True, at present it appears that Republicans are dominant in the NPP. This is why I am saying that it will only a minority of NPP will go into Puerto Rico Democratic Party. Nevertheless, it's going to be a large minority - and, given that PDP will merge into the Dem party wholesale, this will be the dominant party in PR.

I could imagine that NPP and PDP would, actually, retain their identities for the state-level elections . But in Federal races the national two-party logic will impose itself.

[ag]

I really wish we let Puerto Rico go whether they want to or not...frankly, the money spent on upgrading its infrastructure would not be worth it. Can someone elaborate on what "enhanced" Commonwealth is??

Probably something like what Belau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia have.

Those are independent UN members.