The Mystery of the Puerto Rican Voter

ORLANDO, Fla.?Starting a caravana in Orlando is no easy business. A few cars bedecked with flags bearing the name of a local candidate may gather in a shopping-center parking lot, but when they turn out onto the public streets other cars are slow to join the procession, as they do across Puerto Rico in the days before an election. There, caravans are part of a broad political pageant in which party colors?blue for the pro-statehood party, red for pro-commonwealth?seem to wash over every inch of available surface area on the island, from murals to neckties. That flair travels to the polls: Puerto Ricans vote at some of the highest rates in the Western Hemisphere.

Over the last decade, candidates in Central Florida running for offices at all levels have tried to mobilize the rapidly growing Puerto Rican community by adopting the caravana tradition. But unlike in Puerto Rico, where caravans can go on for hours in a stream of joyful noise, a Floridian homage can be halting and unsettlingly quiet. Sometimes this is by design: Local campaign organizers warn their caravan drivers not to make too much of a racket while traveling through Anglo neighborhoods, for fear of triggering a backlash.

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