Ron DeSantis jokes about lack of Virgin Islands’ electoral representation

Campaigning in front of Virgin Islands Republicans, Ron DeSantis made light of the territory’s current inability to vote in Presidential Elections.

“How would the Virgin Islands vote for President — would they be red or blue?” DeSantis asked, as reported by the local St. Thomas Source. “I don’t want to pony up free electoral votes for the other team.”

Independent Sen. Alma Francis-Heyliger asked the Republican presidential candidate about not being able to vote in the Presidential General Election, describing the disenfranchisement as being “almost like you’re in a different class of citizen, even though we are citizens of America.”

Told by the Senator that three of the five territories are Republican, DeSantis then offered an answer, essentially telling the group on the call not to get their hopes up.

“Obviously I think that we have these territories, people are Americans, and they should be treated as equal citizens. How that works with the electoral college, I’m not sure that there’s going to be necessarily a movement on that front, but I do think just generally speaking, the more equal the better,” DeSantis said.

Indeed, indications show that allowing the territory to participate would benefit the Democrats. The Source notes that “the U.S. Virgin Islands is led by a Democratic delegate to Congress and a Democratic governor, with 11 of the 15 Senate seats held by Democrats, and zero by Republicans. Of 35,284 active registered voters in the USVI, just 1,107 are Republicans.”

DeSantis paid the $20,000 qualifying fee for the territory’s caucus on Feb. 8. The Virgin Islands process includes ranked choice voting, and the candidate who gets more than 50% will sweep all nine delegates.

The Source notes that DeSantis is the first Republican candidate to address Virgin Islands Republicans since George H.W. Bush in 1988.