(Bloomberg) -- Rap superstar Bad Bunny is pushing to sway Puerto Rico’s virtually tied governor’s race with a last-minute endorsement.
The three-time Grammy winner said on Sunday he’s supporting Juan Dalmau, who was once jailed for protesting the US military presence on the island. The 30-year-old singer spoke for over 20 minutes to a crowd of tens of thousands of people at the closing rally for Dalmau’s campaign in San Juan.
“Puerto Rico has told me that this Nov. 5 we need to vote for Juan Dalmau,” he said.
Bad Bunny blasted the island’s traditional parties for fueling decades of corruption and economic stagnation. Dalmau is proposing broad changes, including the end to some of the tax benefits to wealthy residents, while his party has long advocated the island’s independence from the US.
A recent poll showed that Dalmau, a lawyer and the leader of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, was in a statistical tie with Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, a candidate for the island’s ruling party. If Dalmau is elected, it would be the first time since Puerto Ricans began voting in 1948 that a party other than the island’s two main political forces has won the governor’s seat.
Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, has been increasingly vocal in both Puerto Rican and US politics.
With a multimillion-dollar music empire, and more than 45 million followers on social media, he paid for billboards on the island bashing Dalmau’s rivals. He also signaled his support for Kamala Harris after one of the warm-up acts at a Donald Trump rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
“I am part of the generation that was born under one of the most corrupt administrations the country has had,” Bad Bunny said at Sunday’s rally. “Nobody told me about it. I was born, raised and live here. I lived it.”
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