Philip Bump: Members of Congress who should push hard for aid to Puerto Rico

On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump addressed his administration's response to the disaster in Puerto Rico by establishing his bona fides on the subject.

"I grew up in New York, so I know many people from Puerto Rico," Trump said. "I know many Puerto Ricans. And these are great people."

Trump grew up in Queens, which actually has the smallest population of Puerto Rican natives relative to its overall population of any of New York City's five boroughs. (His primary residence when he's not serving as president is in Manhattan, which comes in fourth.) More broadly speaking, though, Trump does hail from one of the regions of the continental United States that has the highest density of Puerto Rican natives. What's more, his adopted home state of Florida does, too.

That's one reason that the administration's slow response to the destruction from Hurricane Maria has been surprising. The most important is that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory that's home to 3 million American citizens.

A survey reported by The New York Times found that nearly half of Americans didn't realize that Puerto Ricans were citizens. When asked whether they supported an aid package to Puerto Rico, those who knew that residents of the island are Americans were almost twice as likely to say they did.

Rep. Nydia Velázquez traveled to the island last week with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. She told a reporter from Bloomberg that "it's a different Puerto Rico" and that she "didn't recognize what (she) saw." About 3.7 percent of her district, the 7th, is made up of people who were born in Puerto Rico, the 11th largest percentage in the country. The most dense Puerto Rican population in New York is in the 15th Congressional District in the Bronx, represented by José E. Serrano. The densest population in the country is in Florida's 9th District, near Orlando. It's represented by Darren Soto.

Many of the places with the densest population of Puerto Rican natives in the continental United States are places that aren't heavily Democratic. Pennsylvania's 15th and 16th districts, for example, are represented by Reps. Charlie Dent and Lloyd Smucker, respectively, both of whom are Republicans.

There are 64 congressional districts in which at least 1 percent of the population was born in Puerto Rico. Of those, 45 lean Democratic in the Cook Partisan Voting Index (which looks at how the district voted in preceding presidential elections). Eighteen lean Republican, including Florida's 15th District, which has the highest density of Puerto Rican residents of any Republican-leaning district. Florida's 2nd District is the most Republican place with a population that's at least 1 percent Puerto Rican; it's represented by Rep. Neal Dunn.

If there is any question about approving an aid package for Puerto Rico, it's these representatives one would assume would lead the charge -- operating under Trump's "I know many Puerto Ricans and these are great people" standard.

Under the "we should quickly come to the assistance of American citizens in need" standard, the universe of representatives one might expect to champion a bill expands to more than 430 people.

Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Washington Post based in New York City.

Credit: Philip Bump