PR has been petitioning for Statehood for a while now. This is nothing new.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the people of PR rejected statehood at least 3 times so far when it was brought to a vote? It's not the people of PR who are petitioning, it's the lackeys of the democrat party who are pushing it...and in this case it's congress who are pushing it, not PR.
Over the decades there have been a couple non-binding votes in PR where the majority voted to stay as they are, overwhelmingly. I don’t know if anything’s changed in recent years; but I suppose it’s possible the pro-statehood faction has reached critical mass.