Jeb Bush's comments on Puerto Rico's status, which the Republican presidential hopeful made in late April, have reignited a debate on whether the U.S. territory is ready to become the nation's 51st state.

"Puerto Rican citizens -- U.S. citizens -- ought to have the right to determine whether they want to be a state," the former Florida governor had said, according to the National Review. And Bush insisted that residents of the Caribbean commonwealth should have a new up-or-down plebiscite on the issue.

But the conservative publication warned that in the last referendum, only 44 percent of Puerto Ricans chose statehood as their preferred option for the future of their island -- a margin it says is not sufficient to consider the possibility.

"Permanent change of status should hinge on some supermajority level of support, as, say, constitutional amendments do," the magazine editorialized. "We do not want ambivalent states."

How exactly the debate is shaping up in Puerto Rico itself, meanwhile, is a point of contention among local leaders.

José Aponte Hernández, the former speaker of the territory's House of Representatives, wrote in the Hill this week that the "statehood movement for Puerto Rico is growing everywhere."

Aponte Hernández pointed to the dominant role his pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP) today holds in Puerto Rico's political landscape and noted that influential Washington lawmakers on both sides of the aisle -- including Sens. Ron Wyden from Oregon, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Martin Heinrich from New Mexico -- support a status change.

"Media outlets ... have consistently reported about the growing influence of statehood for the island," the Puerto Rican politician noted. "It's no more a matter of 'what if,' it's just 'when it will be.'"

But Luis Gallardo, a Puerto Rican municipal legislator, countered in the Hill that despite the PNP's strength, its leaders "have been struggling hard for decades in an attempt to produce a clear pro-statehood majority."

Gallardo argued that the proposed status change was merely a way for the dominant political force to consolidate its power.

"Though occasionally the PNP will submit a token bill to Congress or suggest a local referendum in order to appease their followers, statehood remains nothing more than a myth," he insisted.