The PNP is one of the two major parties in Puerto Rico with significant political strength and currently holds the seat of resident comissioner. The party also currently has a minority of the seats in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and in the seats of mayors in the municipalities of Puerto Rico.

Politically, the party is contrasted by the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) which advocates for maintaining the current political status of Puerto Rico as that of an unincorporated territory of the United States with self-government and the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) which advocates for the independence of Puerto Rico.

Party members are commonly called penepés, progresistas, or estadistas («statehooders«) and affiliate with both the Republican and Democratic Party of the United States.

On 4 November 2008, the NPP retained and expanded super-majorities in the Legislative Assembly, and won both the Resident Commissioner and Governor race by a landslide. Towns that were previously strongholds of the PDP, like Ponce, Lajas, Guayama, Aibonito and Naranjito (the last four which had never before won an NPP mayor) elected NPP mayors; as the results were completely counted, Luis Fortuño had won the governorship in 72 of 78 towns. Given the size of the majorities in the legislature, the minorities law has to be applied to prevent the party from having a two-thirds majority. Meaning that the New Progressive Party received at least 34 of the 51 seats in the House of Representatives and it captured all district seats of the Senate plus the 6 at-large candidates. Luis Fortuno received 1,025,945 votes defeating the incumbent Aníbal Acevedo Vilá by 220,635 votes or 11.5%. This is the second time a candidate for governor from the New Progressive Party has received over one million votes, the first time being Pedro Rossello in 1996.  This is the largest victory the NPP has ever had and the largest defeat the PDP has ever suffered in election history.

While Gov. Fortuño failed to win reelection on 6 November , 2012, his running mate became Puerto Rico’s top vote-getter and the NPP won by wide margins the two questions posed in a separate political status plebiscite ballot. Fifty-four percent rejected the continuation of the current territorial political relationship with the United States while 61% of those choosing another political status voted for statehood.

On 8 November 2016, the NPP’s gubernatorial candidate Ricardo Rosselló beat the PDP’s candidate, former Secretary of State David Bernier, to become the Governor of Puerto Rico. In the same election, Jenniffer Gonzálezbecame the new, and first female, Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico. The New Progressive Party became the majority in the Legislative Assembly by winning 21 seats of the Senate and 34 seats of the House of Representatives. However, the PDP retained a majority of the mayoralty races in the island, with a total of 45 out of 78 municipalities. The New Progressive Party (PNP) won a total of 33.