Candace Valenzuela will become the first black Latina to be elected to Congress and only the third Latina to be elected to Texas.
Valenzuela won a Democratic runoff election Tuesday in the state’s 24th Congressional District against retired Air Force Colonel Kim Olson and will face Republican Beth Van Duyne, former mayor of Irving, in the general election.
Democrats consider the seat to be one of their best pickup opportunities in November.
Valenzuela’s mother is Mexican American, and her father is black. She was the first in her family to graduate from college, and became an educator, working as a special needs teacher. Like many other Latinos, she began her political career on the school board at Farmers Branch.
Valenzuela’s mother, the daughter of army veterans, fled domestic violence when she was young and lived in a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
The opportunity to run for Congress opened when the Republican incumbent for the Dallas-Fort Worth suburban district, Kenny Marchant, announced his retirement, part of an exodus by multiple members of the Texas Republican House as the state’s demographic shift in favor from the Democrats.
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Valenzuela received early endorsement from the BOLD PAC of the Hispanic Caucus of Congress, which this year decided to be optimistic by supporting Democrats of all origins in the primaries. She also obtained support from the Latino Victory Fund and EMILY’s List.
Her campaign got a boost last summer when a video telling something of her life story went viral. She talks about her family losing their home after their mother was unable to pay the bills after her military service. A children’s pool served as a place to sleep when her mother fled domestic violence, she says in the video.
In a video tweet she posted after her victory, Valenzuela said, “I am no longer that girl who slept with her little brother in a kiddie pool outside of a gas station, but that little girl is always with me, just like I take it to the idea of the children who were in Tornillo who were in the cages, as well as I carry around Tamir Rice, as well as I take all the families who are hungry in this pandemic or who literally die of preventable diseases in the most prosperous country of the world. “
During the campaign, her opponent, Olson, had to overcome a hiring controversy in Iraq that forced her to retire while serving in the administration of President George W. Bush.
Olson was the one who garnered the most votes in the primaries, winning 40.9 percent of the vote compared to 30.4 percent for Valenzuela on March 3.
If Valenzuela wins in November, she would join representatives Veronica Escobar and Sylvia García, who broke the barrier for Texas Latinas with their 2018 legislative elections.
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