On Election Day: Meet the Latinos and Latinas Making History and Flipping Houses

Two years ago, history was made in Virginia when the oldest governing body in our country elected not ONE, but TWO Latinas to the state legislature. Hala Ayala and Elizabeth Guzman were elected despite racist and bigoted attacks against them, and their victories brought the Virginia House of Delegates closer to flipping blue. On the eve of their re-election, one thing remains clear: Latinos and Latinas continue running in ground-breaking races and mobilizing Latinos across the country.
This time around, Latino Victory Fund endorsed candidates in Virginia and Arizona, one a state with a rising Latino electorate and the other, a key battleground state in the 2020 election with a sizable Latino population.
In Arizona, we endorsed Regina Romero. She is poised to become the first woman and first Latina elected mayor of Tucson, Arizona. She will also hold the distinct title of being the only Latina mayor of one of the top 50 largest cities in the United States.
And in Virginia, we endorsed our largest, most diverse slate of candidates: Democratic Whip Alfonso Lopez, Delegates Elizabeth Guzman, and Hala Ayala and first-time candidate Phil Hernandez. Three of the four LVF candidates are running in highly competitive races: Ayala, Guzman and Hernandez. With Democrats only needing two seats to flip the lower chamber, Phil Hernandez could be the Latino that delivers the majority to the Democrats in the House of Delegates.
Latino Victory believes that when Latinos are on the ballot, Latinos turn out to vote. We saw this in Virginia in 2017, where Latino turnout was at an all-time high for an off-year election, but more significant is that Latino turnout was higher than the state’s average in Delegates Hala Ayala and Elizabeth Guzman’s districts. Additionally, Latino turnout in neighboring districts (VA HOD 2, 13, 18, 28, 40, 41, 42, 50, 88) was also higher.
This surge in turnout helped Democrats in Virginia flip 15 seats, bringing the Virginia House of Delegates breakdown to 51 seats held by Republicans to 49 held by Democrats. Make no mistake that tonight, Latino candidates and Latino voters will play a key role just like they did in 2017, and they will be one of the reasons why Democrats take back the Virginia House of Delegates.
We know that the road to the White House will run through the Latino vote. With a year to go before the 2020 election, Latino candidates like those in Virginia and Arizona will be the grass-tops organizers educating and mobilizing Latinos to vote. The success of these candidates in 2019 will be a harbinger of what’s to come for Latinos in 2020.
MEET OUR CANDIDATES:
Regina Romero- Candidate for Mayor of Tucson

Latino Victory endorsed Regina Romero for mayor of Tucson, Arizona. In August, she won the Democratic primary and is on the path to making history as the first woman and first Latina elected to the position. In a city where the Latino population is 41 percent, Romero’s candidacy stands to create a historic moment for Latinos in Arizona and nation-wide.
And while her primary win all but guaranteed her election as mayor, Romero has not taken anything for granted. She has spent the months since her primary election working relentlessly to ensure Latinos in Tucson are engaged and mobilized to turn out to vote. Her efforts are also a testament to her leadership. Romero is not just concerned with winning her race, she is building a movement that could possibly help elect two new Tucson City Council members, Lane Santa Cruz and Nikki Lee. This movement will help create the infrastructure required to turn out Latino voters in 2020 to flip another U.S. Senate seat and help Democrats get one state closer to winning the White House.
Arizona has also been a hot-bed for anti-immigrant and anti-Latino policies, and having one of its major cities elect a Latina for the first time will be a ground-breaking milestone for the community and a testament to the growing Latino political power as we delve into the 2020 election.
Romero had previously made history when she became the first Latina elected to the Tucson City Council in 2007 and the first woman to represent Tucson’s Ward 1. Throughout the past twelve years, she has helped lift Tucson to its most prosperous decade in recent history: writing the city’s Primary Jobs Incentive program and calling for the creation of an Economic Initiatives Office. Both projects have resulted in thousands of long-term, good-paying jobs. She has also fought for equal pay for equal work and universal earned sick and parental leave for Tucson families.
Romero spent the early years of her life in Somerton, Arizona, where she was raised by her farmworker parents. Prior to running for Tucson City Council, Romero spent almost a decade at the Pima County Community Development and Neighborhood Conservation and two years working as a council aide.
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Latino Victory Candidates to Watch For in Virginia:
HD- 31: Delegate Elizabeth Guzman

Elizabeth Guzman made history in 2017 with the support of Latino Victory Fund, when she became one of the two first Latinas elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Since then, she has become a national figure for first-time, unconventional candidates — she delivered the Spanish response to the State of the Union in 2018 and has been instrumental in building a pipeline of Latino candidates in Virginia.
Guzman is the Division Chief of Administrative Services for the Center for Adult Services or the City of Alexandria and has spent the last ten years working in the public sector. Originally from Perú, Guzman also became the first minority delegate to represent Prince William County. She is a longtime resident of Prince William County, during which time she has led grassroots organizing for the Democratic Party and Hispanic community.
About the race: District 31 is a competitive general election district, as Guzman is the first Democrat to hold the seat since 2001 (first since the 2010 redistricting). In 2017, she unseated a 17-year Republican incumbent. Now she is being challenged by DJ Jordan, a prominent Republican in the state. Jordan is the former Vice-Chair of the Republican Party of Prince William County.
While Guzman won her election with a 9-point margin, and the district has become more Democratic, in an election with no statewide candidates at the top of the ticket, nothing can be taken for granted.
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HD- 49: Delegate Alfonso Lopez

Alfonso Lopez was the first Democratic Latino elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Lopez has represented District 49 since 2011 and has risen to the ranks of Whip of the Virginia House Democratic Caucus. As the son of a Venezuelan father and mother devoted to educating immigrant children, Lopez is committed to advancing the rights of the immigrant community in Virginia.
Prior to his election to the Virginia House of Delegates, Lopez was a political appointee under President Obama working as the Assistant Administrator for Congressional and Legislative Affairs of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Lopez also served as Governor Tim Kaine’s Director of the Virginia Liaison Office in D.C., where he represented the governor at the Democratic Governors Association, National Governors Association, and the Southern Governors Association.
About the race: This is a relatively safe seat, and Alfonso Lopez is likely to be re-elected in November after defeating his Democratic primary challenger.
District 49 is composed of Arlington and Fairfax counties with Latinos representing 14% of the electorate. This race will be Lopez’s fourth re-election and fifth term in his current seat.
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HD- 51: Delegate Hala Ayala

Hala Ayala formed part of Latino Victory’s Virginia Slate in 2017, and with our support, she made history as one of the first Latinas elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Ayala is the daughter of an El Salvadorian father and a Middle Eastern mother and has called Prince William County home for over 35 years.
Hala has experienced the challenges of single motherhood and lack of access to affordable health insurance. She understands the concerns of working families today. She has fought for raising the minimum wage, equal pay and access to affordable health care as the founder and former president of the Prince William County chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
Hala worked her way up from a service job without health insurance to become a cybersecurity specialist with the Department of Homeland Security. For over 17 years, she worked to protect our nation’s information systems, enforce security measures, and prevent cyber terrorist attacks against the United States.
About the race: In 2017, Ayala defeated Rich Anderson, a four-term Republican incumbent, by a 5.7 point margin. Anderson is now challenging her. Anderson ran racist and sexist attack ads against Ayala in 2017 and has a history of being anti-immigrant. District 51 is a quintessential swing district with Democrats and Republicans making up about the same share of the electorate. Protecting Ayala is critical for the Democrats to flip the chamber. Democrats need to flip two House seats and protect all their 2017 pickups to win back the House of Delegates. Ensuring Ayala gets re-elected is a key priority for Latino Victory.
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HD- 100: Phil Hernandez

Phil Hernandez is a product of District 100. He was born and raised in Hampton Roads and is now running to become the first Latino to represent this district. Hernandez attended public schools in the district. He received a Gates Millennium Scholarship, which allowed him to attend William & Mary, study abroad at Oxford University, and become the first in his family to graduate from college.
Hernandez served as a Senior Policy Analyst in President Obama’s White House Domestic Policy Council. Most recently, Hernandez worked as an attorney with the National Employment Law Project, where he advocated for civil rights and the rights of working people.
About the race: As a first-time candidate, Phil Hernandez has out-worked and out-fundraised his four-term Republican incumbent. It is because of his disciplined work ethic that this race has been upgraded to a “toss up.”
Two distinct populations comprise HD-100 in three counties: those who live on the Eastern Shore (Accomack and Northampton counties), and those who live in Norfolk City (Norfolk County). Culturally, the population of the city of Norfolk is urban, dense, and votes solidly Democratic, while the population of the Eastern Shore is rural, geographically wide-spread, insular, and traditionally tends to vote more Republican.
Overall, about 25% of registered voters are people of color. While the district leans Republican, the district has voted for a Democrat in every race since 2015, except for the delegate race. The Republican incumbent, Rob Bloxom Jr., has been in office since 2014, before that a Democrat held the seat. Since his initial election, Bloxom Jr.’s margin of victory has been gradually diminishing. In the 2017 election, he won his race by only 1,000 votes. Hernandez’s victory could be the tipping point for Democrats in Virginia to flip the House of Delegates.
