Roll Call: The GOP Hispanic candidates that will grow House majority
Roll Call took a look at the House Republican Hispanic candidates that have swing-district Democrats shaking in their boots:
- Kevin Lincoln (CA-09) Veteran, Mayor of Stockton, CA
- Mayra Flores (TX-34): Former Member of Congress
- Maria Montero (PA-07): Granddaughter of immigrants
- John Quiñones (FL-09) First Puerto Rican ever elected in FL
In case you missed it…
Hispanic Republicans vie to oust Democrats in diverse districts
Roll Call
Daniela Altimari
8/22/23
https://rollcall.com/2023/08/21/hispanic-republicans-vie-to-oust-democrats-in-diverse-districts/
Maria Montero remembers her Peruvian grandfather, a Democrat and loyal member of the carpenters union, yelling at President Ronald Reagan on television when she was growing up in a predominantly Hispanic part of Allentown, Pa.
Reagan had a different effect on Montero, however, giving her inspiration “that life was full of opportunity.” She became an attorney and the director of the state Commission on Women under a Republican governor, and now she is part of a new class of Hispanic Republicans competing for House seats in 2024.
Members of the group span the ideological spectrum, from the far right to the moderate middle, but all hail from racially diverse districts that were won by Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and are represented by Democrats.
In addition to Montero, the group includes Kevin Lincoln, the mayor of Stockton, Calif., who is Mexican American and Black; John Quiñones, a Puerto Rican-born former legislator in Central Florida’s 9th District; and Mayra Flores, who was born in Mexico and won a special election in South Texas in June 2022, then lost the seat five months later. (Montero and Quiñones will both have to win Republican primaries if they are to face Democratic incumbents in November 2024.)
In recent years, the Republican Party has sought to bolster its recruitment of candidates with backgrounds and experiences that reflect the diversity of their districts — and counter the image of the GOP as the party of white voters.
…
Republicans view the push to recruit Hispanic candidates as essential to the party’s effort to maintain the majority in the House, where a net gain of five seats by Democrats next year would give them the speaker’s gavel.
“Republican candidates don’t just look like America, their life experiences reflect the daily challenges Americans face,” said Will Reinert, spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee. “By embodying the American dream, Republicans can win anywhere in the Land of Opportunity.”
In 2020, Republicans had a net gain of 14 seats in the House, and every seat they flipped from Democrats was captured by a woman, a veteran or a candidate of color. In 2022, the party put forth a historic slate of nearly 70 Black, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American candidates.
…
Read the full piece here.