Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com Political Note #278 Sima Ladjervadian TX CD 02, Political Note #229 Lizzie Fletcher TX CD 07, Political Note #257 Wendy Davis TX CD 21, Political Note #277 Sri Preston Kulkari TX CD 22, Political Note #241 Gina Ortiz Jones TX CD 23, Political Note #271 Colin Allred TX CD 32
Political Note #310 Candace Valenzuela TX CD 24
2020 General election
Mea Culpa. I was wrong about TX 24. I knew it is between Dallas and Fort Worth. I thought a military moderate would be the overwhelming favorite in the Democratic Primary. I thought a retired Colonel would easily win the primary against an Afro-Latina school board member. I thought wrong.
The Democratic candidate for Texas’s 24th Congressional District is Candace Valenzuela https://candacefor24.com. This is an open seat. This is a district teetering on becoming majority minority district. Candace Valenzuela describes it as majority minority with a population that is less than 50% white. Ballotpedia, using 2010 data, describes the district as 69% white. Wikipedia, using 2013 data, describes the district as 54% white. Candace Valenzuela is probably right. By 2020, the white population is less than 50% now. She also describes the district as prosperous. Wikipedia says the median income was over $74,000 in 2013. Candace Valenzuela is right again.
In 2020, eight African American Members of Congress who were elected to represent majority white districts. Even in 2013 it was not like those other districts. TX 24 is not like those districts
- Joe Negusa’s Colorado’s 02 was 89% white
- Johanna Hayes Connecticut 05 was 79% white
- Lucy McBath’s Georgia’s 06 was 60% white
- Lauren Underwood’s Illinois 14 was 86% white
- Ilhan Omar’s Minnesota’s 05 was 63% white
- Steven Horsford’s Nevada 04 was 61%n white.
- Antonio Delgado’s New York’s 19 was 88% white
Texas 24 is more like these two districts
- Colin Allred’s TX Texas 32 was 43% white
- Ayanna Pressley’s MA 07 was 34% white=
Each of the remaining candidates in Texas 24 is colorful. Candace Valenzuela came from a 40-30 deficit in the Democratic primary to a 60-40 victory in the primary run-off against a female Colonel who had been a figure in the initial oversight of Iraq after GW Bush’s Iraq war. Candace Valenzuela’s capacity to attract national resources and endorsements was a factor in that success. Her capacity to overcome obstacles is another.
Candace Valenzuela makes a point about military service. Her great grandfather came to Texas from Mexico and served for the United States in World War I. Both her grandfathers served in the military during World War II. Her parents were both in the military. Her father parachuted out of airplanes. Her mother fixed airplanes. But her parents, a Latina mother and Black father, had a tough retirement from the military in El Paso. Not enough resources and marital difficulties.
Candace Valenzuela’s mother left, taking her son and daughter with her to escape abuse. Their initial haven from homelessness was a gas station. They slept in a dry kiddie pool outside the convenience store/gas station then moved on to friends’ couches and a series of rentals. Despite constant change, her mother made a commitment to her children’s stability. She insisted the children stay in the same school and, where possible, with the same cohort of children. Candace Valenzuela attributes her school success to that educational stability.
Candace Valenzuela also attributes her school success to public help. Housing assistance made it possible to escape homelessness. Food stamps helped them have enough to eat. While her mother struggled, Candace Valenzuela buckled down in school. She won a full scholarship to Claremont McKenna College in California, currently ranked the 15th best small college in the country.
McKenna introduced Candace Valenzuela to a different world. Not that you could see it right away. She majored in politics, completing her BA in time for the recession that began at the end of the GW Bush presidency. Feeling particular pressure about work, both to support herself and to get health insurance to treat a back problems she found a teaching job, then another teaching job, and another. She also found a husband, a fellow Texan in California. She describes him as insisting they return to Texas so they could raise their children as Texans.
Living in between Dallas and Fort Worth, working in after-school educational tutorial and support programs, Candace Valenzuela ran for the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School Board and defeated an 18-year veteran Republican member. She had argued then, as she has argued in the Congressional campaign, that the people she sought to represent deserve someone who looks and sounds, who has had experiences like theirs as their representatives. When she ran for the school board, she recalls, she was seeking a seat in a majority Latino district that had had, in its history, only one Latino Board Member. When she went to candidate forums, people were grateful she was running.
Candace Valenzuela did not expect people to be grateful she was running for Congress. She expected to use what she had learned going to school in the outside world. What she learned kicked in. She was prepared when she announced her candidacy. She got AL Media to create her advertising — a Chicago-based firm that did ads for Barack Obama. Mission Control, Inc would do her mail advertising. They worked on 19 of the 42 House seats that flipped in 2018. Run the World would oversee her digital campaign efforts. This firm’s website tells you who their investors are and they begin that introduction with Andreesen Horowitz. Jill Normington would run her polling from a firm a described as a top DC polling and strategy firm with a slogan “#power of women.”
Candace Valenzuela announced these firms when she announced her candidacy. She presented herself as more than a local school board member. She had major connections and would use them. Those firms and a batch of endorsements earned her credibility. She could begin with a local state representative, Julie Johnson. She could add endorsements from Julian Castro and Joaquin Castro. Presidential candidates besides Julian Castro endorsed her – Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. The late Representative John Lewis endorsed her. The Congressional Black Caucus endorsed her. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus endorsed her. The Congressional Asian-Pacific Caucus endorsed her. Endorsements don’t always mean a lot. For a candidate who needed to demonstrate bona fides, these endorsements were valuable.
Candace Valenzuela had accomplishments as a school board member. She was responsible for moving the district to entirely free school lunch and increasing the pay of cafeteria staff. She served on a board that worked together and achieved. Dealing with online instruction and Covid-19, they provided Chromebooks and internet connections for kids who could not afford then. They worked on the project most important to her — helping students whose families could not stay in the school district because of the cost of living.
Now that she has won the primary, Candace Valenzuela has to get herself elected. The demographics are favorable. The seat is open. The Republican incumbent retired after winning reelection in 2018 by only 3%. The 2020 Republican candidate is Beth Van Duyne, the former mayor of Irving, Texas.
Beth Van Duyne made national news twice.
- She asked the Irving City Council to support a bill in the legislature to ban the use of sharia law. She made that request because Breitbart had falsely claimed that a local court was following sharia law,
- She defended the local school district for calling the police on a 14 year old. This clever Muslim boy had brought a homemade clock to school. The school administration called the police thinking the clock was a bomb.
Candace Valenzuela https://candacefor24.com would bring energy and good sense to Congress. She would be a genuine representative of her community. We want her in Congress, not Beth Van Duyne. Neither candidate has a lot of money available to spend. Van Duyne had almost $500,000 on June 30 and Candace Valenzuela had $100,000. Between now and November, this is going to be an expensive campaign. Outside forces on both sides will spend money. Money ta candidate has goes further because they get a discount on television ads. Candace Valenzuela needs your help. Make a difference in this campaign.
Below are Congressional seats Democrats are trying to flip from incumbent Republicans. The ones with asterisks* ran in 2018. In 2018, Democrats flipped 40 Republican seats in the House. Let’s flip 20 more.
Alaska AL Alyce Galvin* to defeat incumbent Don Young
Arizona 06 Hiral Tipirneni* to defeat incumbent David Schweikert
Arkansas 02. Joyce Elliott to defeat incumbent French Hill
California 25. Christy Smith to defeat incumbent Mike Garcia who won the May special election.
California 50 Ammar Campa-Hajjar* to win this now open Rep seat
Colorado 03 Diane Mitsch Bush to in this now open Republican seat
Florida 15 Adam Hattersley to defeat incumbent Ross Spano
Florida 16 Margaret Good to defeat incumbent Vern Buchanan
Georgia 07 Carolyn Bordeaux* to win this open seat
Illinois 13 Betsy Dirksen Londrigen* to defeat Rodney Davis
Indiana 05 Christina Hale to win this open Republican seat
Iowa 04 JD Scholten* to win this open seat
Kansas 02 Michelle De La Isla to defeat incumbent Steve Watkins
Michigan 03. Hillary Scholten to win this open seat
Michigan 06 Jon Hoadley to defeat incumbent Fred Upton
Minnesota 01 Dan Feehan* to defeat incumbent Jim Hagedorn
Missouri 02 Jill Schupp to defeat incumbent Ann Wagner
Montana AL Kathleen Williams* to win this open Republican seat
Nebraska 02. Kara Eastman to defeat incumbent Don Bacon
New Jersey 02 Amy Kennedy to defeat incumbent Jeff Van Drew
New York 01 Nancy Goroff to defeat. Incumbent Lee Zeldin
New York 02 Jackie Gordon to win this open Republican seat
New York 21 Tedra Cobb* to defeat incumbent Elise Stefanic
New York 24 Dana Balter* to defeat incumbent John Katko
North Carolina 09. Cynthia Wallace to defeat incumbent Dan Bishop
Pennsylvania 01 Christina Finello to defeat incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick
Pennsylvania 10 Eugene DePasquale to defeat incumbent Scott Perry
Texas 02 Sima Ladjervardian to defeat incumbent Dan Crenshaw
Texas 21 Wendy Davis to defeat incumbent Chip Roy
Texas 22 Sri Preston Kalkuri to win this open Republican seat
Texas 23 Gina Ortiz Jones* to win this open Republican seat
Texas 24 Candace Valenzuela to win this open Republican seat
Virginia 05 B. Cameron Webb to win this open Republican seat
Washington 03 Carolyn Long* to defeat incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler
Wisconsin 07 Tricia Zunker to defeat incumbent Tom Tiffany who won the May Special Election
