A Latina organizer whose organization has worked to spur young Texans of color into voting is herself becoming a candidate for office, announcing that she’s entering the race to defeat Republican Sen. John Cornyn in 2020. “We have people in power that have wanted to make us feel powerless,” Jolt Initiative founder Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez says in her campaign kickoff video, “in a moment where we actually have incredible power.”
New voices like El Paso Rep. Veronica Escobar have emerged as strong leaders for Texas, but in the Senate, Cornyn has been an accomplice to Donald Trump’s racism and policies. “The daughter of an immigrant mother, co-founder of the Workers Defense Project and founder of the progressive Latino youth group Jolt Texas, Tzintzún Ramirez argues she has the best story, experience and ideas to harness the energy of Texas' ascendant voters, particularly young people of color,” The Texas Tribune reports.
Earlier this year, Jolt said “the Texas electorate in 2020 will be the youngest and most Latino pool of voters ever. Half of the young people turning 18 now are Hispanic and 95 percent of young Latinos in the state are U.S. citizens—meaning they have the right to vote.” The group has also previously released research showing Texas Latinas “are taking the lead on crucial efforts to turn out the Latino vote … generally, Latina women have higher rates of voter registration than their male Latino counterparts.
“The longtime organizer joins a primary lineup that is approaching a double-digit tally,” The Texas Tribune continued. “Asked how she plans to distinguish herself, she pointed to her forthrightness on the issues and her record of mobilizing the kind of voters often overlooked by politicians. ‘I know how to speak to the diversity of this state,’ Tzintzún Ramirez said.”
In her video, she said that “when we come together, we can change the course of history. But I worry that if we don’t tap into that power, if we don’t believe in ourselves, and we don’t actually come out and vote and make change, that we will continue to have a government that doesn’t tackle issues like climate change, that continues to scapegoat immigrants and their families, a narrative that paints us as not equally part of this country, allows people to treat our lives as less human, as less equal than theirs.” Click here to find out more about her campaign.
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