Record Number of New Latinos in Congress

Victor Landa, NewsTaco

Here’s something to note about last night’s down ballot races across the country: more new Latinos were elected to congress than ever before.  There will be a total of eight new Latino faces in the freshman congressional class. There is a slight caveat, in some cases a Latino replaced a Latino, but overall there are eight new Latino members of congress.

These are their names:

• Tony Cardenas – Ca
• Dr. Raul Ruiz – Ca
• Juan Vargas – Ca
• Joaquin Castro – Tx
• Pete Gallego – Tx
• Filemon Vela – Tx
• Joe Garcia  – Fl
• Michelle Lujan Grisham – NM

Overall, 27 Latinos won their races for the U.S. House of Representatives. Here’s a list of the rest of last night’s Latino winners, listed by state in alphabetical order:

• Raul Grijalva (D) -Az
• Ed Pastor (D) – Az
• Grace Flores Napolitano (D) – Ca
• Gloria Negrete McLeod (D) – Ca
• Linda Sánchez (D) – Ca
• Loretta Sánchez (D) – Ca
• Mario Diaz-Balart (R) – Fl
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) – Fl
• Paul Labrador (R) – Id
• Rep Luis Gutierrez (D) – Il
• John Oceguera (D) – Nv
• Albio Sires (D) – NJ
• Ben Ray Lujan (D) – NM
• Jose E. Serrano (D) – NY
• Nydia Velazquez (D) –  NY
• Henry Cuellar (D) – Tx
• Bill Flores (R) – Tx
• Ruben Hinojosa (D) – Tx
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) – Wa