EMILYs List Statement on Emilia Sykes Advancing to the General Election in Ohio’s 13th Congressiona

For Immediate Release
May 3, 2022

EMILYs List Statement on Emilia Sykes Advancing to the General Election in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, congratulated Emilia Sykes on advancing to the general election in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District. Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“In 2020, EMILYs List awarded the Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award to state Rep. Emilia Sykes because we were impressed by her track record of fighting to protect abortion access and we recognized her potential to do even more great things in Ohio and beyond. Now, state Rep. Sykes will run to represent Ohio’s 13th Congressional District, and we could not be more excited to stand behind her and support her on her path to Congress.”

Emilia Sykes grew up in Akron, Ohio as the daughter of two elected officials. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Kent State University and received a Juris Doctor with a certificate in family law and a master of public health from the University of Florida Levin College of Law and the College of Public Health and Health Professions, respectively. She was first elected to represent Ohio’s 34th House District in 2014 and made history as Ohio’s first Black woman lawmaker under the age of 30. In 2019, she was elected House minority leader of the Ohio House of Representatives. In 2020, she was awarded the Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award by EMILYs List, which celebrates extraordinary women serving in state or local office.

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 159 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.