EMILYs List Endorses Michelle Vallejo for Congress

For Immediate Release
April 5, 2022

EMILY's List Endorses Michelle Vallejo for Congress

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Michelle Vallejo for election to represent Texas’ 15th Congressional District. Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“EMILYs List is proud to announce our support for Michelle Vallejo as she runs for election to represent the people of Texas’ 15th Congressional District. Vallejo has deep roots in her community and has demonstrated a commitment to fighting for health care access, raising the minimum wage, and expanding economic opportunities for people across this district. Vallejo has campaigned on the idea that no one should have to leave home to get quality and affordable medical care, and at EMILYs List, we could not agree more. The people of Texas deserve to be represented by someone who will fight for abortion to be accessible for everyone—not just those who can afford to travel to another state. We look forward to supporting Vallejo on her path to Congress.”

Michelle Vallejo is a business and community leader from Alton, Texas. Vallejo, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico as children, comes from a big family of farm workers and business owners. After she attended Columbia University to study political science and history, she returned to Alton to help her father run the flea market that her family has operated for almost 25 years. Seeing the importance of community and entrepreneurship, Vallejo co-founded Hustle+Socialize, an annual conference to support and empower minority women in business in South Texas. Vallejo was nominated to run for Congress by her community through a local initiative called LUPE Votes, which recognizes community leaders ready to fight for working class South Texans. “All along la frontera and throughout South Texas, we look out for each other because we know that no one else will,” she has said. When elected, she will give her community a powerful new voice in Congress.

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.