EMILYs List Congratulates Karen Carter Peterson on Advancing to the Runoff for Louisiana’s 2nd Cong

For Immediate Release
March 21, 2021

EMILYs List Congratulates Karen Carter Peterson on Advancing to the Runoff for Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, congratulated Karen Carter Peterson on advancing to the runoff in the special election for Louisiana's 2nd  Congressional District. EMILYs List President Stephanie Schriock released the following statement:

“The EMILYs List community is excited to congratulate Karen Carter Peterson on advancing to the special general election on April 24th. A tireless champion for working families with a long history of public service, she will be a phenomenal representative for Louisiana’s women and working families.  We are proud to be part of the coalition supporting Karen Carter Peterson to win this runoff and we know she is ready to bring her leadership for Louisiana to Congress.”

Women Vote, the independent expenditure arm of EMILYs List, spent $620,000 on television, mail, and digital advertising in support of Karen in the first round. 

Karen Carter Peterson is a graduate of Howard University School of Business, where she received a degree in international business and marketing, and of Tulane University Law School. At 18, Karen ran for her first elected position, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and won. At 29, she was elected to the Louisiana House, where she served for 10 years, the final two as speaker pro tempore. In 2010, Karen successfully ran for state Senate. She ousted an incumbent to become the chairperson of the Louisiana Democratic Party in 2012, becoming the first woman to hold that position. In 2017, Karen was elected vice chair of civic engagement and voter protection at the Democratic National Committee. She is a practicing attorney and has served as a board member and volunteer for a wide variety of organizations. 

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect pro-choice Democratic 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, 157 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40 percent 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.