EMILYs List Endorses Emilia Sykes for Congress

For Immediate Release
February 24, 2022

EMILY's List Endorses Emilia Sykes for Congress

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Emilia Sykes to represent Ohio’s newly redrawn 13th Congressional District. Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“EMILYs List is proud to stand with state Rep. Emilia Sykes, our 2020 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award recipient, as she runs to represent Ohio’s 13th District in Congress. Sykes is a force to be reckoned with — a phenomenal legislator, a champion for civil rights, and a tireless advocate for her community. As Ohio House minority leader, Sykes has fought to expand opportunity for all. She has the courage and the experience to bring new leadership to this must-win newly redrawn district and to make Congress look more like America. Northeast Ohioans can count on Sykes to make their voices heard in Congress, and Sykes can count on EMILYs List to have her back in this high-stakes election.”

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.