EMILYs List Endorses Jahana Hayes for Reelection in Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Jahana Hayes for reelection in Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District. EMILYs List President Laphonza Butler released the following statement:
“Rep. Jahana Hayes has been a groundbreaker since her historic victory as the first Black woman elected to Congress from Connecticut, and her achievements as the representative for Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District are no exception. She has worked hard to improve public education, fight for food security, and make quality health care available to all. EMILYs List is proud of all that she has accomplished in Congress thus far, and we are thrilled to once again support her campaign for reelection.”
Rep. Jahana Hayes is a teacher and community leader who serves in Congress to fight for Connecticut families. A lifelong Connecticut resident, she grew up in a Waterbury public housing project. Rep. Hayes’ family struggled with poverty and addiction. After she became a teen mom, she went back to school to become a teacher, overcoming barriers to break the cycle of poverty with the support of her community. She enrolled in her local community college and went on to earn her bachelor’s, master’s, and advanced degrees all while working to support her family. Rep. Hayes has dedicated her career to public education, and worked as a high school social studies teacher in New Haven and Waterbury. She earned the 2016 Connecticut Teacher of the Year Award and went on to earn the 2016 National Teacher of the Year Award. When Rep. Hayes began her 2018 campaign for Congress, there were no people of color in New England’s congressional delegation, and her victory changed that. Connecticut had never elected a Black woman to Congress, and Rep. Hayes became the first with her historic win, in 2018. She lives in Wolcott with her husband, a police officer, and is a proud mother of four children.
EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, works to elect Democratic pro-choice women up and down the ballot and across the country with a goal of fighting for our rights and our communities. Our work is centered around a fundamental vision: Run. Win. Change the World. EMILYs List has raised $850 million in service to that vision and has helped Democratic women win competitive elections by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running one of the largest independent expenditure operations for Democrats, and turning out women voters to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country’s first woman as vice president, 175 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 20 governors, and over 1,500 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. Visit www.emilyslist.org for more information.
