Voces Unidas Action Fund’s endorsed champions delivered big on Election Day in Colorado, with 10 of the 12 candidates backed by the organization winning their respective races.
From the top-of-the-ticket reelections of Gov. Jared Polis and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet through the first-time election of House District 57 Representative Elizabeth Velasco, we extend congratulations to the candidates and gratitude to our supporters for helping to push them across the finish line victoriously.
With your help, Action Fund-endorsed candidates Polis, Bennet, and Velasco were joined in victory by Brittany Pettersen (7th Congressional District), Phil Weiser (Attorney General), Jena Griswold (Secretary of State), Dylan Roberts (Senate District 8), Meghan Lukens (House District 26), Julie McCluskie (House District 13), and Kelly McNicholas Kury (Pitkin County Commissioner).
While all of the endorsed winners represent important constituencies for our community, perhaps no other victory is as representative of our work as that of Velasco, a business owner, daughter of first-generation immigrants, and public servant who was endorsed early on as the organization’s top strategic priority in last June’s Democratic primary election and executed an intensive, unprecedented campaign across the district’s three counties to secure her victory.
The heavy investments in time and money required for base-building work, training future candidates, and directly engaging Latinos and other progressive voters paid off not only in House District 57, but also in several key races around Colorado. In 2022, Voces Unidas Action Fund and affiliates reached nearly 50,000 individual voters through our organizing efforts in the central mountain region.
Along with Voces Unidas Action Fund, affiliates include Voces Unidas Victory Fund and Voces Unidas Political Fund — all working independently to reach our policy objectives and elect champions for our issues.
Over the past year, those efforts included the following:
Making 109,008 phone calls targeting 23,504 Latino and other progressive voters in the central mountain region;
Sending a total of 5 mail pieces targeting 21,976 Latino and other progressive voters in the central mountain region;
Sending 38,381 text messages to Latino and other progressive voters in the central mountain region;
Reaching more than 2 million ad impressions and more than 40,200 video views, targeting 35,000 Latino and other progressive voters in the central mountain region;
Endorsing a total of 18 candidates for municipal, primary and general elections – 11 of which won their races;
Giving donations to 13 aligned candidates, and investing more than $100,000 in independent expenditures to support key champions.
Alex Sánchez, CEO of Voces Unidas, said the following in reaction to the election outcome:
“We are proud of the success of all of our endorsed champions, and especially of Elizabeth Velasco. We know Elizabeth will be a strong representative of the central mountains in the state legislature, and we look forward to working with her to meet the needs of the Latino community in House District 57.”
"We also hope that Elizabeth’s victory serves as a model for how the Latino community can not only turn out to vote, but build issues-based coalitions across ethnic/racial lines to elect qualified leaders who will represent the entire community."