Democrat Adelita Grijalva defeated her Republican opponent by nearly 40 points.
The special election race to fill a vacancy in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District has been won by Democratic candidate Adelita Grijalva, a former Pima County supervisor and member of the Tucson school board, narrowing the already-slim Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Grijalva’s win on Tuesday also means that there will likely be enough support in the House to force a bipartisan vote on releasing federal investigative files relating to disgraced financier and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Grijalva will serve out the remainder of the term that the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva, her father, was set to complete before he passed away in March. In winning her race, Grijalva becomes the first-ever Latina congresswoman to represent Arizona in Washington.
Grijalva handily defeated her Republican opponent, Daniel Butierez. With 87 percent of the votes counted, Grijalva had a commanding lead of 68.5 percent, while Butierez attained only 29.8 percent of the vote.
In her victory speech, Grijalva referenced her father’s commitment to serving his community, both at home and in the nation’s capital.
