WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today EMILY’s List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, congratulates California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis on advancing to the general election in her reelection race. EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler released the following statement:
“EMILY’s List is thrilled Lt. Gov. Kounalakis is advancing to the general election in her bid to continue representing Californians as their lieutenant governor. The first woman elected lieutenant governor in the state, this historic candidate has ensured that she will not be the last through her phenomenal work to advance gender equity in office. At a time when reproductive rights have fallen under attack, we know that this pro-choice champion will defend reproductive freedom while advocating for equality and justice across the state.”
Eleni Kounalakis is the current lieutenant governor of California and the first woman elected to the position. Kounalakis has a long history of Democratic activism dating back to her work on the 1992 election in which California elected two women to the U.S. Senate and went blue. After the election, Kounalakis spent 18 years delivering homes to middle-class families, working her way up to President of her family business, AKT Development. In 2010, Kounalakis was appointed by President Barack Obama as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary where she served through 2013. As lieutenant governor, she established a Transgender Advisory Council in order to create a forum to discuss issues impacting the transgender community in California. She and her husband, Dr. Markos Kounalakis, have two sons, Neo and Eon.
EMILY’s 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 EMILY’s 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.
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