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Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Mary Barra and Cathy Zoi team up on electric vehicle charging, TikTok’s U.S. GM responds to President Trump’s threat of a ban, and Candace Valenzuela could be the first Afro-Latina in Congress. Have a productive Monday.
– Milestone win. Last month, Candace Valenzuela won her Democratic primary runoff for Texas’s 24th district. The potential impact of that victory goes beyond her Dallas-Forth Worth area constituents: If she wins the general election in November, Valenzuela will become the first Afro-Latina in Congress.
The former school board member’s primary win caught broader attention following the June victory in New York’s 15th district of Ritchie Torres, who is all but assured to head to Congress in the fall. Torres, who is Afro-Latino, wrote an op-ed shining a light on the fact that, based on current Congressional rules, he would not be allowed to join both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus—an indication of just how antiquated the government can be on issues of race and ethnicity.
Valenzuela still has a general election to win, but she would face the same outdated restriction if she gets to Washington. “We’re all bound to each other. Our fortunes, our futures come together,” she says of the ties between the Black and Latino communities.
I spoke to her last month about what her milestone election would mean to her—she says it’s arriving “far too late”—and the other issues she has highlighted throughout her campaign: homelessness, domestic abuse, and motherhood.
“People need to have a way to understand homelessness,” Valenzuela told me, explaining why she decided to share her family’s history with homelessness and domestic violence. The issues are all interconnected, with violence at home leading Valenzuela and her mother to end up without a roof over their heads. I highly recommend watching her powerful campaign ad for more of her story.
Read the rest of our Q+A here. And keep an eye out for Valenzuela’s election results in November—and what they mean for another kind of representation in Congress.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
