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National

Asian Pacific American Women Candidates Score Big

By Rodney Jay C. Salinas
Rainmaker Political Group LLC

In a midterm election that seemed to buck all trends and the best predictions of analysts, Asian Pacific American female candidates won several key races in states throughout the country. Texas Republican Martha Wong and Iowa Democrat Swati Dandekar led the field of more than 200 APA candidates nationwide on Nov. 5.

Firsts in Texas and Iowa

In Texas, educator and former Houston City Councilmember Martha Wong bested 22-year Democratic incumbent Debra Danberg in the race for the State House of Representatives (Dist. 134). With Republican Governor Rick Perry campaigning by her side, Wong managed to defeat a crowded field of fellow Republicans in the primary earlier this year.

The newly redrawn 134th District was created to give Danberg a difficult re-election bid. Wong, a native Houstonian and second generation Chinese American, is the first APA woman to be elected to the State House in Texas.

Martha Wong.

Swati Dandekar.

“Without having had the growing-up experience in Iowa, complete with the intrinsic basics of Midwest American life, how is this person adequately prepared to represent Midwest values and core beliefs, let alone understand and appreciate the constitutional rights guaranteed to us in writing by our Founding Fathers? (not her Founding Fathers),” Balderston wrote in the email.

“Will a person raised to function in the upper caste of India, the most repressive form of discrimination on the planet, be able to shed such repressionist views and fully and effectively represent the citizens of House District 36?” asked Balderston in an interview with The Gazette of Cedar Rapids.

Doris Ling-Cohan.

Other important wins & loses

Colorado Congressional hopeful Stan Matsunaka, a Democrat, lost his bid against fellow state senator Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican. Matsunaka, who is the State Senate President, had 42 percent of the vote to Musgrave’s 55 percent.

Meanwhile in the Hawaiian race for the U.S. House of Representatives, the late Democrat Patsy Mink won her race posthumously against Republican Bob McDermott. A special election will take place Nov. 30 to choose a successor for the remaining few weeks of Mink’s current term, then a second special election will take place Jan. 4 to elect a new representative for the full two-year term.

Patsy Mink.

In Maryland, State Reps. Kumar Barve and Susan C. Lee also won re-election, while challengers John Young and Josephine J. Wang lost their bids. All four are Democrats.

In Washington, election results for Democrat Yvonne Kinoshita Ward, who ran for State Senator against incumbent Republican Pam Roach, were not available as of this writing. However, State Sen. Paull H. Shin, State Rep. Velma Veloria, and State Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, all Democrats, all won re-election.

Twenty-seven year old APA State Rep. Jeff Coleman, Republican, ran unopposed in his re-election bid in Pennsylvania.

Rodney Jay C. Salinas is President of the Rainmaker Political Group LLC and Publisher of PoliticalCircus.com, an online source for political news and information for the Asian Pacific American community. He can be contacted at mail@rainmakerpolitical.com.