Former Venezuelan beauty queen is a candidate for the US Congress for Texas

From the catwalks to the United States Congress, with everything that can be in between. This is how the life of Carmen María Montiel could be defined.

Born 57 years ago in Maracaibo, Venezuela, into a traditional family from the area of Spanish descent, Montiel rose to fame at the age of just 19 when she was crowned Miss Venezuela, winning the Miss South America pageant and becoming second princess in Miss Universe. A graduate of the Central University of Venezuela, at a little over 20 years old she was hired by Venevisión, where among other things she was the presenter of the morning program Buenos Dias Venezuela. In those years he also had several successful radio programs.

But towards the end of the 1980s he decided to emigrate to the United States, where he first continued his studies in journalism at East Tennessee State University, and then join the journalism job market in North America working for networks such as Telemundo in the city of Houston, Texas. Since then he has lived in the southern state where, in addition to his journalistic work, he carried out an entrepreneurship in the world of real estate for decades.

She describes herself as passionate about politics, pro-democracy and conservative values. In 2018, he tried his luck for the first time in politics, launching in the Republican primary to get nominated for Texas's 29th district. She lost by a difference of less than 100 votes to Phillip Arnold Aronoff, who later lost in the general election to Democratic Congressman Sylvia Garcia.

While Texas is the republican state par excellence in the country, that consistent conservative vote is manifested in the gubernatorial elections and the presidential elections, as well as in the seats to the federal senate. But when it comes to municipal elections, major Texas cities (like Houston, Dallas, or Austin) have Democratic mayors. The same goes for seats for the House of Representatives. While these are federal positions, elections are contested in very small districts and they often elect Democratic representatives.

Such is the case of District 18 in Texas, which includes much of downtown Houston and surrounding suburbs, which for 28 years has been representing Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee, who in her last re-election in 2020 won by 73.3 percent of the vote. It is precisely against Jackson Lee that Montiel will face at the polls next November 8 in the midterm elections.

Although Montiel is not easy, the mission is less suicidal than it would seem in the first instance. Texas this year inaugurates a new layout of its districts, which has made District 18 one that has 42 percent of Hispanic voters within the electorate.

Montiel is extremely popular with Republicans in the district. He just won the primary with 10,823 votes in his favor, which in this type of election is an extremely high number.

The Republican party is creating a support system for candidates in smaller races, to provide them with everything from funding to structure. At the moment, everything would indicate that the Republicans have the chance to win for this year's midterm elections, but November is eight months away and in politics that is an eternity.

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