EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A Democratic candidate for a House of Representatives seat in southeast Arizona has conceded the race to the Republican incumbent.
“The voters have made their decision, and we must respect it – I will not be the next representative for Arizona’s 6th Congressional District,” environmental lawyer Kirsten Engel posted on social media platforms around noon Wednesday.
The statement comes more than a week after a November 5 general election that paved the way for Donald Trump’s return to the White House and left the Senate firmly in GOP hands. Control of the House hung in the balance for a week.
NBC projections as of this writing give Republicans the 218 seats they needed to retain a majority. The nonpartisan political website 270toWin projects the GOP now has 219 seats, with the reelection of U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District.
The election went back and forth most of the past week as the Arizona Secretary of State finished counting batches of ballot boxes from Pima, Pinal, Graham, Cochise and Greenlee counties. With a few ballots still out, Ciscomani led Engel 196,293 votes to 189,426.
The Republican on Wednesday posted a video clip on social media saying he listened to voters during what turned out to be a very close race. “Every time I would leave these communities, I left a smarter, more informed member of Congress,” he tweeted.
In an earlier interview with Border Report, Ciscomani talked about balancing border security with a more efficient legal immigration system – one that helps employers cope with worker shortages and avails the American dream to immigrants who follow the legal process for however many years it takes.
He also talked about improving trade relations with Mexico.
“The trade and the commerce with Mexico are very important, it’s the number one trading relationship for Arizona and also for the United States, so we need to make sure that continue to happen,” Cistomani said. “The tourism is a big piece of it. We are approaching the holidays. This is when a lot of our retailers and hospitality industry make budget by the tourism coming in from the south.”
Ciscomani said part of his job in Washington, D.C., will be to advocate for more U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to keep border crossing times for people and merchandise competitive.
“We need to make sure we have refrigerated (storage) so we can attract produce to our ports of entry instead of choosing Texas ports that have more resources, that we have the proper agents (because) time is money,” he told Border Report.
The former vice chair of the Arizona-Mexico Commission also promised to support legislation to grow trade with Mexico, which stood at $798 billion in 2023, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Arizona accounted for $20 billion of that.