The likely Republican candidate for State Assembly in the 17th district ran for president of Mexico in 2018.
Maria Concepcion Powell was one of 40 independent candidates who sought the presidency last year.
Now she’s challenging Assemblymen Joseph Egan (D-New Brunswick) and Joseph Danielson (D-Franklin) in a bid for the New Jersey Legislature.
Concepcion Powell says she will run as a pro-Trump progressive Latina who supports the president’s plan to build a wall along the Mexican border.
Earlier this week, the Middlesex County Republican screening committee recommended her candidacy to the full convention, which will award the organization line later this month.
The National Electoral Institute, which runs elections in Mexico, certifies anyone who expresses an interest in running as an official candidate. Residency is not a requirement and Concepcion Powell was eligible to run because she was born in Mexico, according to the NEI website.
Getting on the ballot is a lot tougher: candidates need more than 850,000 signatures.
Concepcion Powell, who ran as Maria Concepcion Ibarra Tiznado, was a certified presidential candidate but her name did not appear on the ballot. It is not immediately clear how many votes she received in her challenge to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“It was a very interesting campaign because I was able to do most of the work from New Jersey,” the New Brunswick resident told the New Jersey Globe.
She said she campaigned in Mexico “a couple of times” but conducted a “virtual campaign through social media.”
“I was concerned for my safety,” Concepcion Powell said. “I received several threats and the government does not provide protection for every candidate.”
Concepcion Powell has lived in New Jersey since 2015. She works as an economic development consultant and runs the U.S. Women’s Grocers Association.
A longtime Republican, Concepcion Powell says he family knows her as a “Ronald Reagan freak.”
As an Assembly candidate, Concepcion Powell says she will run on a platform of creating jobs.
She said she agrees with Trump that the border between the United States and Mexico should be closed. Her plan is to help American companies create jobs in Mexico.
The run against Egan and Danielson is Concepcion Powell’s third bid for public office.
In 2013, Concepcion Powell was a candidate for mayor of San Bernardino, California but was removed from the ballot after not paying her $4,092 filing fee. She told the San Bernardino Sun that she lost her money when her laptop computer containing her bank account password was stolen from her car at a local gasoline station.
Election officials gave her time to come up with the money – including some extensions, At one point, her representative showed up at the county election office after the deadline and said she had lost the check.
She ran as a write-in candidate and received just a handful of votes.
Concepcion Powell grew up in San Bernardino and moved to live near her son in New Brunswick after the San Bernardino shooting in December 2015.
“I’ve always been very supportive of our second amendment, but after the shooting I believe there should be a screening of gun owners,” Concepcion Powell said.
The 17th legislative district is one of the most heavily Democratic in the state. There are 45,783 more Democrats than Republicans.
Egan and Danielson won by nearly 18,000 votes in 2017.
Since the district was drawn in 1973, Republicans have never won it.
The 17th includes Milltown Borough, New Brunswick City, North Brunswick Township, Piscataway Township in Middlesex County and Franklin Township in Somerset County.
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