One goal Elena Martinez-Vivot ’21, lifelong resident of Colorado Springs, has always had is to make her hometown a better place. Combined with her passion for empowering marginalized voices, Martinez-Vivot took the lessons she learned at CC to achieve this goal, working in Colorado politics, where she is honoring her parent’s immigration story and creating more Latina representation.
“Being a local always made the political work I carried out in college that much more meaningful, because it was directly impacting my hometown,” says Martinez-Vivot, a former Political Science major and French minor. “Since graduating, I have been able to grow at the statewide level and have taken on many different roles within the Colorado Democratic ecosystem. But it all started with the work at CC and a desire to make my hometown a better place.”
Martinez-Vivot’s work as a student started with her involvement in the Collaborative for Community Engagement (CCE). She also founded the CC Model UN Team and was an active member of CC Democrats. As a sophomore, she worked with the CCE to host a city council debate on campus, and continued with the CCE through her senior year, where she led CC Votes during 2020 and served as the Political Advocacy Issue Organizer under the CCE.
“I owe a lot of my success in this industry to the Collaborative for Community Engagement and the skills they taught me,” says Martinez-Vivot. “The CCE was a space where I could go with any sort of crazy idea and receive support and resources.”
Martinez-Vivot has worked in Colorado politics for the past six years and in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District (CO-08) since 2022. “After taking some time away from Colorado politics last fall, I was looking for a way to get involved this cycle, and constituency engagement and bilingual voter outreach is something I’m deeply passionate about,” she says. So, when the opportunity to work for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) arose, Martinez-Vivot jumped at the chance to continue making a difference in her home state.
Martinez-Vivot is now the Latino Engagement District Director for CO-08, where she works closely with community leaders and stakeholders within the Latino community of the district. She meets with people in person and over the phone, and plans events throughout the community.
“We are working to build a strong coalition of bilingual voters in the district, and I speak Spanish every day to ensure that folks have the resources and information they need to vote,” says Martinez-Vivot. This is an extremely important role for her, as she grew up in a Spanish-speaking household and is the daughter of two Argentine immigrants.
“My Latinidad is central to my identity and a huge driver behind this work for me,” says Martinez-Vivot. “From the very first race I worked on in 2018, I could see that the Democratic Party at all levels was taking the Latino vote for granted, and I’ve been fighting for visibility for the Latino community in the party ever since. Being in this role is very meaningful to me because it is the first time that the DCCC had made a historic 35 million dollar investment in constituency engagement nationally, and my role in this district is part of that investment. I feel that the party is finally giving Latino voters the attention and investment they deserve.”
While Martinez-Vivot is officially with the DCCC, she works very closely with the Yadira Caraveo Campaign for Congress, which is working to re-elect U.S. Representative Yadira Caraveo to Colorado’s 8th Congressional District.
“I first met Yadira in 2022, and since that moment she has served as a constant inspiration to me,” says Martinez-Vivot. “My Argentine heritage is a huge part of my identity and it meant so much to me to be able to be a part of the team to elect Yadira, the first Latina to represent Colorado in Congress, in 2022. And not only is she the first Latina in Congress, but she also represents a heavily Latino district. Representation matters. It matters to know that someone who can relate to my family’s immigrant story is in Congress fighting for Coloradans.”
Martinez-Vivot says that Colorado’s 8th Congressional District is unique in several ways.
“It is Colorado’s newest congressional district, which was created after the 2020 redistricting, and it was created with two primary intentions in mind: to be a toss-up seat so that there would be one true competitive seat in Colorado and to provide representation to Latinos, as the district has a 38.5 percent Latino population,” she says. “From a perspective of Democratic strategy, Colorado’s 8th Congressional District is one of the top five most competitive congressional seats in the entire country. In order for Democrats to win back the U.S. House, this seat is absolutely critical.”
CO-08 includes most of Adams and Weld County with a small part of Larimer County.
“This seat was won in 2022 by 1,632 votes, which falls within the margin of less than 1 percentage point,” Martinez-Vivot says. “We will be fighting until the last minute for every single vote. For me personally, what drives me to win this race is not only the representation Yadira provides, but because of Yadira’s own story. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants who paid her way through medical school to become a pediatrician, and is now the first Latina doctor to serve in Congress.”