Candace Valenzuela knows what its like not to know if your family members will have a roof over their heads, or if theyll be able to pay the bills. Thats why, she says, she would make a great member of Congress.

A lot of people in this country respect the pull yourself up by your bootstraps story. But a lot of folks miss the point. We have a lot of people in Congress who can talk about all this in the theoretical sense, but they dont know the anxiety of not being able to pay the bills, of the pit in your stomach of not knowing if you have a home tomorrow and going through that repeatedly, Valenzuela said.

Valenzuela, 36, won her Democratic primary runoff in Texas 24th Congressional District, stretching between Dallas and Fort Worth, in July. She will face Republican candidate Beth Van Duyne in Novembers election for the open congressional seat.

If Valenzuela wins, she will be the first Afro-Latina congresswoman in the nations history. She said shes running to give children the opportunities she had to go from living through a stint of homelessness as a child to being the first person in her family to go to college.

If you have so much say over a system that is life or death for many Americans, somebody has to have experience with it, said the former educator and mother of two who has lived in federally subsidized housing, used food stamps and attended public schools.

Democrats are hoping Valenzuela will flip the seat blue . The district, currently represented by retiring Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas), is a toss-up, according to political analysts. While Trump won it in 2016, Democratic former Rep. Beto ORourke won it in his 2018 Senate race. And the 2018 Democratic challenger for the House seat lost against Marchant by just 3 percentage points .