{"id":92048,"date":"2019-10-23T22:15:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T22:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/democrat-announces-candidacy-in-effort-to-unseat-rep-scott-tipton\/"},"modified":"2019-10-23T22:15:01","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T22:15:01","slug":"democrat-announces-candidacy-in-effort-to-unseat-rep-scott-tipton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/democrat-announces-candidacy-in-effort-to-unseat-rep-scott-tipton\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrat announces candidacy in effort to unseat Rep. Scott Tipton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Iacino\"
Iacino<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Political newcomer James Iacino, a Democrat, has joined the race to unseat Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, in the 3rd Congressional District in 2020.<\/p>\n

Since his family immigrated to Colorado 117 years ago, Iacino said he has \u201cdeep Colorado roots and deep Colorado ties\u201d in an interview this week with The Journal<\/em>. As former CEO of Seattle Fish Co., based in Colorado for 101 years, Iacino has traveled throughout the 3rd Congressional District, and by speaking with restaurants, grocers and customers, he said issues in the district are \u201cnot being adequately represented in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iacino recently moved from Denver to Montrose in the 3rd Congressional District, where he\u2019s had an office for six years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve expressed to me that they haven\u2019t been able to get ahead and a lot of that can be solved with better representation,\u201d Iacino said. \u201cMy wife and I have talked for years about moving to the Western Slope, so I think this was an opportunity to move there and be with more people in the district and offer them a better solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iacino noted three key issues he would address should he serve as representative: economic mobility, affordable health care and preservation of public land.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would focus on providing access to jobs that are good-paying that can help raise wages and build the middle class,\u201d Iacino said. \u201cThere needs to be opportunities for people to succeed when the median income in the district is significantly less than the rest of the state, and a lot of people are having to work two to three jobs just to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Improving job creation goes along with preserving public lands, Iacino said, because the outdoor recreation industry helps \u201cdiversify our economy and grow jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a sustainability perspective, preserving our water and preserving our lands for future generations is something that I\u2019ve been passionate about,\u201d Iacino said. \u201cI know that there are a lot of concerns with what\u2019s going to happen with our public lands and how Colorado is going to be as beautiful as it is now, a hundred years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with improving job creation and sustainability, Iacino said people in the district and throughout the state do not have access to \u201cgood, quality affordable health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

To square off against Tipton, Iacino must win the primary election against Democrats Diane Mitsch Bush, Root Routledge and Donald Valdez.<\/p>\n

Should he win the primary, Iacino does not expect the general election to be an easy, given that Tipton has held the seat for 10 years. However, Iacino believes he can provide the leadership he said is lacking in Tipton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that a lot of the problems in D.C. today are that representatives are not paying attention to what matters most to the people they represent and are caught up in the drama in Washington,\u201d Iacino said. \u201cHe (Tipton) is leaving Colorado behind and is not doing anything about issues important to his constituents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iacino said through his experience as a businessman and with the moderate message he brings, he will have a \u201cgreat shot at winning this seat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that today in politics, nothing is a given and nothing is assured,\u201d Iacino said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a difficult race, but we\u2019re going to get out there, talk about the issues, meet with the people and get our message out. That\u2019s how we\u2019re going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ayelet Sheffey is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Journal.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iacino, former CEO, recently moved from Denver to Montrose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5766,5938,5764,5737,5736,5735,5763,5765],"tags":[981,663,266,28,265,23],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-92048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","category-democratic-party","category-election","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-news","category-politics","category-u-s-rep-scott-tipton","tag-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","tag-democratic-party","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-politics","tag-u-s-rep-scott-tipton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92048"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=92048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}