Sweet Home resident, business owner and city councilor Angelita Sanchez announced she has been elected as an at-large delegate for Oregon as an elector for next month’s National Convention.
“I think the people of this community should know that they’ll have representation at a grassroots level at the highest level,” Sanchez said.
During the Delegate Selection Convention in Salem on May 25, Sanchez was elected fourth out of 56 spots for Oregon Republican delegates and electors. As one of 10 Oregon at-large delegates, Sanchez will be at the National Convention voting for who she believes the Oregon precinct committee persons want her to vote for; namely, Donald Trump.
“Being a part of this convention at this historic moment in time, for me, is super exciting,” Sanchez said. “And being from this town representing the people of my community and this county over there, I just never thought I’d get the privilege.”
The small business owner said she never wanted to be a public speaker, but she sort of fell into a political leadership position going as far back as 2012 when she felt her work industry was threatened.
“I never thought my voice mattered. Never really wanted to get up in front of people. But because I stood up for our way of life and my business against laws that would have put me out of business, it’s just, there you are.”
The mother of three has worked in the trucking and forest industry since 2008. Eight years later, she started her own business as a truck driver hauling gravel and the like, mainly for road construction. In 2019, Sanchez became a founder of Timber Unity to help defeat the Cap and Trade bill.
Sanchez will fly to Wisconsin in mid-July where she will not only attend the National Convention, but also take the opportunity to tour the “Little White Schoolhouse,” or the Republican Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisc., where the Republican Party was formed in 1854 to fight against the expansion of slavery into other states. She will also use some free time to explore the countryside.
“I’m really looking forward to that, (seeing) the rural way of life out there,” she said.
It’s the 50,000 people inside an arena that has Sanchez a little more wary because, she said, it could be an overstimulating experience. She also anticipates having to walk through a protest zone as attendees head to the arena.
According to Sanchez, there has been pressure placed on the Secret Service and City of Milwaukee to move the protest zone, but relocation plans have not happened.
“So there’s this big secondary type thing going on with the right to free speech and the protest zone and protesting this convention,” Sanchez said.
The seventh-generation Oregonian wanted to make it clear, though, that although she stands for the Republican Party, as a city councilor she takes seriously her role as a nonpartisan and keeps her approach balanced.
“I really do feel nonpartisan in my city council role, whereas this is my republican business, (my) trucking blue collar business role,” she said. “Because of the state of the economy and the drugs that are being funneled into our state, and all the things that are an abysmal failure by the current administration, we have to change that, or I’m out of business. A lot of people are out of business. A lot of kids are dead on the street because of fentanyl overdose. All the things.”
When asked what she looks forward to if Trump becomes president this next term, Sanchez said she looks forward to a booming business.
“I know he’s not everybody’s favorite, but I was working a lot when he was in office,” she said. “I love to work and I love to employ people to have jobs.”
Citing inflation as one of the biggest factors to a slow economy affecting her industry, there’s less work to go around now, she noted.
“The gas prices are really important to me. Inflation’s really important. Interest rates are really important,” she said. “I’m more of a checkbook type of republican. We all just want to work and be self-sustaining, at least in my mind, which is why I got involved in Timber Unity because I was on welfare, I was on housing, I was on food stamps. I wasn’t about to let them put me back on that because I worked really hard to get off of those things and I want to be able to work.”
For Sanchez, having Trump as president would provide hope that some things could balance out, “but if President Joe Biden is reelected, I might as well just shut down.”
She admits, too, that she’s pretty excited to be part of a once-in-a-lifetime moment in history that will likely involve a re-match between President Joe Biden and Trump, not to mention the fact she’s “just a little blue collar trailer park girl” representing her city and her state to get Trump to that re-match.
“It gives a little bit of hope that somebody local can be a part of this process and represent small town Oregonians.”