(Jewish Group) Vermont state senator whose grandfather died in Holocaust wins congressional primary

[Behind the Aegis]

A state senator who says the story of her grandfather’s murder during the Holocaust galvanizes her will be the Democratic candidate for Vermont’s single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Becca Balint, who has been a state senator since 2015, won Vermont’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, easily fending off her main competitor, Molly Gray, the state’s lieutenant governor. With Vermont a reliably blue state, Balint is all but certain to become the state’s first woman representative in Congress.

Balint was endorsed by Vermont’s progressive Jewish senator, Bernie Sanders, as well as by a host of progressives from across her state and the country.

Balint has long said that her family history inspires her political activism. Balint’s Jewish grandfather was murdered by the Nazis during a forced march from the Mauthausen concentration camp; her father survived and moved to the United States in 1957.

more...