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Twice he asked the voters of South Florida to send him to the U.S. House of Representatives. This page is a factual summary of those campaigns.
2002: U.S. House, Florida District 22
He decided to run on December 5, 2001, and resigned as Vice President of International Sales at Independent Technologies, effective January 15, 2002, to campaign full time. The district then ran along the southeast Florida coast through Broward and Palm Beach counties. The incumbent was Republican E. Clay Shaw Jr.; the Democratic candidate was Carol Roberts.
He began as a Democratic hopeful. The first press reports, in Spain, called him the Democratic candidate, and in April 2002 he attended the Florida Democratic Party State Conference as a delegate from Broward County. On May 11, 2002, he switched to run as an independent, a candidate with No Party Affiliation (NPA). To qualify for the ballot he had to collect more than 2,100 petition signatures by hand, which he finished on June 21, 2002.
“He quit his job as a software executive in January to run for office and spent 75 days in parking lots and beaches gathering the 2165 signatures he needed to qualify as a candidate.”
Motto: “People first, then the rest.” «Para mí la gente es lo primero y luego viene lo demás.»
Themes of his platform, from his campaign site and press coverage:
- universal medical care and prescription-drug coverage;
- better schools and higher teacher salaries, more scholarships on academic merit, and more affordable higher education;
- a simpler, mostly flat tax system;
- alternative and renewable energy and national conservation policies;
- opposition to going to war in Iraq;
- completing the Pan-American Highway and building a tunnel or bridge across the Bering Strait;
- equality for foreign-born citizens;
- multilingual education and a voice for under-represented Hispanic Americans.
He ran the campaign largely on his own savings, with no matching funds and very few volunteers, putting up his own yard signs through the night. He spoke at candidate forums and debates across the district, including the Palm Beach NOW forum, the Human Resources Association of Palm Beach, the Palm Beach Partnership for Aging, and forums at Temple Beth and Temple Torah.
Endorsement: columnist Bob Norman endorsed him in the New Times Broward-Palm Beach (“Enter the Xuna Xone,” October 2002), writing that “he panders to no one and serves as a tool for no special interests.”
Press: the campaign was covered in Spain and Puerto Rico by IBL News, Diario de Pontevedra, Faro de Vigo (a full page on January 31, 2002, “Un vigués, al Congreso de los EE UU”), La Estrella de Galicia, and La Estrella de Puerto Rico, which called him a would-be first “gallego-boricua” in Congress. Televisión de Galicia featured him on its program Encontros in March 2002.
Result: the general election was held on November 5, 2002. His site reported 1,762 votes; official U.S. House Clerk statistics list 1,902 votes (0.9%). Shaw was re-elected.
“I have good memories of the political campaign. I will enjoy recalling those proud moments, when I was collecting signatures or campaigning, and fellow citizens reached out to me, eager to shake my hand. Many encouraged me not to give it up, to fight for justice and pluralism, and against all odds. So I did!”
Afterwards he kept xuna.com online for years, essentially unchanged, “In Memory of the Valiant Xuna for Congress Political Campaign.” Looking back on his hub site, he was proud that “not only my family voted for me,” as often happens to independents, but that almost 2,000 ballots were cast for Xuna: “Given the single-handed effort this was not a minor accomplishment. Elated! It was an exhilarating experience.”
A fellow independent, Orin Opperman, wrote to him after the election (November 8, 2002, “Keep your chin up”): “As a ‘no party affiliation’ candidate what you did is extraordinary, normally only close acquaintances and relatives vote for NPAs.”
2016: U.S. House, Florida District 18
In 2016 he ran in the Democratic primary for Florida's 18th Congressional District and qualified for the ballot by petition. Randy Perkins won the primary; he received 3,394 votes (7.4%).
This is a factual summary. His 2002 campaign sites also included long pages of personal opinion on religion and foreign policy. The family is reviewing those pages, so they are not reproduced or linked here. Sources: xuna.com (campaign calendar, press release, “Main views,” “Issues,” “News,” “Contributions,” “Prensa,” home page 2004–2014); EHXS.com “Politician”; the official vote totals for 2002 and the 2016 primary come from public election records (U.S. House Clerk; Florida Division of Elections via Ballotpedia).