Ricky Hurtado

Hurtado was raised in Sanford, North Carolina, the son of immigrants from El Salvador.^[2] He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a Morehead-Cain Scholar.^[3] He also received a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University.^[4]

From 2010 to 2013, Hurtado worked as a consultant at Frontline Solutions, a business management consultancy service in Durham, North Carolina. He then worked as a public policy intern for the mayor of Philadelphia and for PolicyLink in Oakland, California. As a graduate student, Hurtado was also a teaching assistant at Princeton University. In 2018, Hurtado founded LatinxEd. He has also worked as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education and as the executive director of the Scholars' Latino Initiative at UNC-Chapel Hill.^[5][6] Hurtado was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in November 2020. When he assumed office, he became the first Latino Democrat to serve in the General Assembly.^[7]

He was defeated in the 2022 North Carolina House of Representatives election in a rematch with Stephen Ross.^[8]