Guam Flips to Republican for First Time in 30 Years

© James Moylan / Provided James Moylan, the former Minority Leader of the Guam Territorial Legislature, is pictured here during a hearing in this undated photo. The Republican became Guam’s first Republican elected to Congress in thirty years Tuesday night.

The first sign of a “red wave” could be lapping on Guam’s shores.

On Tuesday, voters in the Micronesian island territory elected a Republican, James Moylan, to represent it in Congress for just the second time since the seat was created in 1972. His win over longtime Democratic House Speaker Judith Won Pat ends three decades of Democratic federal representation from a territory that supported Democratic President Joe Biden by a near 13-point margin in its national straw poll in 2020.

However, as of 7:42 a.m. local time Wednesday, unofficial results posted to the Guam Election Commission website showed the territory’s Democratic incumbent governor, Lou Leon Guerrero, had easily outlasted a challenge by onetime Republican Governor Felix Camacho by about 11 points, while Democrats managed to hold control of the territorial legislature.

Newsweek has contacted Moylan’s campaign for comment.

Moylan, a member of the Guam Senate, follows a relatively bipartisan political tradition within the territory. While its non-voting representative in Congress has hailed from the Democratic Party since 1992, the island’s voters regularly elect candidates from both parties, though Democrats have controlled all national offices—minus the attorney general’s offices—and the territorial legislature since the blue wave election of 2018.

While Moylan received expected endorsements from figures like former Republican Governor Eddie Baza Calvo, he received support from Democrats in the territorial legislature like Senator Telena Monique Cruz Nelson as well as sitting Democratic Congressman Michael F.Q. San Nicolas, who called Moylan’s bipartisan ethic an “important characteristic for success in the Congress” in a late October statement posted to Moylan’s campaign page.

Moylan, meanwhile, also ran on a platform that included the turning over of some federal land on the island to the Guam government for public use, including large swaths of unused land once held by the U.S. military as part of its extensive holdings there.

But Moylan has also supported the prospect of pursuing statehood for Guam, a touchy subject in U.S. territories who prefer relative autonomy to the U.S. government—including the prospect of opening up the question to all U.S. citizens who inhabit the island, not just natives.

Thank you Congressman Michael San Nicolas for your continued partnership. One thing is certain, that while politics certainly exists in any legislative body, success is only obtainable if you learn…

Unlike territories like Puerto Rico, Guam’s representative does not have a vote in Congress, and determining who has a say in whether Guam pursues additional representation has been a delicate topic within the territory, even as some polling and members of the territorial legislature have renewed calls to pursue it.

“Guam today is a melting pot, and with a court decision requiring an inclusive plebiscite, we need to open the discussion and vote to all American citizens who call Guam home,” Moylan said in an August Q&A with the Pacific Island Times. “This may not be a popular answer for some, but if we were to continue the argument of who should make the decision, we will never get to the next phase of ‘what next?'”

Moylan’s approximately five-point win also represents the closest election there since 2016, when the Democratic incumbent won by eight points. The last time a Republican ran for Congress, he failed to make the runoff, netting just 20 percent of the vote in a three-way election.

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