Breakdown of El candidato que ganó las elecciones es abogado.
ser
to be
que
that (relative pronoun, conjunction)
el abogado
the lawyer
ganar
to win
Questions & Answers about El candidato que ganó las elecciones es abogado.
Since el candidato is a person, why do we use que instead of a word for 'who' like quién?
This is exactly how relative clauses work in Spanish! While English switches between 'who' for people and 'that/which' for things, Spanish uses que for both when it directly follows the noun it describes. You usually only use quien after prepositions (like con quien - 'with whom').
Why does the sentence say es abogado instead of es un abogado?
When stating someone's profession in Spanish, you leave out the indefinite article (un or una). You would only add it if you included a descriptive adjective, for example: es un buen abogado (he is a good lawyer).
The English translation says 'won the elections', but we often just say 'won the election' in singular. Can I use la elección?
You can, but Spanish speakers generally prefer the plural form las elecciones when talking about political voting processes. La elección is usually reserved for the general act of choosing or making a single choice.
Why is the past tense verb ganó used here instead of ganaba?