“What made you change?” That was a question I got from a voter after a long conversation about my campaign, and how I made the decision to run for the House of Delegates. A lot of people, I think, answered this question differently, whether they had been a past volunteer, an active community participant, and even a disaffected voter. For me, it happened last year, during the 2016 Democratic primary for President. Before that, I had been an active volunteer with numerous causes, especially for the environment, but I had not felt particularly inspired to work for candidates.
Bernie Sanders changed that. His message of equality and caring for the working family helped me realize that I had to take action. Meeting like-minded Democrats who wanted to unify the party showed me that I was not alone. But I also discovered that our goal of unity could address a real challenge in our party: local elections. In Virginia, our House of Delegates was the victim of the “Red State” plan; a long-term Republican scheme to take control of every state legislature across the country for the purpose of changing the constitution. Other Democrats and I felt there was a real problem that we could address together.
So in August, I founded Progressive House VA, an organization designed to recruit and train candidates alongside the Democratic Caucus to run in districts that had gone unchallenged in recent years. Not only did we want to make every district across Virginia competitive, we were also ensuring that Republicans had to work in every district and earn every vote. An added benefit is that they would have to spend money defending themselves rather than ganging up against a handful of Democrats. With a small group of motivated and organized grassroots activists, and the urging of many public office holders, we began looking for candidates all across Virginia in districts we knew were competitive, but without a recent Democratic challenger. Because of our activism, we helped bring strong candidates like Elizabeth Guzman and Ken Boddye into the race. As of today, we have helped inspire a movement that has 85 seats for the House with active, competitive races - up from just 21 in 2015.
For me, it was more than just fighting back. It was transformational. I became a leader in the Democratic Party; not because I sought to divide and force my way to the table, but because I saw a problem and worked to address it. As I continued to work I found that I couldn’t just be on the sidelines. President Obama told us “Democracy is not a spectator sport!,” so I decided to lead from the front and run for the seat in my own House of Delegates district. We need Democrats who are not only knowledgeable about political issues. We need do’ers, leaders that know how to bring Democrats together under a banner, not divide us by identity or past experience. We all have a part to play, and I am eager to be that leader in my district and across the Commonwealth.
Tom Brock, Candidate for VA HD-21
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