2018 won’t just be a year that decides whether Democrats win or lose Congress, it will define the Democratic party and its priorities for the next generation. Are we progressives looking to improve our country and reach higher for big goals like Medicare for All or 100% clean energy? Or are we just a shade less conservative than Republicans and our elections are more a matter of stopping the other side rather than promoting us?
Every week we read some breakdown of this existential struggle in Democratic politics. I am not going to focus directly on this, but I am going to tell my adjacent story on the fight for our party’s soul in the 39th congressional district.
First, a little bit about the 39th congressional district, we are a top 10 seat to watch according to the Washington Post. We are a fixation among national pundits because Hillary won our district by nearly 9% and we are one of the youngest and most diverse pick-up opportunities for Democrats this election. We also happen to house the Nixon library and the John Birch Society was founded here, so there is some history that influences perspectives on our community.
I decided to run for Congress in the 39th district because I grew up in the community and had been home for the past 3 years working in clean energy. Each year I would come back, our community became much more diverse, but our political leadership represented the old, conservative Orange County of yesterday. This was a problem before Trump, but, with so much at stake, I decided to run because we needed new voices that fit the district. As a Latino, Arab American and millennial running in a district that is 35% Latino with a sizable Arab American and immigrant population and an average age of 39, I felt it was time to have someone who represented us for who we are in 2018, not 1982 when I was born.
Truth be told – I decided to run because I was concerned not just about Donald Trump, but also who we are as Democrats. I grew up in a working class home. My dad worked at Jack-in-the-Box and my mom was a teacher’s assistant. I have been working since I was 16 and took out a lot of loans to work my way through college and law school. I used to clean suites at Angels Stadium, bus tables at restaurants and work retail jobs to help pay for school and support my unpaid internships in progressive politics.
And, while each election cycle, I would knock on doors telling voters about how Democrats are fighting for working families, we slowly moved away from that. So much so that when I served as a Chief of Staff in Congress, it was sometimes hard to recognize the party I grew up with.
As the Republicans inched towards Trumpism the past several years, we became the “less crazy party” that was more socially accepting and could work with business since, well…we weren’t crazy. Somehow our focus became less on whether a family could afford a home or the cost of college and more on how to cultivate ties with big business.
While I don’t think we shouldn’t work with business – especially small and local businesses – something just wasn’t right. Every conversation on Capitol Hill centered on fundraising and access with little attention to workers and families trying to stretch a dollar. So I left to work in clean energy since I felt the only way to make change was to get out and build something.
And this is why I am now running. We need to get back to being the Democratic Party of regular folks and this is our chance to rebuild the party.
But my race has evolved in to more than just a battle over who we are and how we prioritize, its become a question of the role of money in politics and what it means to represent a community.
You see – I am the only candidate in our Democratic field who lives in the 39th district and I am the only candidate not self-funding. While I would love to self-fund, my student debt and paltry savings from a career in public service prevent that.
Instead I have raised a half million dollars with over 3,000 donors, yet, even as I raised the most in our field this past quarter, my three self-funding opponents have poured $5 million of their out of district fortunes into our race. Two of them are mega millionaires who are purchasing any endorsement available and sending a mailer a week to our voters. One of them – after years of donating to Democrats in DC – was paid back by making the DCCC’s Red to Blue list.
While I don’t begrudge people who worked hard and earned their success, we already are facing a fundamental disconnect between Washington and our communities. People don’t trust or like Congress, which makes it next to impossible to govern. Having worked up there, something tells me that the best way to address this disconnect isn’t to send an out of district millionaire to represent our community.
More so, I am concerned that we are establishing a new precedent this election cycle – only millionaires need apply for Congress. The rash of self-funders across the country should alarm any progressive. Just because we might agree with them on some issues, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to field an army of 1 percenters when the fundamental issue of this election is whether the economy can still work for the middle and working class.
What message does this send to a public who already isn’t sure the Democratic Party really represents working people anymore? How do we credibly say that Trump and Republicans are out of touch with regular people if only parade multi-millionaire candidates?
But more so, are we really going to allow the voices of regular people to be drowned out by a handful of wealthy elites? Was the resistance really about replacing their rich guys with ours?
Fortunately, its not working here in the 39th district. In spite of millions already spent by two of our out of district millionaires, the race is a statistical tie. All of our Democrats are in the margin of error of each other.
This means our grassroots campaign has a chance to win. We already won 66% of the first place vote from our local Indivisible chapter and are picking up all the local support from community groups across the district.
But more importantly, it means voters are expecting more than just expensive, consultant-driven campaigns that say nothing, but send a lot of mail. Voters want representation and leadership that fits our community.
As Democrats who care about the future of our party, the fight for our soul depends on whether we stand for progressive values. But it also depends on whether we are going to be the party of regular people or millionaires. I need your help to show DC that we still aspire to be the party of regular people, not just millionaire donors.
If you can help, please donate today. Our election is June 5th and we are in our final push.