There's never been any doubt for me that those of us in Virginia are in for a hell of a fight this year; but anyone that might've had lingering doubts, or the shadow of a hope we could have a low-key election cycle has had to face facts. Since Ron DeSantis has apparently decided to sue Disney instead of run for President, Governor Glenn Youngkin apparently smells blood in the water and has decided that his national political ambitions can be bought.
And when I say "bought", I mean it. See, as I mentioned the week he was picked in the Republican convention of 2021, Glenn has more actual cash than Donald Trump ever did. And since Virginia has no campaign finance laws whatsoever- Virginia politicians can take unlimited amounts of money from any source, and use them on anything at all (Caribbean vacations and down payments on yachts, for example), this is a recipe for disaster of an unprecedented magnitude. There is a Senate race in Northern Virginia where a Republican billionaire has openly said he wants to buy his kid a seat in the Virginia Senate, and promised to spend as much as it takes to do that.
But campaign finance hasn't been a priority for us in Virginia. Every year, milquetoast measures to ban even just using campaign expenses for personal use somehow- incredibly! - get killed in committee.
I wish I could say I'm surprised. But I'm not.
Do you know what the very first question I was asked when I reached out about running for office in Virginia? In the wake of Trump's election in 2016, when I decided I wanted to take on the most entrenched incumbent, the third most senior Republican in the state, in a district he gerrymandered for himself in a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" agreement, I said "Nobody has run against this guy in a decade; he is the Republican money man. We cannot let him go unchallenged. What do I need to do to take him on?"
They asked me one, single question to determine my worth to run for office.
One.
And it wasn't about my community ties. It wasn't about the work I've done in the ER, the gun violence I saw, the abortion care I provided, the tragedies I see everyday. It wasn't about the work I did with Obama Rapid Response in 2008, with Obama for America in 2008 and 2012, with Congressman Tom Perriello in 2008 and 2010, gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds in 2009. It wasn't about the work I did in the Charlottesville city elections of 2011, or the work I did for the Clinton campaign in 2016.
The one, and only question- asking about the issue that was most pressing for them- was, simply: "Can you write yourself a $200,000 check?"
Think about that. Not only was I not asked about any of the positive things I mentioned above, but I also wasn't interrogated to see if I was serious about community change, about being a progressive; about whether or not I was just grifting or had ulterior motives. All of those things were secondary concerns, if they were even concerns at all.
Now, my answer to that question- as it would be for 99% of the country- was an unequivocal "no". I could've maybe understood if that was the first question in a series of them; as part of a whole at vetting candidates. But it wasn't. That was the only question. And when I protested, when I brought up why I thought I'd be a good candidate, I was met with disinterest at best; in fact, the only time that changed was when I told them that I provided abortion care in the ER, when I was told I could never, ever tell anyone that, implying I might cause Democrats across the Commonwealth to lose alongside me.
We had a chance to change things, when Democrats held a trifecta in the state government. But it would've meant we had to stop going out and finding candidates that can self-fund, and start finding candidates who work for a living. Who are connected to the problems faced by everyday people. Who worry about being able to pay their bills and put food on the table for their kids. We'd have to go out and find people who really want to fix stuff because they understand first hand the cost that will be incurred if they don't.
But that's what we have to do: empower the people who are making things better at a community level. We have to stop catering to an endless parade of lawyers, extremists, and opportunists. We need to end the poison of corporate and dark money that corrupt our representatives and make a mockery of our democracy.
As a party and as a system, we need to make it easier for people from every walk of life and from every zip code to be able to stand up, make their voices heard, and run to represent their communities. We need to enable people to run for office who are connected with what's going on on the ground in their community; people who are there all of the time, not just when it's convenient to parachute in or to blow money on carpet-bombing TV commercials.
The Republicans will always, always be able to race to the bottom faster and better than us. They have more dark money behind them. They know they can’t in any other way. We will never win that fight, so why we continue to attempt to is beyond me. Instead, we need to change the game, change it in exactly the way that the American people want it to be changed.
That's why I focused on building a grassroots campaign, built on the power of thousands of supporters. With individual donations than any campaign in Virginia primary history. It wasn't easy to do, working full-time night shifts in the ER. But I knew it's what would set me aside from the Republicans. And since our district was un-gerrymandered, going from R+25 to D+21, I knew I had to stand up and be an example- there was no excuse for doing anything different.
Now I have a Republican opponent again, one who is only running because of a promise of unlimited money from Governor Youngkin and his allies. I'm taking it seriously, but my confidence is unshaken. We have to go to Richmond and finally fix our broken campaign finance system, finally step up to protect our democracy- once and for all.
We have to- and we will.
We will win this race.
We will flip this seat.
And we will send a message in doing so, not just here in Virginia, but across the country, of what that kind of change looks like. What it takes to build that kind of movement. And how we can undercut the Republicans in a way they can never challenge us on.
Join us today. Help us take that fight to the Republicans. And let’s bring progress to Virginia- together.
Kellen Squire is an emergency department nurse from Charlottesville, Virginia, running for the Virginia House of Delegates. Donate, volunteer for, or get the word out about our people powered campaign today!