How Many Republican Congressman Will Owe The End Of Their Careers To Herr Trumpf

A few days ago Ben Schreckinger, writing in Politico, examined Herr Trumpf's delusional plans to win a general election-- and they're crazier than you would have guessed-- much crazier. Let's start with an assertion from GOP pollster Frank Luntz that Herr, widely seen as a racist, will get the highest percentage of black votes since Ronald Reagan in 1980 (14%) and Herr's own insistence that "the blacks" love him. Trumpf has some black celebrity friends and there are some black people, particularly pastors, who have gotten money from him. They'll vote for him. That's it. Blacks are among the savviest voters in America; they tend to not vote for racist demagogues. If he gets 6% of the African-American vote-- which is the percentage of blacks that voted for Romney-- it will be miraculous.

Schreckinger insists that Herr will inspire "extraordinary levels of working-class white voter turnout"-- folks who feel economic and cultural stress and win states like California, Illinois and New York. Schreckinger assumes he'll be running against the weaker of the two Democratic possibilities-- Hillary-- so doesn't take into account Bernie's appeal to working-class whites. But even as weak a candidate as Hillary should be able to counter whatever enthusiasm Herr generates among the part of the population most stressed by the 21st century with voters who are repulsed by Trumpf's grotesque, circus-like behavior.

The claim that he'll be able to make Bill Clinton's sex scandals somehow relevant to 2016 voters isn't borne out by reality and polls indicate these kinds of attacks are either ignored or actually help Hillary. Trumpf claims women-- like blacks-- love him, but he may be mixing "women" up with hookers. As Megyn Kelly pointed out in the first debate, Herr has called women he doesn't like "fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals... Your twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks, You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees." Yesterday he referred to her as a "bimbo," which, I suppose, is a step up from complaining about her menstrual cycle, the way he has in the past.

A former Trumpf political aide, Sam "Nunberg, asked women in Connecticut who opposed marijuana legalization who they respected more: a politician who is also charitable and a world-renowned businessman, father and grandfather or an 'Elderly woman who not only openly allows her husband to have affairs but tries to silence the women.' The figure with the favorable abstract framing of Trump beat the figure with the negative abstract framing of Clinton by more than 20 points." So all Herr has to do to win the women's vote is sit all the gals down in a big auditorium and frame the debate exactly how he wants to without them being exposed to any counter-arguments. Might as well crown him now! Women do not find him "irresistible." Women I talk to find him repulsive, despite Nunberg's bizarre assertion that "He’s a masculine figure and that will attract women to him. It’s their dirty little secret. They like Donald Trump."

And then Hispanics, the first group of voters he completely alienated. How about this scenario? "After winning the nomination on the first ballot, Trump unifies the party he has fractured behind him and reinvents himself as a pragmatic businessman and family man at the Republican National Convention... Trump minimizes his losses with Hispanics by running Spanish-language ads highlighting his support for a strong military and take-charge entrepreneurial attitude, especially in the Miami and Orlando media markets."

Was Schreckinger just having fun? On an acid trip? 27% of Hispanics voted for Romney. Herr may get half that from fanatic Cuban right-wingers and a few wealthy Republican Latinos with no respect for themselves. But I doubt he'll get over 10% of Hispanic voters. He is, however, inspiring Latino's-- to register to vote (as Democrats) in huge numbers.

If Trump has tapped into disaffected voters this year with his immigration rhetoric, there is also an unintended consequence-- a mix of naturalization efforts, voter registration efforts, and ultimately efforts to mobilize voters off Trump’s rhetoric.

In the last 14 years, the local Culinary Union’s umbrella union, Unite Here, has helped push for 15,000 naturalizations. This year, Unite Here wants to help 2,500 people naturalize by June 1, so they can become U.S. citizens before the election-- in addition to registering 10,000 new voters.

The list goes on: The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) wants to help naturalize 1,500 people, along with five to seven partner organizations. SEIU Florida has helped almost 1,000 people already through citizenship workshops the union does in churches, where people are more trusting of immigration-related services. The Florida Immigrant Coalition-- which works with SEIU, AFL-CIO, and other groups-- hopes to add 1,500 to that number along with its partners.

And then there’s Mi Familia Vota, an advocacy group with a long history of voter registration and naturalization efforts, aiming to help 300 people begin the months-long naturalization process at their first event of the year. Along with partner organizations, the group will help launch the effort in Las Vegas two days before the Republican primaries begin. The nationwide effort led by iAmerica, labor groups like SEIU, and Mi Familia Vota will include events in Colorado, Florida, Texas, and California.

“We’ve seen more people this year that want to become citizens and specifically because they want to vote against Trump,” said Mi Familia Vota executive director Ben Monterroso.

There is a tremendous universe of potential citizens and voters out there. Between 2012 and 2016, the 1.2 million Latinos who had become naturalized citizens were the second-largest driver for the growth in the Latino vote, according to a Pew Research study from last week. And, citing Department of Homeland Security data from 2012, one national organization sees a total universe of 40,000 legal permanent residents eligible to vote in Nevada; 40,000 in Colorado; 80,000 in Arizona; and a whopping 369,000 in Florida.

...[T]here is a measurable, substantial increase in Latino voter registration and voting when there is a clear villain perceived as anti-Latino,” Gonzalez told BuzzFeed News.

“We have a new boogeyman,” said 20-year Nevada veteran Democratic strategist Andres Ramirez, referring to Trump. “We’ve had boogeymen in past years but now we have one at unprecedented levels.”

Republican officeholders and candidates in areas with heavy Hispanic populations are panic-stricken. Republican House Members likely to lose their seats because of Herr Trumpf's racism include Cresent Hardy (R-NV), David Valadao (R-CA), Jeff Denham (R-CA), Steve Knight (R-CA), Daniel Webster (R-FL), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Mike Coffman (R-CO). These 7 Republicans are going to face an energized and determined electorate with a lot more Hispanics than have ever voted in their districts before.

State Senator Ruben Kihuen is the strongest Democratic candidate running against Cresent Hardy in Nevada's 4th congressional district north of Las Vegas. "As an immigrant and an American," he told us yesterday, "I can tell you that Donald Trump's rhetoric and Congressman Hardy's actions offend me. I believe both Trump and Hardy will lose the Hispanic vote and their hateful views on immigration will hurt them with all Americans. But beyond the politics, this is not who we are as a people."

Lou Vince, the progressive Democrat running in CA-25 (Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley), sees it the same way. "We've been dealing with our own Donald Trump in the 25th District for the past two years. Steve Knight has repeatedly demonized immigrants, insulted the hard-working families of our district and voted against the best interests of the 25th District's residents. Whether it's voting to repeal Obamacare countless times after pledging not to, reneging on his campaign promise of supporting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or voting to repeal the estate tax when there isn't a single qualifying estate in the district, Steve Knight has come down on the wrong side of nearly every issue in Congress. Not only do we need to dump Trump, we need to dump Knight in the 25th District. Trump's, as well as Knight's, hateful rhetoric surrounding the hard-working immigrant families in my community has mobilized the Latino community in the Antelope Valley like never before. It's in this community that we will win the election and flip every seat in the Antelope Valley from Republican to Democrat and win this vital seat. That's why Latino activists in the Antelope Valley have organized a "Latinos for Lou" committee and they have been a loud voice for ensuring Latinos get a representative that will stand for their interests. As their slogan goes, "Mi voto es mi voz!" (my vote is my voice).

But this is even going to spill over into Democratic primary races. Former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, a stalwart, proven progressive, is taking on right-wing Democrat Gene Green in a Houston area district that includes Pasadena, South Houston, Galina and Aldine. “Donald Trump," he told us, "is a race-baiting, immigrant-bashing misogynist, who knows exactly what he is saying. He is speaking to the worst impulses of our country, instead of offering ideas to bring America together and to keep our economy moving forward. Trump is trying to insult his way to the Presidency, but our community simply won’t stand for it. Every time he plays for the easy laugh or cheap applause, he is making a huge mistake-- we’re not getting mad, we’re getting organized.” TX-29 is a primarily working-class district that is 77% Latino-- but is represented (poorly) by an old white guy, first elected in 1992, and consistently serving the special interests and voting with the Republicans on issue after issue after issue. Hopefully, the Hispanic political awakening that is going to sweep away a number of conservative Republicans, will sweep away conservative Democrats like Green as well.

If you'd like to help Ruben Kihuen, Lou Vince and Adrian Garcia, you can find their three grassroots campaigns all on the same Act Blue page. Good investment for a progressive Congress!

In September Colorado state Rep. Joe Salazar shared what was happening in the suburbs south and west of Denver and north of the Denver Airport, the 6th district, which includes Aurora, Centennial, Littleton, an area where about a fifth of the population is Hispanic. State Senator Morgan Carroll is looking likely to replace Coffman in Congress, at least in part, thanks to Herr Trumpf.

Congressman Mike Coffman was a loud supporter of the extreme anti-immigrant agenda long before Donald Trump rode his xenophobia to the top of the Republican polls.  Trump may be hogging all the attention and crowding out his rivals, but his outrageous views towards immigrants and Latinos are common in the Republican Party. In fact, it is fair to say that Trump is Tancredo/Coffman 2.0.

Unlike Trump, within the past few years Mike Coffman has been awkwardly running/stumbling away from this anti-immigrant legacy as fast as he can.  In fact, he started learning Spanish-- I know because he attempted to speak with me in Spanish during an event we both attended in 2013.  But, despite his newfound bilingualism, the truth is that Coffman is alarmingly similar to Trump.  Let us take a closer look at the facts:

Birther Movement: Trump and Coffman both questioned whether or not President Obama was born in America.  Coffman was even so bold as to declare that “in his heart” President Obama is “not an American.”  Three years later, Trump is still trumpeting the same sad rhetoric.

Ending Birthright Citizenship: Trump and Coffman both want to end birthright citizenship.  Interestingly, then-District Attorney Ken Buck held a similar position in 2010 when he challenged Senator Michael Bennet for the U.S. Senate seat.  I wrote an op-ed piece on Buck’s patently unconstitutional position by citing an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court case that firmly held that a U.S.-born son of Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment.  The case stemmed from a purely racist attack on Chinese immigrants.  Trump and Coffman’s position is a purely racist attack primarily on Mexican immigrants.  How sad is it that an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court is more forward thinking than these 21st century representatives of the Republican Party?

Building the Wall: Trump and Coffman want to build a wall or fence along the 1,954 mile US-Mexico border.  Coffman actually made a big deal of introducing legislation to complete a fence, which he called an “effective” defense.  This position is laughable for too many reasons to list.  But, let us keep in mind that while Coffman wants to build a 1,954 mile wall, he cannot even manage a disastrous VA project in his own district.

Offensive Rhetoric: Trump and Coffman use hyperbolic and offensive rhetoric towards immigrants to make you believe that all of your troubles are because of somebody else.  The real troubles, however, start and stop with the worst Congress in U.S. history wholly controlled by Coffman’s party.  Maybe Coffman should actually do some work that helps the people.

Although Mike Coffman believes that learning Spanish would endear him to immigrant communities, his rhetoric and record only demonstrate that he is now effective in offending good, hard-working people in two languages.  Let us not forget that he also fought to change the Voting Rights Act to ban multilingual ballots in areas with large populations of non-proficient English speakers (telling people they ought to grab a dictionary).

Redistricting threw Coffman into a Congressional district where he had to face the same people he stoked xenophobic fears against.  Since then, Mike “Tancredo is my Hero” Coffman has been bottling up his true positions, leaving minority communities in the 6thCongressional District feeling concerned that his xenophobia will soon uncork itself.

The Denver Post once said that it has been “difficult to pin him down on specifics.”  The reason why Coffman does not want to give specifics is because it will require him to show his poker hand-- a hand that has a joker in it with the face of a Trump.

How Badly Will GOP Anti-Latino Presidential Campaigns Hurt Their Party In Congressional Races?

Latino Decisions released a new poll yesterday that sought to gage the reaction of Hispanic voters to the tenor of the Republican presidential campaign and how the GOP candidates talk about Hispanic-Americans. The survey included only registered voters and the short version os that "hostile rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates gives Latino voters a strong, negative impression of the Republican Party. The sense that Republicans are hostile to the Latino community has significantly increased since the 2012 election."

Despite Trump's claims that he will "win the Hispanics," the information from actual Hispanics don't bear that out. When asked if Trump's statements that "Mexico is sending immigrants who are drug dealers, criminals and rapists to the United States" and his vow to "deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants" including "any U.S. born children who have undocumented parents" and to build a large wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border, 68% of participants said Trump has given them a "very unfavorable" impression of the Republican Party and another 12% said that they came away with a "somewhat unfavorable impression" of the party. That's 80%.

When asked to describe how the Republican Party feels about Latinos today, 45% said it was hostile, 39% said the GOP doesn't care about Latinos and just 16% said the GOP truly cares about Latinos. This is significantly worse as you can see from the chart below than how Latinos perceived the GOP in 2012, when Romney lost the Latino vote by a very wide margin. In fact, when Latino failed to impress Latino voters only 18% said they felt the GOP was hostile towards them. Today that figured has more than doubled to 45%.

In order of unfavorability this is how the Hispanic voters rated the Republican candidates

• Trump- 71%
• Cruz- 40%
• Rubio- 40%
• Bush- 37%
• Fiorina- 28%
• Carson- 17%

Only Bush and Carson had favorables exceeding-- in both cases, narrowly-- their unfavorables, with Bush at 42% favorable and Carson at 25% favorable (although most of respondents either had no opinion of Carson or had never heard of him-- 58%).

The states polled were Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, Georgia, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Michigan, which are not just presidential battleground states but congressional battlegrounds as well. Combined, these 14 states have right around 4 million Latino registered voters. Most of them-- Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina-- have competitive Senate races and all of them have competitive House races.

Let's take a look at a sprinkling of House races where the Latino vote is expected to be decisive to the reelection efforts of Republican incumbents.

CO-06- Mike Coffman was reelected in 2014 with 141,221 votes (52%) against Andrew Romanoff, a very imperfect candidate with a mixed and confusing record. Although Obama had won this suburban Denver district two years earlier with 52%, Romanoff only managed 42.9% despite it being a D+1 district where 17% of the voters are Latino and where 36.2% of the newly eligible voters are Asian, Latinos and naturalized immigrants. This year Colorado Democrats have a much stronger candidate in state Senate Minority Leader Morgan Carroll, a progressive with widespread support.

NV-04- Cresent Hardy beat Democratic incumbent Steven Hosford last year in a very tight, very low-turnout race-- 63,435 (48.5%) to 59,800 (45.8%). Most of the voters live in Clark County, especially in North Las Vegas and the surrounding suburbs. The district is 30% Hispanic and, district-wide, Democrats have a 46-33% registration advantage. Obama won NV-04 in 2008 with 56% and in 2012 with 54%. The likely Democratic nominee is Blue America-endorsed Ruben Kihuen, a member of the state legislature since 2006 and, more recently the state Senate's Democratic Whip, and an immigrant himself, as a child, from Guadalajara.

IA-03- David Young is a Republican freshman who managed to get into office because of DCCC incompetence in 2014 and a weak opponent. This year the southwest Iowa district, which includes Des Moines and Council Bluffs and which gave Obama wins in both 2008 (52%) and 2012 (51%), has a heated primary with 6 Democrats looking to take on the extremely vulnerable Young. Although just 5% of the voters are Latino, 15.4% of newly eligible voters are Asian, Latino and naturalized immigrants.

FL-27- is a majority Hispanic district (75%) where Obama won against McCain with 51% and against Romney with 53%. The district gets bluer by the day and would be a natural takeover spot for the Democrats except for one problemo-- well, 2 actually: Debbie WassermanSchultz and Steve Israel who adamantly protect their conservative Republican crony Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, usually by sabotaging plausible Democratic challengers early in the process and guaranteeing that Ros-Lehtinen never has a serious election. This year, for example, when you go to the website of the two "challengers" the first thing you see on David Cruz-Wiggins' is a quote: "I am a poet obedient to Christ." He is an anti-Choice/anti-LGBT walking freak show with no business running as a Democrat-- but perfect for the Debbie Wasserman Schultz/Steve Israel sabotage plan. The other Democrat, Frank Perez, is a military candidate with no issues or policy positions on his childish website, just a few paragraphs about his time in the military. There is no District 32 in Florida. 84% of newly eligible voters in this district are Asian, Latino and immigrants. Apparently they will have to wait until Debbie Wasserman Schultz is defeated before they can get a serious candidate against Ros-Lehtinen. I just spoke to a major figure in the Miami Democratic Party who told me that neither will probably be able to pay the fees required to get on the ballot.

Beyond these districts, the bigoted and hateful Republican presidential campaign rhetoric is likely to help progressives win seats across the country, from Suffolk County on Long Island, where Peter King is in jeopardy out to California where Lou Vince is running against anti-immigrant wing nut, Steve Knight, in a newly blue district. Latino voters are lalso ikely to play key roles in electing Blue America-backed Senate candidates in Florida (Alan Grayson), Maryland (Donna Edwards) and Wisconsin (Russ Feingold). If you'd like to help our Senate and House candidates, all on one page, you can do that here. Or by tapping on the thermometer:

A tiny and basically unrelated footnote: Not many people noticed he was running for president but Louisiana's super-unpopular governor (disapproval there is around 70%), Bobby Jindal, dropped out this afternoon. His greatest moment was when he called called Trump "a carnival act," as well as "unstable," & "a narcissist."

His likely successor as governor, John Bel Edwards, on hearing the news, said "The people of Iowa and New Hampshire have come to know what we know: Bobby Jindal's failed policies, the ones that would be continued and expanded by David Vitter, are about promoting self interest over the common interest."

This week's UMass poll found that Jindal's voters (around 1%) will be split 3 ways:

• Dr. Ben 66%
• Fiorina 31%
• Rubio 3%

The kiddie table is going to be even lonelier next time. I guess they could let Lindsey Graham and George Pataki back in. Bye-bye, Piyush...

Good News In Colorado-- Morgan Carroll Is Running For Congress

CO-06 was redrawn some years ago as a true swing district. It snakes around the southern, western and northen suburbs of Denver and includes Aurora, Littleton and Centennial. Long a prime Democratic target, the PVI D+1 district is represented by Mike Coffman, who is far too right ideologically for the moderate district. Obama beat McCain in 2004 59-40%, and beat Romney 4 years later 52-47%. 

The DCCC selected their last candidate, Andrew Romanoff, despite a distinct lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy from the Hispanic community. Environmentalists were also wary of him because of an unwillingness to take a position on Keystone XL. He lost to Coffman 42.99% to 51.90%, despite outspending Coffman $5,145,370 to $4,708,362. Desperate, the DCCC poured $1,953,787 into the race in outside expenditures, and their House Majority PAC threw in another $1,417,124.

While Romanoff ws being handed the nomination, many Democrats were scratching their heads and wondering why the then-Senate majority Leader, Morgan Carroll, wasn't being more aggressively courted for the run. At the time "National Democrats" (which is how the lazy Beltway media refers to repulsive political bosses in DC like Steve Israel) said they were enthusiastic about the prospect of a Romanoff 2014 campaign. Democratic polling early in the 2012 cycle-- in December of 2011-- showed that Romanoff would have been the strongest possible challenger to Coffman that year, according to a source. One senior party strategist praised Romanoff as a potential warhorse nominee against a key Republican opponent.

Early in 2013 we asked Morgan why she had decided not to contest the primary. At the time she felt show could accomplish more for her constituents by leading in the state Senate. Today she is back on DWT with a very different message. She's running in 2016.

College Affordabity
by Morgan Carroll

This week, I was proud to announce my candidacy for Congress in Colorado's 6th District. This will be one of the most competitive races in America. My message of economic populism and a record of achieving real results for everyday families in the State Senate is how we will win this race.

There are many issues we will address in this election-- from jobs to Social Security to surveillance to my opponent's record of harmful votes to the people in this district or his failure to lead on long overdue reforms.

But one issue that I've worked on in Colorado and am excited to campaign on from Day One of my congressional campaign is college affordability. Specifically, I believe every student should have access to debt-free college at public colleges and universities. I believe interest rates are obscene and the lack of adequate merit- and need-based scholarships has reduced college opportunities from even a generation ago.

Right now Americans owe $1.2 trillion on their college loans. That’s more than we owe on all of our credit cards put together. Student debt is hurting our economy -- preventing young people from starting small businesses, buying their first home, and starting families. Tackling the college-debt crisis by making college debt-free is an investment in our economy's future, just as the G.I. Bill resulted in a 7-to-1 return on investment for our economy. Failure to act has meant people either cannot go to college or if they do they are facing decades of crushing student-loan debt. I know what this means firsthand, because I, too, am still paying on student loans even though I worked my way through college.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the think tank Demos issued a white paper showing that we can achieve debt-free education at all public universities and colleges through federal aid to states, increased aid to students, and innovation to reduce the underlying costs of college.

This is doable. It's also extremely popular. A poll by the Progressive Change Institute showed the debt-free college issue is supported by 71% of Americans while only 19% oppose it. Even Republican voters support it 56% to 33%.

On this and other populist ideas, what we need are leaders who will make this a campaign issue, win a mandate, and get the job done in Congress. That vision, and my record of passing major bills into law in the Colorado Senate and achieving real results, is what I will present to voters.

If this is the kind of campaign you support, I invite you to stay in the loop with us by signing up at www.carrollforcolorado.com.

Why Senator Morgan Carroll Is Not Running For Congress In Colorado's 6th District

Exactly a week ago, we looked at the congressional primary shaping up for the pivotal 6th district in Colorado, currently held, though only barely, by right-wing extremist, Mike Coffman. His radical right ideology no longer fits a newly drawn moderate suburban district. Last week we looked at the possible candidates and posited that the new state Senate Majority Leader, progressive stalwart Morgan Carroll, would be the best candidate to take on Coffman. But like our friend Chris Larsen in Wisconsin-- the Democrats' state Senate leader there, she feels she can accomplish more in the state legislature than in Washington, DC. I asked Senator Carroll to explain her perspective about staying in Colorado instead of going to Congress. Below is the guest post she penned for us:

Making A Difference... For Real
-by Sen. Morgan Carroll, SD 29 Aurora & Eastern Arapahoe

The future of a Democratic majority in the U.S. House, invariably goes through CD6 in Colorado. This is a district we can and should win. CD 6 is a highly diverse district filled with pragmatic voters are concerned with getting and keeping a job, paying the bills, and wanting their kids to have a good education and future opportunities to succeed.

I live in the heart of this district and know it very well. I am grateful to all who have approached me to run for this office. As much as I would love to run and win this Congressional District, I will not be running for Congress in 2014. I am in the unique position of returning to the Colorado State Senate with Democratic majorities in both chambers and a Democratic governor. I have been elected by my colleagues as Colorado Senate Majority Leader which means that I have an incredible opportunity to help shape the platform and public policy priorities that we run and pass in Colorado (i.e. for working families, civil rights, consumer protection, investment in education, election reforms, addressing climate change policies and common sense reforms addressing gun violence).

We have a chance here in Colorado to deliver real and meaningful reforms that will make a significant difference in people's lives. To some people, Congress might be a "higher office," or a promotion of sorts. Yet, Congress in its current form, is dysfunctional. The current rules (lack of single subject, optional public hearings for bills, optional decisions to bring anything up for a vote, and the ability of one person to stop all action in the U.S. Senate) sentence the American people to paralysis. From my perspective I would be giving up a certainty of making a difference in favor of a very real possibility of joining a U.S. Congress that can't get anything done.

The good news is that I think we will have several good choices in candidates to run for this seat and who will help take the need for reform back to DC. Joe Miklosi had the courage to announce and run before redistricting was even finalized and was in the unenviable position of needing to make up for lost time after the maps were settled. He did important ground work to clearly show this is a new district and Congressman Coffman's far right-wing rhetoric and obstructionism is not a good fit for the new district.

So far, I believe some of the potential candidates include former Speaker of the Colorado House, Andrew Romanoff, and former State Rep. Karen Middleton. Many others have raised the idea of Rep. Rhonda Fields, who is another rising star in the Democratic party. All of these candidates would be pro-choice and pro-equality. This district is ripe for a progressive populist to run and win. The right candidate for this seat is the candidate that is on the side of regular people.