Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com Look at the recent Political Notes and Len’s Letters on the website. Political Note #366 Tony Evers Wisconsin Governor, Political Note #381 Gretchen Whitmer Michigan Governor, Political Note #360 Aaron Ford Nevada Attorney General, Political Note #367 Josh Kaul Wisconsin Attorney General, Political Note #409 Bee Nguyen Georgia Secretary of State
The following election is scheduled for September 14, 2021
Political Note #386 Gavin Newsom California Governor (The Recall).
The following are up for election on November 2, 2021
Political Note #396 Terry McAuliffe Virginia Governor, Political Note #401 Hala Ayala Virginia Lt. Governor,
September 6, 2021 Political Note #409 Bee Nguyen GA Sec of State
2022 General Election
Bee Nguyen https://www.beeforgeorgia.com is a candidate for our times. While we have withdrawn our troops from Afghanistan, her family has memories of the American withdrawal from Vietnam. She is particularly conscious of the importance of getting Americans, Afghan allies, and partners out of Afghanistan alive. Her family escaped Vietnam after 1975, after all Americans were supposed to have left Vietnam. The family’s experience was from a time when both Republican and Democratic leaders shared in the task of resettling refugees.
Bee Nguyen was born in Iowa. She can thank President Jimmy Carter and Iowa’s Governor Robert Ray for that. Iowa’s Republican Governor Robert Ray had written to President Jimmy Carter saying “Iowa will double the number of refugees from Vietnam that we have already accepted; if you, Mr. President, will only reopen America’s doors.” President Carter did just that. His decision to double the immigration of refugees from what had become a united Vietnam’s Communist regime was unpopular in the US.
Bee Nguyen and her family were beneficiaries of hard decisions taken by moderate politicians from different parties. In 1975, when Saigon fell, her father and two of her uncles were sent to a “re-education camp” – a place of starvation and punishment as her family remembers. A fourth uncle and his wife were evacuated to the US. He had worked for the US Embassy.
Bee Nguyen’s father, Nhuan Nguyen, was 25 years old in 1975 and a pharmacist. Her mother, one of seven children, hoped for higher education. After Bee Nguyen’s father was released from the camp, her parents and other members of their family planned their escape. They took to the sea, blundered, and were rescued by a Thai fisherman who took them to a refugee camp in Thailand. When resettlement became possible, Iowa was the best possible place. Her aunt and uncle were already there.
When Bee Nguyen’s father got to Iowa, at age 28, he focused on study. By the time he was 30, he had an American engineering degree and four daughters. He had opportunities that led him to move his family to Georgia. Bee Nguyen went to Georgia Public Schools and then to Georgia State University from which she graduated with a Master’s Degree in 2012. She doesn’t claim to have been influenced, but she began her Master’s Degree in Public Administration when Carolyn Bordeaux, now a Democratic Member of Congress from GA 07, returned to Georgia State after three years as head of Georgia’s Senate Budget and Evaluation Office. Upon graduation, Bee Nguyen joined the non-profit Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, also in Atlanta, as a Communications Specialist.
Bee Nguyen stayed as Communications Specialist for three years, then managed Sam Park’s campaign for the Georgia House of Representatives. When he won, she became his chief of staff. She stayed in that role until Stacy Abrams left the House of Representatives. She ran and was elected as a Member of the Georgia House of Representatives from the 89th District, the seat Stacy Abrams vacated in 2017 to focus on her run for governor. In the 2017 special election, Bee Nguyen led the open primary by 6 points and won the run-off by five. In 2018, she had no opposition in either the primary or the general election. In 2020, she got 83% of the vote in the primary and had no opposition in the general.
When Bee Nguyen first ran for election, in addition to her budget and policy experience, she could tout her accomplishment founding and leading a non-profit she called Athena’s Warehouse. In 2009, while she was still a student, she had learned about a similar non-profit elsewhere. Athena’s Warehouse offered prom dresses to high school graduates for whom a prom dress would have been too expensive. In exchange for the dress, recipients were expected to contribute time doing community service and to receive instruction on women’s issues. Bee Nguyen runs the non-profit to this day.
In the Georgia House of Representatives, Bee Nguyen was a leader on two issues. One was opposition to voter suppression. In response to claims about voters supposedly living out of state, she got the list, called those on the list, and publicized her visits to them in their homes in Georgia. Her confrontation with the person who created the list is on a frequently viewed video. Although she could not stop the Republican majority from passing a voter suppression statute, she is central to a Democratic movement to ensure that Asian and Pacific Islanders vote and that their mail-in votes are not rejected because of mismatched signatures. (She tells people how much trouble Georgians have remembering how Nguyen is spelled.)
Bee Nguyen was a leader in the effort to identify the murder of six Asian women in three different Atlanta spas as a hate crime. She said the failure to recognize the sexualization of Asian women takes the focus away from their murderer. Unless that sexualization is understood, murderers’ excuses are accepted. The murderer is humanized, while the victims are not.
Bee Nguyen https://www.beeforgeorgia.com is one of three running in the Democratic primary for Georgia’s Secretary of State. She has already raised double the funds raised by the second person in the race. WE can expect her to be the Democratic nominee. Who the Republican nominee will be is less certain. Incumbent Brad Raffensperger is an advocate of voter suppression in the name of avoiding election fraud. Despite his view on voter suppression, Raffensperger is not good enough for former President Trump. He alienated Trump by defending the integrity of the 2020 election. Trump is supporting state Representative Jody Hice in the Republican primary. Hice favors voter suppression and buys into the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Donate to Bee Nguyen’s campaign. A Democratic Secretary of State in Georgia would go a long way toward making certain that Georgia Republicans behave as if they support democracy.
Two states have votes in 2021
The California Recall is on September 14, 2021. You can donate to Stop the Republican Recall to help Governor Gavin Newsom https://stoptherepublicanrecall.com
Virginia votes in November, 2021. Former Governor Terry McAuliffe https://terrymcauliffe.com is the Democratic candidate in a raise against a Republican ready to spend a lot of his own money.
Below are candidates for Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State where there is an incumbent Democratic governor and where the governor’s seat is not considered solidly Democratic. Take a look and see who you would like to provide some support for. We need to defend these seats
Kansas Gov Laura Kelly (Lean D) https://www.laurakellyforkansas.com
Maine Gov Janet Mills (Likely D) https://www.janetmills.com/
Michigan Gov Gretchen Whitmer (Lean D) https://www.gretchenwhitmer.com
Michigan AG Dana Nessel https://www.dananessel.com
Michigan SofS Jocelyn Benson https://votebenson.com
Minnesota Gov Tim Walz (Likely D) https://walzflanagan.org
Minnesota AG Keith Ellison https://keithellison.org
Minnesota SofS Steve Simon https://stevesimonmn.com
NevadaGov Steve Sisolak (Likely D) https://stevesisolak.com
Nevada AG Aaron Ford https://www.fordfornevada.com
Nevada SofS Cisco Aguilar http://www.cisconv.co (not the incumbent)
Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro https://www.joshshapiro.org
Wisconsin Gov Tony Evers (Lean D) https://tonyevers.com
Wisconsin AG Josh Kaul https://www.joshkaul.org
Wisconsin SofS Doug LaFollette https://www.facebook.com/sosdoug
Cook thinks Pennsylvania is a Toss up. The Democratic governor is term limited. We won’t know who the Democratic candidate will be for a while.
More Democrats challenging Republican incumbents in battleground states:
- Nuclear Engineer Chris Jones is attracting interest in Arkansas, a state where a Democrat does not usually attract interest.
- Two Democrats running in Florida have won state-wide elections. Nikki Fried is that state Agriculture Commissioner. Charlie Crist was governor as a Republican before his conversion. It won’t hurt that the nominee will be running with Val Demings, a very strong candidate for the US Senate.
- The most spectacular Democratic candidate has not yet announced. Stacey Abrams is a serious contender for governor of Georgia, notwithstanding voter suppression.
- Once Maryland sorts out is several Democratic candidates, Democrats should be able to recapture the state house there.
- Unlike Maryland, Massachusetts Republican governor can run again. Third time may not be a charm. Democrats could win this time.
- One of two well-liked mayors – John Cranley of Cincinnati or Nan Whaley of Dayton will be a formidable candidate for governor, especially running along with Congressman Tim Ryan who is a strong candidate for the US Senate.
- Don’t rule out South Carolina as a possibility where former Congressman Joe Cunningham or state senator Mia McLeod will run against the incumbent.
- Beto O’Rourke has not yet announced. He may have found that the seat he is best fitted to win is governor of Texas
Organizations to support
Democratic Governors Association (DGA) https://democraticgovernors.org Organizes to elect Democratic governors.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC). https://democrats.org The official organization of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Attorney Generals Association at https://dems.ag works to support and elect Democrats to that post.
DASS or the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State https://demsofstate.org supports people in that role and those running for the office.
Fair Fight https://fairfight.com Promotes fair elections around the country
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