Abigail Spanberger investigated money laundering and narcotics distribution for the US Postal Inspection Service. Her constituents have been intrigued by her subsequent work with the CIA. She was an operations officer. She collected intelligence while living overseas. She recruited and managed assets. She was an American spy.
Andy Kim is the son of poor immigrants from Korea. They expected a lot of him and got a lot. He went to the unusual and rigorous Deep Springs two year College and then to the University of Chicago where he earned a Truman scholarship. He went to Oxford, earned a Rhodes and a PhD. He went from Oxford to Washington and Kabul. He worked with generals in Afghanistan, then as he Iraq Country Director for the State Department and the Director for Iraq at the National Security Council.
Harley Rouda both brings money to the conversation and is a moderate. He is the son of a Columbus, Ohio real estate magnate. Harley was the CEO of the real estate conglomerate. He consolidated firms from Kentucky to northern Ohio. He is also a former attorney who specialized in capital formation. In this predominantly Republican district, the DCCC wanted the more moderate Democrat as its top vote getter. Rouda was the candidate the DCCC supported.
Betsy Dirksen Londrigan was raising money for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation when her son nearly died from a tick bite. Helping her son recover took nearly took years of her life. She decided to run for Congress when her her Congressman voted to abolish the Affordable Care Act and the inadequate replacement nearly passed the Senate.
A cancer survivor with a political interest in health care, Clarke Tucker is a graduate of Central High School in Little Rock, Harvard, and the University of Arkansas Law School. He is a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, one of its few Democrats.
Antonio Delgado earned a Rhodes Scholarship at Colgage. Oxford then Harvard Law School. He spent five years in Los Angeles creating a hip hop record label and recording rap that was committed to social justice. He went on to practice law for Aikin, Gump, moved to upstate New York where his wife was from and where he is running for Congress, hoping to be one of the rare African Americans to represent an overwhelmingly white district.
A law professor at the University of California - Irvine, Katie Porter has credentials to spare. She is a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School, a protegee of two of the most powerful women in the country -- Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Senator Kamala Harris of California. At Harvard Law School, she was Elizabeth Warren's student. She worked for Kamala Harris when Harris was California's Attorney General. Like both of them, Porter is a consumer advocate.
Anita Earls graduated from Williams College and Yale Law School. From Yale, she joined the Ferguson, Stein Law Firm, a distinguished, predominantly African American firm in Charlotte. She was there for ten years, becoming a partner. Anita Earlsspent two years as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton administration, three years Director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and four years as Director for Advocacy for the University of North Carolina's Center for Civil Rights. From 2007 to 2017, Anita Earls was Executive Director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
Jenny Wilson was press secretary for Democrat Les Aucoin from Oregon. She was chief of staff for Democrat Bill Orton from Utah. She is a Councilwoman in Salt Lake County. She has been elected twice to an at-large seat on the County Council. One third of the people in Utah live in Salt Lake County where she received a majority of the vote twice.
Jared Golden left college to join the Marines. He served four years in Iraq and Afghanistan. His transition to civilian life was not easy. Jared Golden was discovered working in a pizza joint. A Bates College Dean talked with him and persuaded him to apply. With their help, he renewed his life. He returned to Afghanistan to teach. He worked for Senators. He ran for office and progressed in the role. Now he is running for Congress.