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2020 General Election
Almost 60 million Latinos live in the United States. About 3.5 million Arab-Americans live here. Mixed marriages happen. Odds are. A few Latino-Arabs live in this country. Only one has run for Congress – Ammar Campa-Hajjar https://www.campacampaign.com. He lost in 2018. By 3 points, fewer than 10,000 votes. He lost to Duncan Hunter, one of two indicted Republicans who ran for reelection in 2018.
Ammar Campa-Hajjar is back for more in 2020. He is leading in the polls right now. I mislead you with that statement.
California has a non-partisan primary. The top two face each other in a run-off. Ammar Campa-Hajjar is ahead of the pack with thirty-one percent, That puts him 11% ahead of the next candidate. The next candidate is a Republican. So are most of the other candidates trying to get into the two-person run-off.
Ammar Campa-Hajjar is the only Democrat running strongly. He will make the run-off for this district in the northern and eastern suburbs of San Diego. He has a base there. Thirty percent of the district’s population is Hispanic. But as a whole this is Republican territory. The district has had three Republican Congressmen since 2003. A Democrat can succeed. Kamala Harris carried CA 50 by 10 points in her race for Senator in 2016. Trump carried the district by 15 points the same year.
A word about Ammar Campa-Hajjar’s grandfather. He was executed by the Israelis. He was among those assassinated in retribution for the massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches in Munich.
Ammar Campa-Hajjar has condemned his grandfather’s role in the massacre. A recently published book claims several Palestinians were mistakenly assassinated by Israel, among them his grandfather. The book claims several of those assassinated were not involved in the Munich massacre. Ammar Campa-Hajjar continues to condemn the Olympics killing, but is now unsure whether his grandfather was involved.
A word about Ammar Campa-Hajjar’s life in Gaza. His Palestinian-American father moved the family to Gaza when Ammar Campa-Hajjar was nine years old. They moved back to escape violence when he was twelve. Ammar Campa-Hajjar’s take away from his experience there was the importance of finding a peaceful settlement of the differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Ammar Campa-Hajjar’s life in the United States is primarily a product of his Latino side. Like his mother, he is Roman Catholic. He converted when he was in high school. He grew up poor. Worked as a janitor while in high school. Went to community college before graduating from San Diego State. His mother found a way to live a little bit of the American dream. Not only through her children. From working at Walmart, she has moved on to work in real estate.
Politics was more his father’s life. His father’s pivotal experience was watching his parents’ execution. He escaped to the United States as a child. He returned to Gaza with his family to work with Yassar Arafat, to work for the Palestinian National Authority. Ammar Campa-Hajjar doesn’t say, but you have to think that the family return to the safety of the United States was his mother’s idea.
Twenty-three years old. Not long out of San Diego State, Ammar Campa-Hajjar become President Barack Obama’s deputy field director for the San Diego area in the campaign for a second term. That role got Ammar Campa-Hajjar a job in the Labor Department. Even better. That role got him an assignment reviewing letters to the President; selecting the ten letters the President would read before going to bed.
Ammar Campa-Hajjar’s stint in the Labor Department led him to a committed belief in apprenticeship programs, to a job as the communications and marketing director for the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and to a decision to run against an indicted and vulnerable Member of Commerce. He wanted to campaign on domestic issues. He stressed the importance of fixing the income and wealth gaps in the United States. During his 2018 campaign, he could not, escape Gaza. Accusations that he was supported and funded by the Muslim Brotherhood were proved false. Despite his opponent’s claims, he did not seek and was not endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He condemned his grandfather’s actions and explained he was not responsible for them.
Ammar Campa-Hajjar has name recognition in the district now, an identity that goes beyond a name which is two-thirds Arab. He is unlikely to become a new member of the Squad. He is working on closing the gap between 31% support in the polls and the 50+% he’ll need in the eventual two-person race.
After the 2016 election, Ammar Campa-Hajjar wrote an op-ed essay for the Washington Post. He declined to blame bigotry for his election loss. He wrote “I love this country because it’s a place where the ultimate comeback stories are written — including my family’s own story. Only in America can the son of a Hispanic woman from the barrio and an Arab man from an occupied territory have the freedom to reimagine his life and pursue his dreams. I spent my early years with my family under siege by American-made helicopters and F-16s that leveled entire buildings on the block where we lived. And then, just as surreally, I spent the second part of my life working for the U.S. government, entrusted with serving the American public. It’s not the perfect love story, but I know what I’ve witnessed in my life is nothing short of an American miracle.”
Ammar Campa-Hajjar is conscious of the role bigotry, hatred, and violence has had in his life. He recalled a childhood resolution not to cry even in the face of terrible events, a resolution made when his grandmother was turned away from visiting the family in Gaza just before the intifada was about to start.
Ammar Campa-Hajjar recalled instances when he resisted crying then wrote: “Just before the inauguration in January 2013, I stood gawking at my new workplace — that grand, glorious, mysterious structure on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where Lincoln still walks at night. After not being considered Arab enough in Gaza, Latino enough for the barrio, or American enough in my own country, after so many shut doors, the door to all others finally opened. On that day, in those hallowed halls, I cried. The pain was given purpose: to live to tell you this story and to give others hope.”
This is a young man worth supporting. Ammar Campa-Hajjar https://www.campacampaign.com will be one of the two candidates to make the run-off. With enough support, with a little bit of good fortune, he could get himself elected to Congress. Help him do that.
Expand the House majority. Win the Senate. Succeed in the Midwest. Look at my Notes. Google them. Think about who to give some money to.
WEST Notes so far:
Arizona: Mark Kelly for Senate
California:
CA 10 Josh Harder for reelection, 14th closest Dem win in 2018
CA 21 TJ Cox for reelection, closest Dem win in 2018
CA 39 Gil Cisneros for reelection, 11th closest Dem win in 2018
CA 48 Henry Rouda for reelection, 27th closest Dem win in 2018
CA 50 Ammar Campa-Hajjar, lost 51-48 in 2018
New Mexico:
NM 03 Xochitl Torres Small for reelection, 6th closest D win in 2018
Oklahoma:
OK 05 Kendra Horn for reelection, 3rd closest Dem win in 2018
Texas:
TX 07 Lizzie Fletcher for reelection, 15th closest Dem win in 2018
TX 23 Gina Ortiz Jones, lost by .5% in 2018
TX 32 Colin Alred for reelection, 24th closest Dem win in 2018
Utah
UT 04 Ben McAdams for reelection, 2nd closest Dem win in 2018
Washington:
WA 08 Kim Schrier for reelection, 21st narrowest Dem win in 2018
