FAQ

Because the Democratic Party is supposed to be the party that fights for working people, and Kevin Mullin is not doing that. He inherited his seat through a political dynasty, takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate PACs and AIPAC-affiliated groups, has missed more than three times the median number of votes in Congress, and has zero enacted laws to show for his time there.

I am not running against a Democrat. I am running against a system that protects incumbents who play the game over people who actually do the work. CA-15 is one of the most safely Democratic seats in California. The Democratic nominee is going to win the general. The question is whether that nominee is going to be someone who fights or someone who coasts.

It means this campaign does not accept money from corporate political action committees, super PACs, or any group whose purpose is to launder corporate or industry money into political campaigns. Every dollar comes from individual people. The maximum any one person can give in a primary is $3,500, and most contributions are far smaller than that.

It matters because money shapes votes. When a politician takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry, it is not a coincidence that they end up voting against drug pricing reform. When they take money from defense contractors, it is not a coincidence that they vote for every defense budget. I will not be in that position because I will not take that money.

A Gold Star family is a family that has lost an immediate family member in military service. The term comes from the gold star service flags that families displayed during World War I and II to indicate a loss. My brother Andrew was killed in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2004. He was 20.

Honestly, you don't. Nobody does. Every politician says they won't sell out and most of them eventually do, because the system is built to make selling out the path of least resistance.

What I can offer is this: I have spent my career exposing fraud in systems that punish people for telling the truth. I called out one of the biggest defense contractors in the country and the retaliation cost me my career. If I were the kind of person who folds under pressure, I would have folded then. I didn't. That is the closest thing to a guarantee I can give you.

Hold me accountable. If I run for reelection in two years and the donor list looks anything like Mullin's, vote me out.

On the issues this district actually cares about, the differences are substantial. I support Medicare for All. I oppose unconditional military aid to Israel and voted with my own deployment record that I will not support more weapons funding while a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding. I support a federal renter protection framework, real anti-monopoly enforcement, and criminal liability for executives who cause environmental disasters.

But the bigger difference is what I am willing to say out loud. Most members of Congress hedge every position because their donors require it. I am not hedging because I am not taking that money.

California uses a top-two primary system, which means the two candidates with the most votes in June advance to November regardless of party. In a five-way primary against an incumbent in a deeply Democratic district, the math is hard. Making the general would itself be a significant result.

If we don't make it, the campaign is still valuable. Building a volunteer base, surfacing issues, holding the incumbent accountable on his record, and laying groundwork for future organizing are all worth doing. This is not a one-shot effort. It is the start of a longer fight to make this district's representation match the people who live in it.

Yes. I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps the day after my brother was killed in Iraq in 2004. I served from 2004 to 2008, deployed to Iraq during the Second Battle of Ramadi, was wounded by gunfire, survived two IED blasts, and lost close friends. I came home with a 100% permanent and total disability rating from the VA, including PTSD and a traumatic brain injury.

Mullin has never served. Combat veterans are a small minority of Congress. Members who have also lost a sibling to combat are vanishingly rare. The defense and foreign policy decisions made in Washington are made overwhelmingly by people who have never had to live with the consequences. I have.

Volunteer. Knock doors. Phone bank. Host a meet-and-greet in your neighborhood. Talk to your family, your coworkers, the parents at your kid's school. Share posts on social media. Bring a friend to a town hall.

Door-to-door canvassing is the single highest-impact thing a volunteer can do for a campaign like this. Word of mouth from a neighbor moves more votes than any ad we could afford to run.