Democrat’s viral campaign video could be trouble for tea party Republican in deep-red Texas
An Air Force veteran’s biographical and cinematic campaign ad has gone viral — receiving nearly 2 million viewers in just five days — and could give the Democrat a chance in the heavily Republican 31st Congressional District of Texas.
“Apparently, being his constituent and a veteran wasn’t enough to get a meeting. I guess I also needed to be a donor,” she says in the ad. “So now I’m running against him, taking on a system that cares more for campaign donors and political parties than protecting our country.”
Reached for comment, Carter’s campaign called Hegar’s claims about him “absolutely untrue.”
Carter was elected in 2003 after a close Republican primary and an uncompetitive general election. He’s been reelected without any significant threat from Democratic opponents — perhaps until now.
A survey from Public Policy Polling in November found that only 35 percent of the district’s constituents want him back and 57 percent think it’s time for someone new, but he still wins 46 to 40 against a generic Democrat — only six points. When respondents were asked about a Democratic veteran, that candidate was favored by two points, 46 to 44.
Yahoo News reached out to Hegar to learn more about how the video came to be. Below is our edited exchange.
I think there is this sense of “you’re not important” or that you can only get to the front of the line if you’re a high-dollar donor. I had one person say to me once, “Don’t forget me when you go to D.C.” I said, “Wait, let me be clear. Your donation says to me that you agree that we share values and that you think I’ll be effective in fighting for us.” If that’s what you mean, then I’ll be fighting for us in D.C. I think we need more of that. We need more people who are not willing to promise people the moon just to get their money.
I really believe in my heart that people in general — whether that’s different ethnicities, religions, genders, backgrounds, accents, socioeconomic statuses or anything — really need a government that’s more reflective of our population. And until we have that, we will have representatives, a majority of whom are representing their own self-interests and the future of their careers. We’ve got to hire more servant leaders. I think that’s a great thing about the wave of veterans running. Veterans understand what it means to put the good of the country ahead of their lives. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of this improve until we have people in office who frankly don’t need to get reelected for their ego or résumé. They just are serving their time as long as their constituents want to put them there. Now, unfortunately, the system is set up to put up barriers [in front of] everyday people who want to run for office. That’s something I’m working on trying to tear down here in my district. I’m trying to support good people up and down the ballot.
I have a very realistic view of what a freshman congresswoman can get done. I’ve been mentoring with members and been in D.C. lobbying to stop bad legislation in the past, successfully. It’s really more about what I can do at home. Now, I do have things I want to accomplish in D.C., but the No. 1 priority is constituent services and making sure that the district I’ve grown up in and love has representation and has a way for constituents to communicate and get help when they need help navigating the bureaucracy in government. And advocating. I find it personally offensive when representatives say they know how to advocate for groups without going to those groups and saying, “What are your experiences? What things worked? What things haven’t worked? What are the obstacles you had to overcome? What can we do to make things better and collaborate?” I definitely want to fight for marginalized communities, fight money in politics, fight toxic hyperpartisanship. Those are my three big things.
Probably the same thing that has moved our race from “strong red” to “likely red” in a couple of polls. I have lived here almost my whole life. I know this district. This is not your typical red district. Most people here don’t like to self-identify as one party or another. There’s a lot of disenfranchisement on Democratic votes in Texas. A lot of “Oh, this is a red state. If you’re a Democrat your vote doesn’t count” — not to mention voter suppression of different minorities and other groups that tend to vote more heavily Democratic. I would say that the majority of people in this district don’t like to say, “I’m a member of this party or that party.” They’re discerning. They like to vote for the person: someone with character and integrity who will represent them. We have more veterans in this district than in 97 percent of the rest of the country. There is no longer a party of the military. Maybe 20 to 30 years ago, Republicans were the party of the military. I don’t think that’s true anymore in the information age. I think that the reason I’m confident we can win is my district is hungry for representation. While there have been other good people on the ballot against John Carter, those people haven’t been able to gather the type of resources it takes to communicate to voters that they are good people and will represent them. We’re presented with a real opportunity here, and I know we can win.
I’ve taken on uphill battles before. Becoming a pilot was no easy feat, 150 enemy fighters to our nine, suing the secretary of defense: all of those things were done intentionally, after I looked at the data, saw the path to victory and did what it took to win. This will just be my fourth.
Oh, yeah, very much so. I feel I have the exact opposite personality type than you’d think would run for office. I’m actually quite introverted, a personal and private person. I’m a truth sayer, which I did not think would be a good thing in politics. I’m blunt and don’t mince words. But more and more those are things people are looking for in leadership. When I decided was 2017. My littlest one was about 5 months old, and I was considering running after someone asked me a couple weeks earlier. He woke up in the middle of the night crying. He didn’t want a bottle and he wasn’t wet. I was trying to figure out what was going on. I was bouncing with him and singing to him. He was clearly scared of something, like he had his first nightmare or heard a noise. And I started saying things like, “It’s OK, honey. Mommy’s here. I’m going to keep you safe. I’m going to take care of you.” It dawned on me that if I meant those things, short of wrapping him in bubble tape and not ever letting him leave the house, I needed to go out and do what I could in the world to make it safe, healthy and happy for my children. I want them to be able to love whoever they choose, practice whatever religion they choose if they choose, travel, breathe air, drink the water and grow up with the American Dream the way that I did.
I see it on both sides. It disgusts me to hear people want to tear down some of the progress we made during the Obama administration, specifically to undo the man’s legacy. And then I’m also seeing people say things like “I hope North Korea doesn’t denuclearize because that would be a big victory for Donald Trump.” Both of those things equally offend me. We need to talk about what’s right for the country and accept it if it was somebody else’s idea. Just, “You know what, it wasn’t something that came out of my party, but it was good for the country.” Don’t gut and disable things just in the hopes that they’ll fail because you’re scoring some political points on a high school football scoreboard. This issue really fires me up. I’m sorry. I’m so sick of people putting their careers, résumés and parties ahead of this country and its people. That’s what I’m going to go fight.
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