David Hogg

And I really hope that people understand that it doesn't have to be this way.

I truly believe and I know that you do too, Jen.

A better world, a better party is possible.

but that starts with our candidates and it starts with laying a new foundation of them across the country and showing our generation, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, that the Democratic Party is one that you should vote for, not because we're just not Republicans, but because we're Democrats and we actually get shit done, we build great communities and we build a better government that's not beholden to special interests and more than anything is beholden in the way it should be to voters.

Yeah, well, what I'll tell you is at Leaders We Deserve, we have done the work to, you know, we started out with just a couple hundred people on an email list that unfortunately included a few ex-girlfriends of mine that I found out after we sent our first emails.

But that is really how we started.

And we started because we, you know, Maxwell Frost, campaign manager, and I co-founded this organization to find more.

people like maxwell frost and get them elected and across the finish line um because we need that new generation and i'm not just younger you know uh versions of the people that are currently in power right now that are going to only elongate our problem with a younger face but the same donors right but a truly new generation and

Our organization exists to embrace a culture of competition in the Democratic Party.

I think part of the reason why we are in this position is because we have assholes like Stephen Lynch, who've been in Congress since 2001, that when they're saying that they're doing things to fight back against doge cuts, for example, and they're asked to do more to fight back against Donald Trump by one of their Democratic constituents, says, I'm the member of Congress.

You're not the member of Congress.

I am.

If you want to be in Congress, then you run for Congress.

We're happy to answer that call for entitled assholes like that by running people like Patrick Roth, a voting rights lawyer, against him, who has a real shot of winning.

But if we don't embrace a culture of competition in our party, especially in our safe blue seats, the reason we are here and they feel like all they need to do is write strongly worded letters is because they know that for most members of Congress in a safer seat, which increasingly they're going to be after all the redistricting that's happening, that it's essentially a lifetime appointment.

because it is so hard to defeat an incumbent.

But if we actually do challenge incumbents, even if we don't win every single race, when we do win, it means that it can be somebody like AOC who wins because it is so hard to overcome all the advantages they have.

And when they do win, they're so much better than their opponent.

Imagine if we didn't have AOC right now, right?

And even in the case of somebody like Netta, who came within 1,200 votes of her opponent, her opponent then embraced the Green New Deal.