Yes, She CAN Win– She Needs Our Help
When Blue America endorsed AOC against Joe “the next speaker” Crowley, everyone accused us of being crazy and wasting our contributors’ money. When she won, people were gobsmacked. But sometimes the good guys win. Not all the time; sometimes.
This morning I spoke with Maebe A Girl, the only outstanding and potentially history-making candidate running in L.A. this cycle. “Having come in 2nd place out of 9 candidates in 2022,” she told me, “our campaign is confident that we can win the open CA-30 House seat in the 2024 General Election. Our platform of economic equity, human rights, and environmental justice is widely appealing to this progressive district. While other candidates have raised more corporate dollars, our progressive, people-powered support can take us all the way to Washington.”
Look down the page a little. That is a great slate of candidates. Most of them have been endorsed at one time or another by Blue America and there’s not a single one who I wouldn’t vote for. But I won’t be voting for any of them because I live in CA-30, Adam Schiff’s district. He’s running for the Senate not for the House, so it’s an open seat. And the two Democrats who win the primary will face off against each other in November, 2024. So far there are a dozen Democrats in the race. There are also some Republicans running, vanity candidates. The district went for Biden by 46 points— 72.2% to 26.0%. The partisan lean is D+45. That’s a very Democratic district.
Last cycle, two Democrats faced off after they both won the 9-person primary, Adam Schiff and Maebe A Girl. In the general, Schiff who spent $18,036,600 took 71.1% to Maebe’s 28.9%, after she spent $31,579.
60,968 people voted for Maebe— about the same number of people who voted for Congressman John Duarte, after he spent $2,386,991. And in CA-22, the winner, incumbent David Valadao took 52,994 votes to beat Rudy Salas (who took 49,862 votes). Salas and the SuperPACs that supported him spent $14,962,102. Valadao and his SuperPACs spent. The district right next door to ours, CA-34 is represented by Jimmy Gomez and he was challenged by David Kim. Gomez scraped through with 62,244 votes to Kim’s 59,223. Close call. One more time— Maebe spent $31,579 and won 60,968 votes compared to Salas who spent $14,962,102 and took 52,994 votes, about 8,000 fewer voters than Maebe.
Why bring that up? If those 60,068 people vote for Maebe again (in the first round), she’ll win. She doesn’t have much money… money’s flowing into the coffers of the corporate Democrats. But what’s got me all worked ups that she doesn’t have endorsement from the national progressive organizations. Blue America endorsed her; you can help her here. I spoke to the head of a national progressive group who said they didn’t know Maebe was running and they’re going to endorse another candidate— one whose entire political career has been financed by the charter school billionaires.
I’m not finding progressives from outside the district taking Maebe seriously as a candidate… just as a transgender person they don’t quite understand. They don’t take it into consideration that she won an at-large election in Silverlake or that she did so well against Adam Schiff, someone who is absolutely revered and beloved in this district. Six weeks ago, she passed 1,000 individual donors, more than anyone else in the race— not $2,800 donors, small donors giving $10 and $20 contributions. While the other candidates who are trying to claim the progressive lane may say the right things, Maebe shows up; no one else does. When good trouble is being made; Maebe’s there. No one else running for office would even think of such a thing.
Konstantine tweeted this a few hours ago– for something I originally put out MONTHS ago.
If there was a progressive candidate with this much grassroots support who wasn’t transgender, progressive national groups would be flooding them with attention. Because she’s trans they treat her as a gimmick—transgender people are no gimmick. There are some really shitty GOP-lite corporate Dems in this race— like Sen. Anthony Portantino, actor Ben Savage, Mike Feuer, Nick Melvoin and Jirair Ratevsoian. There isn’t a transgender person in Congress at a time when Congress seems obsessed with legislating about transgender people. And there isn’t a grade-A progressive running in my district besides Maebe. Please consider making your first contribution to a supersonic progressive transgender woman here.
And if you live in Hollywood, East Hollywood, West Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank, Silverlake, Los Feliz, Echo Park, Edendale, Tujunga, Linda Vista, Park La Brea, Hancock Park… remember on election day: Maebe for sure.
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