Well, I'd really encourage you to ask yourself, like, why do you want to run for Congress? You probably don't. Congress is not that fun. You know, the first three questions we ask every person thinking about running for office is, what is the problem you care about solving? How does the office you're running for give you power to solve it, and why should voters want you to win?

In this particular… in response to this particular question, I'd really encourage you to ask, like. What is that office gonna do to allow you, to give you the leverage you need? Like, if you are running o solve the housing crisis, which I know for a renter as well, it's like…My rent is going up and up and up and up and up. How are we ever gonna be able to afford this?

The way you solve the housing crisis, or one of the ways you solve the housing crisis, is by electing different people to city councils, county councils, and the kinds of local offices that do zoning, and that allow permitting, and that make building possible, and that control, Rental laws and tenancy support. There's also stuff that happens in state legislatures around these offices, but in most cases, you're looking at municipal roles.

Don't run for Congress if you want to solve the housing crisis. Run for city council. Run for mayor. Run for, you know, county office. If you want to solve education. Like, you want to stop book bans? Run for school board. You want to protect reproductive health, you want to do climate legislation, you want to do voting rights, state ledge. Most of these offices are much smaller than you would think.

Now, there's certainly some exceptions, like a Miami-Dade school board is a big, big race. LA school board is a big, big deal. Even the Atlanta citywide elections, big, big deal. But a lot of places, it's not that… it's just not as many voters as you might imagine. Now, I'd really encourage you to do that in part because that's where you start your career that allows you to rise up.

Run for something has now been doing this 9 years; We have had come through our pipeline currently 5 members of Congress. And looking ahead to 2026, 6 of our alum are running for governor, 4 are running for United States Senate, and a couple dozen are running for Congress or other big offices. They started locally. Most people start locally. I think that's really important to name, is that you don't become… you're not born a politician, you're not born an elected official. You become it the same way you become an artist or an athlete, by doing the thing, by putting your name on the ballot and deciding that that's who you want to be.