Deja Foxx is many issues: an organizer, a candidate for Congress, and a reproductive rights advocate. However there’s one factor that she isn’t, regardless of the headlines you could have learn.
“I’m not an influencer,” she tells me with a smile. “I’m a pacesetter.”
Foxx, 25, has been typically described as a “Gen Z influencer” within the many information articles masking her distinctive and viral marketing campaign for the particular election for the Home seat in Arizona’s seventh Congressional District, the first for which shall be held on July 15. The race was known as following the dying of longtime consultant Raúl Grijalva in March, and the primaries shall be one of many first instances voters will choose candidates for nationwide workplace for the reason that election of Donald Trump final fall.
Foxx could be the youngest girl in Congress if elected, however she’s no stranger to politics. At 17, she went viral for confronting then Arizona Senator Jeff Flake about his stance on Planned Parenthood at a city corridor, and he or she hasn’t stopped since. Whereas a highschool pupil after which a pupil at Columbia College, she has continued to advocate for Deliberate Parenthood, labored on digital technique for each Kamala Harris’s 2020 and 2024 campaigns, and even spoke on the Democratic National Convention. And sure, she’s actually good at social media, with half 1,000,000 followers throughout platforms.
So when the seat opened up in her dwelling district, Foxx appeared on the present state of American politics, on the now-decade of organizing work underneath her belt, and thought to herself, “Why not me?”
“I’ve held a number of totally different job titles,” she tells me by way of Zoom. “I’ve labored at a gasoline station, I’ve been a digital strategist on a presidential marketing campaign. I’ve been a content material creator in entrance of the digital camera, and now I’m a candidate for Congress. However I need greater than something to be a very good function mannequin. And each single day I do know I’m attaining that objective. I intend to win on the poll field, however I rack up wins each single day.… In a second the place folks really feel so hopeless as a result of issues are arduous, as a result of Donald Trump is making a circus of our authorities and he’s placing households within the crosshairs, it could possibly’t be overstated how essential it’s that somebody like me is transferring folks towards hope once more.”
Foxx chatted with Glamour about how her background influences her work, how Democrats can embrace change, and the way different younger ladies can get entangled.
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Glamour: You’re operating for Congress within the district the place you have been born and raised. How would you describe your background?
Deja Foxx: I used to be raised by a single mother. She and I relied on Part 8 housing, SNAP advantages, which some of us know as meals stamps, and Medicaid. I used to be a free-lunch child in our public colleges right here. In order that was my introduction to politics; the issues I wanted to outlive and simply get by being determined by folks in elected workplace who as a rule felt actually distant from households like mine.
Packages like SNAP change primarily based on elections and who’s in cost. How did you come to appreciate that these belongings you relied on have been, essentially, political?
As a child, you solely perceive issues the way in which that they’re in entrance of you. You don’t have a comparability of what’s occurring in different folks’s homes. So there wasn’t this “aha” second of, Oh, it’s elections deciding these things. It was the lived expertise of there being years the place our meals stamps would get minimize. There could be more durable months or Part 8 visits the place they’d come and examine our home, and which may appear to be selecting up further chores to verify the home was prepared. So it was a lived and day-to-day expertise. There have been moments of comparability about being a free-lunch child at public faculty when different youngsters’ mother and father may pack them Uncrustables and the entire name-brand snacks. Nevertheless it was clear to me that our household was affected by the issues occurring within the information and in Washington.
I used to be raised within the period of Obama, which was a really totally different political understanding. When Obama bought elected, I used to be eight years outdated. I used to be so full of hope. It felt like issues have been bending towards justice, issues have been going the suitable manner. After which by the point I used to be 15, Donald Trump was operating for president, which I feel blows some folks’s minds—that for the final decade and for many of my political understanding, Donald Trump and his chaos and cruelty have outlined the political panorama.
You have been concerned in political advocacy beginning as a young person. How did you might have the moxie to leap into it at such a younger age?
For me, politics was all the time about survival. My very first organizing reminiscence was seeing my mother and my neighbors make sufficient collectively. Everyone had a deficit of their home: Anyone was quick on payments, any individual’s automotive was damaged down, any individual wanted a babysitter, however my neighbors knew one another. We talked, we frolicked collectively, and we made sufficient collectively.
I take into consideration the ways in which when my mother was between jobs, and I imply she labored each odd job you could possibly think about. She delivered flowers, she labored at a submit workplace, she cleaned homes. She was a caregiver for the aged, and when she was between jobs, she would step as much as babysit so certainly one of our neighbors may tackle an additional shift and since they took on that further shift, they could have gasoline of their automotive to drive me to highschool after we didn’t have a automotive. And so I actually watched as my neighbors got here collectively to beat the ways in which they have been made to not have sufficient in one of many richest international locations on this planet.
At 15 you made the troublesome determination to maneuver out of your mother’s dwelling as she battled habit and moved in along with your then-boyfriend and his household. How did that issue into your political origin story?
I lived there till I went to school…they weren’t of us with an entire lot further to offer, however they made house of their dwelling to deal with me like their very own youngster and take me in. On the identical time, I used to be studying intercourse schooling in my public faculty. It was the one place I used to be going to get it. The curriculum I used to be taught was final up to date within the Eighties. It didn’t point out consent. It was medically inaccurate and extra ridiculously, it was taught by the baseball coach.
So I began displaying as much as these faculty board conferences and telling my story, which was a really weak story, one thing I hadn’t shared but. You can think about being a teenage lady, the very last thing I needed everybody to find out about me was that I didn’t have a house of my very own and that issues have been sort of tough. But I confirmed as much as these faculty board conferences and through group calls, I stood in entrance of a crowd and shared the story and demanded that they replace this curriculum. I invited my pals alongside to do the identical. And after six months of organizing, we gained a victory to replace that curriculum in Southern Arizona’s largest faculty district. That was my first true advocacy battle.
You went to Columbia College, moved again to Arizona, and at the moment are operating for Congress at 25. Why run now?
I really feel a deep sense of duty. I wasn’t born on a path to Congress. I’m operating in opposition to somebody whose father was the previous congressman. For me, this has been a tough selection. I needed to ask, Can my family and friends deal with this? Do I even have the cash to get by way of this race? I’m no profession politician, however I’m on this as a result of I really feel a deep sense of duty to households like mine who’ve essentially the most to lose…there’s a way of urgency for me and a duty to my group, to my household, to my pals, to offer them a fighter on this second. As a result of what I hear most on the bottom is that folks don’t really feel like anybody’s combating for them proper now.
What do you say to those that say you don’t have sufficient “expertise” or are too younger to run?
Let’s be clear. Once we speak about our social gathering, it’s two items: the institution and the voters. Proper now, they aren’t in settlement. The institution goes round and of their stump speeches, each single certainly one of them says, “We want newer and youthful leaders. We want a brand new technology of management.” They usually get applause. And but, when newer and youthful comes round…I’ve watched them put their thumb on the size, endorse in a major, a Democratic major the place we’ve got multiple good candidate, the place we’ve got the chance to make historical past and elect a brand new technology of management. And so in motion, our social gathering is failing a brand new technology of leaders. Then, after we take into consideration the voters, they’re excited, they’re open to youthful leaders.
What have you ever skilled in your marketing campaign? Are voters open to a youthful chief?
I’ll inform you that other than the opposite 20-somethings, the people who find themselves essentially the most receptive to our message are these older of us. They need so badly for somebody to tackle the struggle, to choose up the torch and know that what they fought for was not for nothing. That somebody will hold that work alive. We hear it on a regular basis. I simply knocked on a girl’s door, and I gave her my speech that I’d be the youngest member, first girl in my technology, I’ve been combating for reproductive rights for the final 10 years. And he or she mentioned, “Younger girl, you simply inform me what to do. You younger of us want to simply inform us what to do.”
I feel there’s this type of created narrative that as a result of older individuals who sit in positions of energy are unwilling to cede them, that implies that all older voters are unwilling to elect a teen. That’s not true from what we’re listening to. These older of us are extra excited than anybody else that they’re seeing younger folks present up and that they’ve an assurance that their struggle shall be saved alive.
We’re in an period of rampant misogyny in politics. What new power will you convey into the Capitol, and the way do you fight this fast hate?
Let me be clear. I bought my first dying risk after I was 16 years outdated, however operating for Congress is a completely totally different expertise. It’s a distinct expertise for somebody like me, a younger working-class girl of coloration, than it’s for a number of the different folks in my race or your conventional candidate. I’ll simply offer you one instance. While you file your paperwork to run for workplace right here in Arizona, you’re required to record your residential tackle, primarily self-doxxing and placing your delicate data into the general public file. That is sufficient to hold a lot of the ladies I do know out of politics. There are structural limitations to participation, and I’m much less secure right this moment than I used to be three months in the past. I need folks to listen to that and know that although you see me on social media and it seems like unbelievable power and momentum as a result of it’s, I’ve taken, slightly, I’ve made this determination. In all seriousness, I’ve crossed a threshold. I’ll by no means have the ability to stroll again.
I do it as a result of households like mine, ladies [who grew up] like me who’re 16 years outdated and dealing on the gasoline station and counting on Deliberate Parenthood deserve a fighter, and I’m not going to attend round for any individual else to do it. It’s with a deep sense of duty and private threat that I’m on this race.
The Democratic social gathering clearly has rebuilding to do earlier than the 2026 midterms. What do you assume wants to vary?
I’ve labored behind the scenes of campaigns, and I’ve been on the entrance traces as an activist on the bottom and a content material creator on-line studying the remark sections. Democrats consider that we will govern from the highest down—that’s, if we craft the proper press launch and message, all people’s going to hop on. That’s not how our media ecosystem works anymore.
We should be coming from the remark sections up. We should be listening to folks. One thing our marketing campaign applied that I’m actually happy with is that on our coverage part of our web site, there’s a field on the backside. You need to see one thing, depart us a suggestion. We don’t have to attend till we’re in workplace to take heed to our constituents. We host listening periods typically proper right here in my front room the place we sit with folks they usually inform us their tales of what these Medicaid cuts may imply to them. It’s a distinct query of how we govern, and Democrats are failing to pay attention. If they’d, they’d be embracing candidates like me who’re energizing and mobilizing the younger folks and the working-class folks we’ve got left behind.
What’s your recommendation to different younger ladies who need to be concerned in politics or activism within the period of Trump?
Politics is private. It’s for me. You don’t must run for workplace to get entangled politically. I’m asking of us to search out the difficulty that personally impacts you. The place does your life overlap with what you see within the information? After which, get actually particular in your private story. Possibly you begin by journaling it or telling a buddy or speaking about it at Sunday dinner with your loved ones. The following step needs to be mobilizing your private community. You present as much as that protest for the primary time or that faculty board assembly, however then the subsequent time you go, you convey your daughter otherwise you convey your finest buddy or your neighbor alongside. That’s how we’re going to create change.
