You can vote early at any of the Early Voting Sites in the county where you're registered until February 28th.
Nida Allam is running to build a brighter future for the Research Triangle, where our democracy works for all of us and everyone has access to a living wage, affordable healthcare, a great public education, and a livable planet. Together, we can do more than just dream about a better tomorrow: we can build it, together.
Addressing the climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our generation. We have less than 10 years remaining to prevent irreversible damage to the planet, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. But the truth is, the climate crisis is already here. Extreme weather events like hurricanes and record-breaking heat waves are already devastating our communities — and Black, brown, and working-class communities are on the front lines of this crisis.
I support a Green New Deal because we need to invest in solutions that meet the scale of the climate crisis. We can transition to a green energy economy and put millions of people to work with good-paying jobs in the process. Those in power have let fossil fuel companies wreak havoc for far too long. They’ve polluted our air and water and knowingly lie about their contribution to global warming. In Congress, I will fight to end fossil fuel subsidies and oil and gas leases on federal lands because the fossil fuel sector doesn’t need any more government handouts. Instead, I will work to bring federal dollars back to the communities most impacted by the fossil fuel industry’s reckless behavior and fight for a just transition for the workers in this industry who are most at risk.
Everyone deserves a good-paying job and to be treated with dignity in the workplace. But in North Carolina, the minimum wage has remained at $7.25/ hour for the last 13 years, even as the cost of living has increased. North Carolina’s disastrous right-to-work laws have rigged the system in favor of big corporations; they’ve denied North Carolina workers the opportunity to bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions.
While serving on the Durham County Board of Commissioners, I raised the minimum wage for all county employees to $19/ hour. In Congress, I will fight for that wage on a federal level, consistent with the current cost of living in NC-04, for all workers, including tipped workers, because no one should have to work multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their head and provide for their family. I support the PRO Act, legislation that will expand labor protections and ensure all working people are free to organize in the workplace.
In the wealthiest nation on earth, everyone deserves a good-paying job. I support a federal jobs guarantee that will put people to work on tackling the biggest challenges we face, such as fighting climate change, repairing our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and bolstering the care economy.
Our healthcare system is broken and failing to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our society, and our leaders are not rising to the occasion. Before the pandemic began, over 1 million North Carolinians were uninsured, and over the course of the pandemic, an additional 250,000 people lost employment-based insurance. Those who do have health insurance often still have to jump through hoops to get the care they need, and high premiums and deductibles put a strain on family budgets. Our current healthcare system might work for insurance company executives, but it certainly doesn’t work for working families in our district. And with Donald Trump and the GOP's cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, the situation will only become more dire unless we change course.
I believe healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. I support Medicare for All, which would ensure that everyone can receive the healthcare they need, regardless of their income. Everyone deserves comprehensive high-quality healthcare coverage that includes primary care, vision, hearing, dental, mental health care, reproductive health care, and more. Our broken healthcare system also means we pay far too much for prescription drugs — more than twice that of other wealthy countries. I support the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Act, which will allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices on behalf of Medicare recipients and reduce costs for everyone.
Every child deserves a quality public school education, not just students who live in wealthy communities. North Carolina’s public education system was once the gold standard, but now public school students don’t have the resources they need to succeed. For my generation, the growing cost of higher education and the burden of student loan debt means we aren’t getting our shot at the American dream. All of our students deserve better.
In Congress, I will fight to cancel student loan debt and to make tuition-free public colleges and universities a reality. I will also push for increased Title I funding, so schools in communities with high poverty rates have the resources they need for all of their students to thrive. I support expanding the Full Service Community Schools Program, which equips schools to provide a full range of social services to students and their families. We must ensure all students and families have reliable and affordable broadband access, no matter where they live. We must return North Carolina to its roots as a national leader in high-quality, universal education.
Our right to make healthcare decisions about our own bodies is under attack. As a mother of two children who struggled with fertility challenges and even survived an ectopic pregnancy, this fight is personal for me. The nationwide crackdown on abortion rights is threatening the lives of women across the nation, particularly here in the South. We need to end the agenda of pronatalism and forced birth that Republican legislatures are inciting.
In Congress, I will fight to make sure everyone can make their own healthcare choices. I support the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and end the assault on reproductive freedom being carried out by Republican state houses and the courts. As a member of Congress, I will fight to repeal the Hyde Amendment, a law that prevents low-income Americans from accessing abortion care, and ensure reproductive healthcare is central in our fight for Medicare for All.
NC-04 is one of the most LGBTQ+ inclusive districts in the South, a welcoming home for thousands of queer and trans North Carolinians who raise their families — and meet their chosen families — in our towns. Every year, we assemble together for Durham Pride and proudly proclaim that y’all means all. In the face of ongoing attacks on the LGBTQ community at the state and national levels, especially for our trans neighbors, my imperative will be to fight for nondiscrimination at the federal level — to reverse the horrific backslide that threatens civil rights, healthcare, and livelihoods of LGBTQ+ Americans.
At the county level, we proudly uphold one of the most robust nondiscrimination ordinances of any city, town, or county in North Carolina. As a commissioner, I helped lead the board to streamline the process for legal name change, cutting back on the red tape and bureaucracy that exacerbate the challenges of transition. And on a personal level, when Trump’s culture war restrictions threatened the county budget for Pride, I led our community to fundraise $20,000 to fill in the gap. With all this in mind, I am ready to take this fight to the federal level, where I will advocate strongly for the Equality Act and other legislation that codifies queer and trans equality in marriage, healthcare, the workplace, and all parts of American life.
Housing is a human right, and all of our neighbors deserve a safe and stable place to live. But the high cost of living in our area and sustained underinvestment in affordable housing means this stability is not a reality for everyone. In NC-04, a family needs to make nearly $40,000 a year to afford a two-bedroom apartment. Rising rents mean that over 30 percent of renters are cost-burdened, and nearly 50 percent have difficulty affording their homes.
In Congress, I will fight for full funding of Section 8 housing choice vouchers, so that families who need rental assistance can receive it instead of being placed on years-long waitlists. We need to fund the rehabilitation and preservation of our public housing stock and invest in the retrofitting and energy efficiency upgrades outlined in the Green New Deal for Public Housing. I support expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to encourage the development of new affordable housing in our area. We can also further reduce the barriers to sustainable and affordable growth by banning exclusionary zoning.
The United States has been at war for the better part of two decades, but it hasn’t made us any safer. We have spent $13 trillion over the last 20 years on our military, but we remain unprepared to tackle the biggest threats to our safety, like climate change and future pandemics. Since the start of the so-called war on terror, the president has been given almost unilateral authority to conduct military operations without congressional approval, posing a risk to safety at home and abroad. Meanwhile, over the last two years, as millions of children go to bed hungry, the United States has sent over $21 billion to Israel, funding and arming the genocide of Palestinians.
American foreign policy should be centered on diplomacy, cooperation, and the protection of human rights, not on endless wars designed to preserve U.S. influence and financial interests. I support reducing the defense budget to prioritize issues like domestic poverty. In Congress, I will fight to limit executive authority through the repeal of the 2001 and 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which have allowed presidents to pursue military action without Congressional approval. I will stand up for the rights of oppressed peoples across the globe, and fight to end the weapons supply to genocides and humanitarian catastrophes abroad, including in Sudan, Yemen, and Palestine. Crucially, as many of our elected representatives shake hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I will oppose him, and join the fight for an Arms Embargo on Israel. We must stop enabling regimes committing human rights abuses by selling weapons and providing direct aid and instead refocus on humanitarian relief, poverty reduction, and peacebuilding.
Our democracy is under assault, and we cannot stand by while corporate special interests and dark money drown out the voices of everyday people. In 2022, our district’s primary was the most expensive in state history — I know what it looks like when elections are swayed by corporate greed.
When Republican leadership in our state started targeting our voters’ rights and access to the ballot box, our County Commission funded the Board of Elections to provide free IDs for voters who needed them and invested in new technology to give every voter in the county all the info they needed to vote in one place. This is the kind of solution we need from Washington, DC: expanding access rather than limiting it.
That's why I'm committed to passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to guarantee every American's right to cast a ballot — because the fight for voting rights is the civil rights struggle of our generation. We must end Citizens United and get big money out of politics once and for all, so that Congress works for working families, not wealthy donors and corporate PACs. If the filibuster stands in the way of protecting our democracy, then we must be willing to reform or abolish it — because our constitutional rights cannot be held hostage by procedural obstruction. Finally, I will support a ban on stock trading for members of Congress, so that politicians are no longer lining their pockets at the expense of the American people.
My parents moved our family to North Carolina in search of a better life — and we found it. Growing up, I was welcomed in North Carolina public schools, embraced by my friends and neighbors, and proudly committed to raising my own family in the Triangle for the rest of my life. But in this second Trump era, our nation of immigrants has been violently dismantled to the point of emergency. Now, we need new leaders to build an immigration system that protects immigrants and refugees, rather than vilifying them.
I’ve been on the frontlines as ICE and CBP have invaded the triangle, rounding up members of our community and subjecting them to unjust detentions and even deportations. It’s time to end the military invasions of Trump’s surveillance state and create an infrastructure for every North Carolina resident — including new arrivals — to thrive. I'll fight to expand asylum laws and protect the fundamental human right to seek safe haven, pass the DREAM Act to provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of our neighbors who call America home, and end the cruel policies of family separation and mass detention. In Durham, I helped create the position of Immigrant and Refugee Services Coordinator because I know that when we invest in welcoming new Americans, our entire community thrives. In Congress, I'll stand against anti-immigrant fear-mongering and work tirelessly to build an immigration system that reflects our values as a nation of immigrants — one that keeps families together, protects workers from exploitation, and ensures that everyone, regardless of where they were born, can live without fear.
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