Lauren Underwood flipped the 14th District of Illinois in 2018, beating a Republican incumbent who had won his previous race by almost 20 points, in a district Trump won by four points. Born in 1986, she is the youngest black woman ever elected to Congress, and is a Registered Nurse, adding to the number of medical professionals in the Democratic caucus.
Republicans are doing everything they can to stop Rep. Underwood’s reelection. She is facing seven Republican challengers, including Jim Oberweis, a wealthy Trump supporter who has poured $1 million of his own money into his campaign, and for whom Trump-pardoned war criminal Clint Lorance has headlined fundraisers.
Lauren was raised in the district she now represents, in Naperville. She was diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia when she was eight years old. During a swimming lesson--required to use the community pool—Lauren became anxious and her heart raced, which led to her life-saving diagnosis. Her frequent childhood interactions with the medical system, and the excellent care she received, led her to plan on a career helping others as a doctor or nurse.
In high school, she was chosen to be a student representative on the Fair Housing Commission. Having grown up in a community of owner-occupied homes, Lauren was shocked by landlords’ discriminatory practices against low-income renters in Section 8 housing—and encouraged by the difference she made with her recommendations to the city council. This gave her a new interest in the ways public policy can impact people’s lives.
While studying for an undergraduate degree in nursing at the University of Michigan, she took a course in policy and politics in nursing—which made her two interests click together into a new goal. (She joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority while at Michigan, and has lived the AKA tenet “Service to All Mankind.”)
She served internships with then-Senator Obama and the CDC in Atlanta, then earned dual master’s degrees—in public health nursing and health policy—from Johns Hopkins. She first worked as a research nurse. After the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, she joined the Department of Health and Human Services to help implement the ACA as a policy coordinator, and also taught at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing.
When Ebola was diagnosed in a man in Texas, President Obama appointed Lauren Underwood to the HHS crisis team. She went on to serve as senior advisor to Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, during the Flint water crisis and other public health threats.
“Any task I asked Lauren to do, it didn’t matter how outlandish it was, she just got it done,” Lurie says. “At times, like in Flint, we’d be working with a community that was terrified and angry. So it was important to talk to the person in the street, explain what was going on and understand their concerns. Then we could develop a strategy to meet their needs. And those are the same skills that a candidate needs to serve their district.” (sciencemag.org)
After the Trumpocalypse of 2016, Lauren went back to Illinois to work for a Medicaid plan in Chicago, focusing on helping disadvantaged groups access health care through the Medicaid program (expanded in Illinois—thanks, Obama).
She was spurred to run against Randy Hultgren after he voted for an ACA repeal that stripped protections for preexisting conditions—just ten days after she heard him (at his only town hall) promise he wouldn’t vote for such a bill. Lauren Underwood is one of 300,000 people in IL-14 with a preexisting condition. Hultgren is a far-right climate-denier who had nonetheless managed to cruise into a fourth House term in historically red IL-14.
“I'm a 31-year-old black woman. I am doubted in eight out of 10 conversations that I have. But here is what I have learned: you can see it on people’s faces when you exceed their expectations. Something switches, and they start to respect you. But what it means is with my team, we have to be excellent every day at everything that we do, because we are being underestimated and counted out, and we need to exceed expectations all the time. But it's worth it, because so much is at stake.” --Lauren Underwood (Elle)
She beat six older white men in a crowded primary, then won over enough habitually Republican voters, campaigning on her personal story and kitchen-table issues, to beat Hultgren by five points. A crowd of Republicans quickly lined up to challenge her in 2020.
Representative Underwood was elected on a platform of affordable healthcare and childcare, reproductive healthcare including abortion access, paid family leave, gun safety, local infrastructure, public education, student loan debt (which impacts the nursing profession), DREAMers, and the climate crisis.
"For so long, African-Americans have only had elected representation from those traditional districts that are historically Black, maybe urban. But not all of us live in all those majority-minority districts.[...] Now we are able to step forward and say, 'Hey! I grew up in this predominantly white area and my family has been here for years. I'm a leader and I have ideas.'” --Lauren Underwood (
refinery29)
From 2018—still a good introduction to Representative Lauren Underwood:
Lauren’s close friend at Johns Hopkins, Shalon Irving, died in 2017, three weeks after giving birth. Her preventable death was featured in ProPublica’s report about the U.S. epidemic of Black maternal mortality. In April 2019, Rep. Lauren Underwood and Rep. Alma Adams launched the Black Maternal Health Caucus. The caucus has championed legislation to address America’s maternal mortality crisis, including the MOMS Act (H.R.4996). A “Momnibus” bill package is scheduled to be introduced this year.
For Underwood, the issue is both personal and clinical. Even before Irving died in 2017, she was invested in black maternal health care. As an undergraduate at University of Michigan in 2008, she wrote her honors thesis on how to fix maternal mortality disparity by giving midwives expanded reimbursement rates.
"I was deeply disturbed by the maternal mortality disparity that African American women had and here we are many years later and it still exists," she says. "It's a problem for black women in America." (Elle)
Rep. Underwood serves on the House Committees on Education and Labor, Veteran’s Affairs, and Homeland Security. She has been extraordinarily effective as a new legislator. On her first day, she strengthened sexual harassment protections for committee staff in the House rules package. In less than two years, she has sponsored dozens of bills and amendments, including a bill to fix the ACA’s subsidy cliff which was praised by Charles Gaba. She has gotten past McConnell’s Senate blockade and signed into law legislation to lower insulin prices and to improve medical screenings at the border. (She’s also held 14 town halls in her district).
“We can talk about the solutions in a way that's inclusive. [...] I'm into solutions. And I am happy to speak in paragraph statements to talk about the solutions because - guess what - problems are not always illustrated in 140 characters, and solutions are not always illustrated in 140 characters.” --Rep. Underwood (npr.org)
Rep. Underwood takes her duty to the U.S. Constitution seriously, voting to uphold the articles of impeachment despite her vulnerable political position. Her strong record and commitment have earned her many endorsements, including from EMILY‘s List, Higher Heights, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, End Citizens United, and League of Conservation Voters.
Help keep Rep. Underwood in Congress
🗂️Lauren Underwood’s congressional website here, campaign website here.
💙Follow Lauren Underwood on Twitter @LaurenUnderwood (bookmark to ersatz follow).
💳Donate to Lauren Underwood through ActBlue, fastaction (campaign website link), or EMILY’s List.
💦Special election alert—Texas state legislature--January 28💦
Tomorrow, Texas voters in House District 28 vote in a special election. The once-daunting Republican lead has shrunk into single digits. The latest poll shows a tie! Dr. Eliz Markowitz, the Democratic candidate, could pull off a stunning upset. Campaign website. Phone bank.
🎉1st flip of 2020! Brian Smith won Jan 14 special election for CT state HD 48!🎉
DKHIVE Group Guidelines
The DKHive Community group has been created by former Kamala2020 Group members to positively support efforts to re-take the Senate and keep Democratic control of the House of Representatives.
We will support candidates supported by Senator Harris as well as other candidates, especially women, POC, and down-ballot democrats in local races.
All should be made to feel welcome here. What’s not welcomed here is petty bickering over any of our preferred candidates, or personal attacks on fellow Democrats. We’re not responsible for the actions of others who may offend, insult or attempt to sow discord and disunity — that’s on them.
What we are responsible for are our own words and actions — that’s 100% on us.
We’d like to ask all group members, as well as those dropping by who support or are interested in Democratic control of the Senate and House, that we not respond to negativity from other campaigns’ supporters with even more negativity. Let’s do better than our best and respond with respect, humor or try to hold our peace.
(FYI: Zero Tolerance for Misogyny/Misogynoir)
😋 ❤️ 😋 💜 😋 💙 😋
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If you would like to join our group, please ask for an invitation in the comments, and one will be KosMailed to you.
Our members will largely share in writing diaries, in much the same fashion as we did with the Kamala2020 group — all voices are welcome. We hope to continue with regular 2 or 3 x weekly diaries, although we will vary the publish times of the diaries throughout the week. Suggestions on this are welcome! Sign-ups will begin immediately!
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Please volunteer for the down-ballot effort!
YOUR VOICE MATTERS!
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Upcoming schedule:
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Monday |
Jan 27 |
8 am EST |
Cecelia S |
Thursday |
Jan 30 |
time TBA |
TBA |
Saturday |
Feb 1 |
9 am CST (10 am EST) |
joedemocrat |
Monday |
Feb 3 |
7 am MST (9 am EST) |
A7sam |
Thursday |
Feb 13 |
time TBA |
Finnegan05 |
Saturday |
Feb 15 |
time TBA |
TBA |
Monday |
Feb 17 |
time TBA |
TBA |
Thursday |
Feb 20 |
time TBA |
Finnegan05 |
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We would love to hear about your down-ballot-related idea, in the comments below or kosmailed to the group! Would you like to write about a challenger taking on a Republican-held or red-leaning seat? How about our embattled incumbents, many of whom have been targeted by dark money and other nasty attacks? Or do you have another down-ballot-related idea? This is a way to make a difference!
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