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PLATFORM
What makes me special is that I'm not. I don't have deep connections to any political organization, my friends and family aren't big public figures, and my name isn't recognized outside of the communities I serve. I'm just a normal working American, just like you, and that's why I want to go to government to make it work for you too.
LIST OF ISSUES
Education and Childcare
Education is one of my top priorities. Arizona has been at or near the bottom of quality public education nationwide, and the main reason for that is our state legislature. As someone who has gone through public education and then has worked in public education, with a wife who teaches in public education, I feel that I know a thing or two about it. In fact, my unique position has given me special insight into many of the issues directly related to what the government is doing. I know how the ESA vouchers are affecting public schools. I know how Trump's dissolution of the Department of Education is affecting districts. I've seen the state of the classrooms, how overworked the teachers are, and how critical the school administration is to making or breaking the teacher morale and ultimately the impact on the quality of the education given to students. I'm fighting to see real change, to make teachers want to keep teaching, and to make our public schools achieve the quality seen in other states.
Alongside education, it makes no sense not to offer public pre-k childcare. Many school districts already have their own programs for this, they're just not publicly funded. School enrollment rates are going down almost everywhere, and the reason is that people just aren't having kids. And why would they, when the first few years of childcare alone cost the parents almost $3000 a month? When both parents work to make ends meet, having kids is simply out of the question. If we can offer universal childcare as an extension to the already existing public education system, we can relieve a lot of the pressure the common American working families face in having kids. And this is a personal matter, too, as finances is the top reason my wife and I haven't had kids sooner.
Race, Culture, International affairs
I'm not looking to push forth mandates in identity politics or require people to love each other, but I do recognize that there are systemic and unintentional aggressions that are race-based. People make assumptions and look at you unfavorably if your name isn't common in English, which both my wife and I have had experience with this. My name is commonly white and hers is commonly Hispanic, despite our actual ethnicities to be swapped. My parents intentionally named me Keith to avoid the issue.
I also recognize and respect people of all identities and spectrums, LGBTQ+, races, religions, you name it. None of these labels or identities define you as a person in a "good vs bad" way. That being said, I believe that it is not the government's job to be the babysitter to make sure people get along. Identity politics boils down to individual respect and if you don't agree with a Trans person's identity, that's entirely on you. Your opinion doesn't make their identity wrong or them a bad person, and if you respect them as a person, you'd have the common decency to use their preferred pronouns.
Onto international issues, Israel is conducting a genocide on Palestine with weapons our country supplies, which has to stop. Trump is too comfortable with Russia and other dictatorships. Our relations with other friendly nations are being decimated by Trump's tariffs and desire to annex Greenland and Canada.
While my election is for the state of Arizona and has little to do with foreign or national affairs, I still feel that my positions on these topics should be addressed.
Housing and homelessness
Buckeye is one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation, with several new housing developments such as Teravalis being built. Yet despite all the new housing, mortgages and rent continue to go up, and up, without any relief. What is the government doing about this? Nothing. What can they do? For starters, they can limit ownership of homes to families and small businesses to make home ownership less about investing and more about living. They can modify zoning laws to allow more expansive living situations and options outside of single-family homes. There are many things that can be done, but for any of them to happen, the right people need to be put in office. I think I'm the right kind of person, so please help me be put in office.
Speaking of being put in place, we need to address the homeless situation. I've seen many homeless and underprivileged people from my time working at the food bank. I've spoken with them and I've come to understand something. A lot of these people can't get help because they don't think anyone cares. Well, I do. I would like to see these people get access to the resources they need to live fulfilling lives. They come to the food bank to receive the basic necessity of life, but it's never enough. They don't get the help and healthcare they need, whether it's to address disabilities or addiction, and they're clueless on where to find it. It's become a fool's errand, even if those services do exist, because they're not public knowledge. I want to change all of that, and if I make it to the house, I'll work on enabling adult services and education to provide those services and advertise them so everyone knows where they can get them.
Healthcare
Americans don't have healthcare, we have sick care. The system exists to extract as much money as possible while minimizing the amount of labor necessary to actually provide healthcare. That means it's in the insurance companies' interest to keep people barely healthy enough to be able to work. That is unacceptable and a failure of our country. Not to mention the ACA subsidies that the Congressional Republicans let expire.
I support providing single-payer or universal healthcare to everyone, regulating healthcare costs, and eliminating the insurance industry entirely, since it truly serves no tangible benefit to the country. Short of that, I will still push for and support any legislation that alleviates healthcare burdens on everyday Americans, such as providing a public insurance option (letting anyone sign up for AHCCCS, for example). I would even like to see nationalized hospitals and clinics, since many facilities in rural areas struggle to make enough money to stay solvent despite ridiculous healthcare costs. Virtually anything is better than what we have, so I'll fight to do something about it.
Environment
As a Millennial, I am concerned that our environment will erode and collapse within my lifetime. However, many policies to prevent the damage are too little too late or will have an unnecessary burden on rural America. I'll support environmental concerns as much as I can within certain limits