Meet two of the many insurgent candidates who are trying to make things suck less, PLUS our guide to actions that help candidates at every level breakthrough in the mid-terms!LeVon Barnes donned fluffy pink cat headphones that belong to his young daughter. Dan Schwartz’s one-eyed cat Toodles gave him the biggest kitty hug ever – on camera. And that all happened before we even started talking about policy and this year’s elections. Barnes and Schwartz joined Cat Ladies for America Founder Blaire Postman on Sunday, July 12, for the second edition of our Catty Chats Live podcast and vodcast. Barnes is running for a seat in North Carolina representing State House District 64. Schwartz is a candidate for Congress in Maryland District 1. (Watch on Substack or on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.) We asked each candidate why they are running, how they plan to make things suck less, and what inspires them. LeVon Barnes Campaign website: https://www.levonfornc.com/en/ Instagram: LeVon Barnes “It’s simple. I’m doing it to try and make my family’s life, my students and their families’ lives, and everybody that lives in my county and state’s life easier. … We don’t have working-class people in any of those [state] seats. And, it’s because my community has asked me to run. It’s because my students and families, who I’ve been able to serve, they’ve asked me to run. That’s why I’m on the ballot.” How he’s going to make things suck less Funding for public education. “North Carolina is No. 1 in business in the United States, No. 46 in what we pay teachers, and No. 50 – dead last – in how we fund education. So, we know that businesses are going to want to come here. They are here, but yet if you don’t have a thriving school district, public school education system, then they’re going to bring in everybody else except the folks who live here.” A fair wage tax.“Right now, the North Carolina legislature has awful constitutional amendments on the ballot this November that look really good. And one of those is capping income tax and property tax. And, I would say that, if you tax a billionaire fairly, he’s still a billionaire. If you tax a millionaire fairly, he’s still a millionaire. But taxing a billionaire the same way that you’re taxing someone who’s getting paid hourly is disgraceful. And all it’s going to do is continue to create a class gap that we already are seeing growing wider and wider and wider where the middle class or young people who are trying to ascertain their first home or whatever cannot do that. Can’t do it at all.”What in his district inspires him “What I see in Alamance County is fight. It’s fight. I see folks who are in nonprofits, working with the private sector, working with just the two girls that are selling lemonade in their neighborhood. I think they all care about their community. They want their communities to thrive. They don’t want to see anybody suffer. We all understand the issues that we’re facing.” Barnes said he is also inspired by the efforts to feed local students during the summer led by Tameka Harvey, a member of the board of education, and Jackie Vanhook, founder of Mayneline Resources. “They’ve been going up and down Alamance County feeding kids in neighborhoods like sandwiches and all different types of stuff because we know that yeah, food security is an issue,” he said. Shoutouts for other insurgent candidates Barnes highlighted the efforts of these fellow candidates for North Carolina state-level seats: Southey Blanton, candidate for NC Senate District 25Claire Kempner, candidate for NC House District 9Jennifer Wiles, candidate for NC House District 75Andy Bowline, candidate for NC Senate District 31He also praised the work of the Can’t Win Victory Fund, which is supporting Barnes and many other candidates. Dan Schwartz Campaign website: https://schwartzforcongress.com Instagram: Daniel Schwartz Why he’s running “My congressional district, it’s just 90 from Washington, DC, right across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, but we are one of the most under-represented and underserved districts in the country. And for eight terms now, we’ve been represented by Andy Harris, who is the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, the most extreme group in Congress. People out here are not extremists. They want to be represented by somebody who’s from here, who shows up here, and who will listen to them. … I have experience in government. That being said, I’m just a regular guy. I’ve got a family. I’ve got a lot of bills. I’ve got two cats, three dogs. I think we need more regular people in Congress.” How he’s going to make things suck less Free lunch in school and food security. “I want free lunch for every kid in school across the country. There is no reason that we are the wealthiest nation in the world, and we can afford to bomb kids overseas, but we can’t afford to feed them in our schools. And my congressman just presided over a farm bill that cuts $260 billion from the SNAP program over the next 10 years. That is food that our kids need in their bellies to learn in schools, food that pregnant women need in their bellies to have healthy pregnancies, and food that our older people need to be able to stay healthy.” Protect Social Security.“This is an older demographic district that I live in. About 85 percent of the voters are 55 plus in my district. We need to protect and strengthen Social Security for the future. There is no reason that people that make less money are shouldering the greatest burden. We need to scrap the cap and make everybody pay their fair share when it comes to social security so that we can have a program that still exists in the future.” Undo damage from the “Big Beautiful Bill.”“I really need to work on rolling back a lot of the damage that was included in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ because when you when you put together the cuts to critical services in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that people rely on, and when you put together the president’s tax plan, and when you put together the president’s tariffs, all of which are supported by my congressman, a lot of people in my district are going to go from just teetering in middle class to poverty.”What in his district inspires him “There’s a lot of awesome stuff going on in the district. There’s a lot of organizations that are trying to get food to people that need it. I talked about hunger in the district. A lot of it goes unseen, and I’ve encountered so many churches across the district that are trying to get together as much food as the...
