Alexandra Hunt For Philadelphia City Controller

Our old friend, Alexandra Hunt, is running for Philadelphia City Controller. We know her as a public health researcher and girls’ soccer coach and an advocate for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. She’s an organizer who believes “our politicians should fight for systemic change, ensuring equal opportunity and justice for all." She told me that she feels "progressivism is a wholesale reimagining of long overdue institutional reforms.The concept of a New Deal is central to the movement’s vision. The same corrupted systems that catalyzed our environmental crises, raging inequality, and a devastatingly ill-managed pandemic have also stagnated our institutions of education. Education is the backbone of a healthy democracy, yet our current system is failing students of color, low-income students, and neurodivergent students. Decades of depleted federal funds have created a $23 billion discrepancy in the funds invested in predominantly white and predominantly minority school districts."

The race is fluid and has attracted a whole grab-bag of candidates, including a couple of plutocrat-type self-funders trying to by the office and even a straight guy pretending to be sexual to seem hipper! Blue America has endorsed Alexandra and I asked her to reintroduce herself and give us the contours of her campaign. Please consider contributing to her campaign here on the Blue America page for candidates running this year (not in 2024).

Progressive Politics Is Local Action

-by Alexandra Hunt

My name is Alexandra Hunt. I ran for Congress last year. We didn't win, but we were able to build a movement of over 25,000 voters and raise over $700,000 with over 11,000 grassroots donors.

I ran for Congress because of the need for meaningful, systemic change and resources to combat the trifecta of crises we are facing, whether it's the climate crisis, the pandemic, or the right-wing, organized attack on our rights.

People are still suffering, so our fight has to continue.

We all saw the recent gridlock and power struggle in Congress over the Speaker of the House. It was unbelievably disappointing to watch the dysfunction of a body of government that I had run to serve in— and to see elected representatives bicker like children in a sandbox instead of legislating and responding to the needs of the people who elected them. We must have a government that works for the people or the suffering and loss will only continue to worsen.

I'm running for Philadelphia City Controller because our fights have to be local. I'm running to completely divest the City of Philadelphia from fossil fuels because I know that's the future we need now and because I know that carbon waste in Philadelphia causes forest fires in California. We have to come together and fight the climate crisis as a movement, at all levels of government, especially if Congress is gridlocked for the next two years. I'm running to find the financial resources to open a public bank in Philadelphia— and to help push for the founding of public banks across the nation. I'm running to build a model of transparent government and accountability for how people's money is spent. What works in Philadelphia can be adapted to work for you too.

We know that Republicans have been holding local offices and using them to attack our basic human rights for decades. It’s time that Democrats organize from the ground up, the same way Republicans do, and fight back. Our campaign needs the support of Democrats from all across the country to show that we are just as invested in local races as we are in national ones.

I was born in Rochester, NY with my twin brother. I understood from a young age that my parents had lost my older brother and that sadness was unimaginable, that my brother struggled with many things that came easily to me and others, and that my parents being teachers meant that our family had less money than most of my friends’ families.

I graduated from the University of Richmond in three years with a Bachelor’s in Psychology. During my undergrad, I worked as a server, a stripper, and a sales associate. I had an abortion. I fought for better treatment of autistic children in Richmond public schools. I worked and volunteered during my school breaks to learn about healthcare in other countries. Post-graduation, I came to Philly to begin a master’s degree at Drexel.

When the pandemic hit, every societal issue that our government had tried to sweep under the rug and normalize came to a head. I was on the frontline with our cancer patients, at testing sites, and handing out food. I saw how long those lines were. And these weren’t lines of able-bodied people— they were lines filled with elders, with parents holding multiple children, with people in wheelchairs or walking with canes. The only way these people were going to get enough food on their table was by standing in these lines for hours and somehow carrying a heavy box of food all the way home. Rain or shine. Car or not.

What a systemic failure. That was when I decided to run for office and challenged someone who wasn’t doing enough.

I knew running for office would be hard, but I had no idea how hard it would be. I have known pain and hardship and empty bank accounts. But my candidacy does not come from a broken place within me. My candidacy comes from the determination within me and my love for my neighbors, and that is exactly how we built this movement. We are not trauma bonded. We are connected by our readiness and willingness to fight back against the pain and injustice that are designed features of the system we live in. We are connected by our strength. We show up every day and work-- for our city, our neighbors, our movement.

The Philadelphia City Controller is someone who makes sure that Philly’s money is spent the way it is supposed to be spent. The City Controller is also someone who can demonstrate that the City has the money to spend on our priorities— like people, neighborhoods, and communities, instead of wealthy corporations. I’m running for City Controller to build a well-being economy in Philadelphia that models best practices already implemented in cities and states nationwide, and becomes a model for the nation. A well-being economy invests in people, knowing that if people flourish, our village will flourish. We have to address Philly’s issues from the roots and the Philadelphia City Controller can do exactly that.

With your investment into our diverse, hard-working, and expanding movement, we can start to build a better city. And with a better Philly, we can build a better country. Anyone suffering somewhere means there is suffering everywhere. Republicans have the resources to fund local races. Progressives need a strategy of national crowd-sourcing in order to compete. This is a targeted local race that can have a big impact, but I need donor support from across the country. We aren't backed by corporations, banks, or billionaires. And we can actually get things done that can impact you. It’s about time Democrats rally around local races the way Republicans do— it’s the only way we’re going to be able to stop them.