A stable home is the foundation of a decent life. Amid our current housing crisis, many Delawareans are paying up to 50% of their income on rent and prospective homebuyers are facing prices and interest rates that make mortgages unattainable. As a result, homebuyers are priced out of the market while growing families, the elderly, and the disabled can’t afford to move into suitable housing as their needs change. Safe, permanent quality housing is a right, not a privilege reserved for the wealthy. As homelessness soars, Delawareans need a leader who will fight ferociously against the Trump administration’s ludicrous fifty-year mortgage proposals and enact legislation to ensure every American has a healthy place to live for generations to come. Unlike my opponent, who has accepted millions of dollars from the financial institutions who brought us the last housing crisis, I pledge to never accept a dollar from them.

Healthcare is a human right. It is time for Medicare-for-All, a program that guarantees healthcare for every resident, lowers costs, and saves lives. Our healthcare system is riddled with inefficiencies that leave Americans to the whims of healthcare corporations. Even if the Affordable Care Act subsidies are renewed, healthcare in America is too expensive and complex. Healthcare as we know it needs a complete overhaul; where Americans trust that they can afford their prescriptions, medical debt will not strain them or their families, and that receiving care is met with ease. Funding will come from fair taxation on high earners and large corporations, ensuring that everyone contributes according to their means and that communities throughout the country can thrive. The real question is why Chris Coons refers to such thinking as “pie in the sky policy” and votes against it. Unlike my opponent who has accepted multiple millions of dollars from them, I will not accept donations from HMOs, big pharma, or any other group which profits off the health needs of our community. 

The LGBTQIA+ community faces barriers to education, opportunities, health, and career prospects. From the AIDS epidemic, to marriage equality, and the assault on Trans lives - those within the LGBTQIA+ community have had to contend with a system that lacks the necessary policies capable of ensuring a guarantee of equal opportunities in the U.S. Other barriers to LGBTQIA+ equality are visible in the tax code, healthcare and housing, and compounding issues of discrimination and violence. The LGBTQIA+ community is one which has been forced to develop large and vast networks of support and chosen family. However, these cherished relationships are not accounted for as it relates to social benefits and protections. As legal threats to every LGBTQIA+ person at every stage of life grow, we cannot equivocate on a person’s ability to chart a life for themselves which is in alignment with their personal values and lived experience.  As a proud member of this community, I will never back down from fighting for it.

Social Security is the bedrock of how our government can provide a foundation of care and opportunity on behalf of the American people. Americans spend their lives ensuring their financial households remain in order with each hour of work spent, and benefit cuts hurt seniors, the disabled, and everyone who loves them. Social Security enshrines our ability to retire with dignity and spend time with loved ones. Moreover, it is a hardfought right that every citizen has earned. Social Security’s combined funds will be depleted by 2034 if Congress takes no action, leaving beneficiaries to lose roughly 20% of their already small allowances. In a television interview, Chris Coons responded to a query about whether cuts to the program should be considered in order to balance the budget with, “All options are on the table.” Delaware deserves a senator who will never compromise on protecting social security.

We have always been a nation of immigrants and it’s time to acknowledge that fact. Our Constitution grants everyone the right to due process, which is a fact that our current administration overlooks. As the Trump administration threatens communities throughout our country with lawless actions, all of our communities are susceptible to living in fear of illegal apprehension and detention by ICE. This madness needs to stop. As your next U.S. Senator I will work tirelessly to protect our immigrant community, to whom we owe so much: Our doctors, our agricultural employees, and everyone else who contributes to the enrichment of our society. The draconian overreach of ICE must keep its long arm away from our immigrant friends and neighbors.

The moral imperative to address the climate crisis can no longer be argued. For too long our approach to climate change was crafted by the influence of oil corporations and energy lobbyists, both domestically and globally. We have to reimagine our way of life in consideration of the future health and well-being of our planet and all of us living on it. Yes, the creation of green jobs that pay living wages, the shift of resources toward renewable energy, housing retrofits, and policies toward climate resilience are important in striving to maintain our access to clean air and water, but we can go further.

We cannot count on our current senator who has accepted mass sums from energy lobbies to fight for our future. I will take on this fight, the energy corporations and their stockholders who got rich creating this problem. I will increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy to subsidize reinvestment in the green energy sector and its labor development. Furthermore, I will push to heavily fine fossil fuel corporations who intentionally deceived us about climate change. The medical and property expenses incurred as a consequence of their deceit adds up to trillions of dollars, and it’s time for them to pay those they have harmed.

Our fellow citizens are struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on the table while Chris Coons and other congresspersons have voted to keep sending money to a country which is perpetrating a genocide. Israeli citizens have free healthcare, free education, and have a $27 million dollar plan to bring 7,000 new citizens from abroad. Why are we funding the slaughter of children, women, and other innocents when our government has failed to meet the same basic needs of Americans? 

For the past two years, Palestinians have been documenting the genocide that they are facing from Israel. In these past two years, we have witnessed the state of Israel enact a genocide on 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza, totaling up to 680,000 people. All the while, the U.S. continues to send billions of dollars and weaponry to Israel to continue to inflict mass atrocities on the Palestinian people. Multiple ceasefire resolutions vetoed by the U.S., the U.S. defunding of UNRWA, the multiple ceasefire agreements that Israel torpedoed, the war crimes; the absence of any accountability for the violence raging across Palestine, the tens of thousands of Palestinians held in prison without due process in abhorrent conditions, the blocking of aid and the famine it created – all of this must end. 

As Americans overwhelmingly took to the streets to protest the U.S. funding of genocide, AIPAC-funded representatives such as my opponent put the desires for a foreign country over the people of the U.S. -- arresting our students, censoring our people, and targeting anyone who expresses even the slightest criticism of Israel's actions.  We have become “radicalized” by common decency. We cannot let people who supported Israel’s genocide rewrite history to justify their own actions and for those actions to go unaccounted for. There is no bipartisanship in genocide. There must be an arms embargo, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus-sponsored Block the Bombs Act must pass. The effort to stop this genocide and ensure the humanity, dignity, and respect of all human beings must never dissipate.

We are living in a multipolar world where U.S. dominance is no longer the currency of international relations. We cannot bomb our way to peace. Values of sovereignty, human rights, and peace must retain some meaning. Continous interventionist policies, the funding of wars and genocide, the wanton use of economic sanctions and tarrifs, along with the weaponization of the U.S. veto on the U.N. Security Council has set us apart from the people of the world. All of this has fundamentally altered America’s place across the globe and how Americans exist in relation to nations, countries, and peoples all around us. Past and present involvement beyond our borders is unsustainable and it is driving the U.S. and its people into conflicts and destruction beyond our imagination. Diplomatically and militarily, we have no choice but to reform and build a new foreign policy based on the peaceful cultivation and strengthening of all peoples in this world who strive for a better life. That means restructuring our military funding in order to prioritize systems of care needed in our society and restructuring the U.N. Security Council to rebalance towards movements that seek dynamic change away from conflict and to resolution. The U.S. needs to come to terms with its roles and presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, the occupied territories in Palestine, Haiti,Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the world at-large. The US-led world order is fracturing at the seams, and our denial and continued inability to meet this moment will lead to future negative consequences for the American people.

One full-time job used to be enough to support a family and own a home. Now many full-time workers can’t even afford to rent a modest home while living alone. However, the federal minimum wage has not been increased since 2009, and by that time it only rose by 70 cents, from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour. In those 16 years the federal minimum wage has seen no increase. As prices have continued to escalate the current minimum wage of $7.25 is laughable. It is imperative that the minimum wage be indexed with cost of living increases so that every worker can afford the basics – housing, food, and healthcare. People at every juncture in their lives need compensation which rewards their hard work with value, respect, and dignity. The high school student getting their first job and trying to save up for school, the parent in a dual income household looking to afford childcare, and the single parent that is doing their best to support their children all need fair pay. Congressmembers from both parties have denied increases from $10 to $15, despite the fact that they themselves enjoy an automatic salary increase as the cost of living rises. If their income is indexed, so too shall ours be. Every job that contributes to our society, no matter the industry, deserves a living wage. One full-time job should be enough, period.

Schools are both a representation and a pillar of our communities. Healthier schools mean healthier communities. Federal policies from No Child Left Behind to the Every Child Succeeds Act, and current efforts to strip the Department of Education are all part of a multi-pronged effort to channel public tax money into charter and private religious schools. These efforts to hollow out the funding of public education have gutted the capacity to preserve quality education for public school students and to maintain stability for learning and growth. Struggles outside of school are having a large impact in the classrooms as teachers are expected to bridge gaps they are not responsible for creating. Teachers deserve increased pay, increased classroom resources, benefits and consistent support in the classroom. Students deserve an environment that is inclusive, where the threat of gun violence is not present, where safety officers do not feel emboldened to enact violence upon the students, and where parents can be certain they are safe. All students need to feel safe being themselves at school, where their very existence and place in the world cannot be a topic of debate.