u/white_bread

With the election coming up on November 3, I’ve been looking more closely at both candidates, and I’m leaning toward Angélica Dueñas.

A few reasons:

Angélica refuses corporate PAC and AIPAC money. Luz Rivas accepts both and recently joined every Republican in voting to continue sending billions of dollars a year to Israel.

Angélica is focused on the everyday problems Valley families are dealing with, like rent, groceries, healthcare, childcare, and gas. Meanwhile, Luz has made AI one of her signature issues. Personally, I would rather have my representative focused on the cost of living than creating federal AI commissions.

Angélica has promised regular, in-person town halls where people can ask real, unscripted questions. Luz seems to stick mostly to carefully controlled Zoom events with scripted questions, sometimes without even appearing on camera.

Angélica is also a lifelong Valley resident, the daughter of immigrant factory workers, and a mother of five raising her family here. To me, she seems much more connected to what working families in CA-29 are actually going through.

I’m curious what everyone else in the Valley thinks. Who are you planning to vote for on November 3?

I just got off Congresswoman Luz Rivas's latest CA-29 Zoom town hall, and it sucked. It lasted just 50 minutes. Questions were submitted in advance, and there wasn't an opportunity for constituents to ask live follow-up questions. It wasn't a conversation. It was more of a presentation. There was only 2 hours of notice as well.

Her first town hall about a year ago was in person, and it got rowdy because people were trying to ask about the AIPAC money she takes and her stance on Gaza. She wasn't having it and looked generally freaked out. Since then, it's been Zoom calls only.

If your representative only appears on Zoom, only for a short time, and only answers pre-submitted questions, it doesn't feel like meaningful accountability. It's certainly not democracy. She didn't even go on camera.

Has anyone else listened in to one of these? She said at the end of the call that 10,000 people were on it, but that would be about 2% of the entire district listening at 5 p.m. on a workday. That number seems made up to me.

Is anyone following the general election? I'm hoping the challenger, Angelica Dueñas, wins and replaces her.