Compton Mayor Aja Brown(D) officially announced her run for Congress on Thursday, March 8. Mayor Brown posted on her website that she didn’t “want to leave our Congressional representation to chance.”
Brown, mayor since 2013, believed she is qualified because “I’ve served as mayor. I really served as a catalyst for a major turnaround for the community that has historically been underserved and disadvantaged. The growth in Compton is evident, it’s tangible that you can touch, and so I would like to take my service to a greater level.”
Known Donald Trump supporter Stacey Dash also announced her run for the 44th District seat. Many believed Brown’s decision to run was to prevent Dash from winning. But the mayor refuted those rumors.“To be clear, my decision to enter this race was not predicated on one person, but on the 700,000 residents of the 44th District,” she said.
The current district representative Nanette Barragán told ABC7, “We are going to run his campaign like we ran the first one. We’re going to focus on the issues, we are going to run hard.” She continued, “We welcome anybody into this race. The unfortunate part is it really is a distraction from the Democrats’ ability to focus on flipping the house, which is really what we need to do in these times, where you have a president who is attacking communities like mine.”
The election primary will be June. 5, of this year. The top two parties will move on to general election Nov. 6.
