James Thompson (American politician)

James Thompson is a US army veteran and civil rights attorney in Witchita, Kansas, and an American politician. He received major attention during his 2017 congressional campaign, in which he shocked American politics by receiving 46% of the vote as a Democrat in a traditionally very Republican district.

Bibliography

James had a difficult childhood, in which he spent some times in homelessness. He later joined the US Army, an experience he says "changed his life". He retired from the military in the presidential honour guard. He then attended the Wichita State University, where he went on to earn his J.D. in Law.

James currently lives with his wife, and has one daughter.

Congressional Campaign

James Thompson was a candidate in Kansas's 4th congressional district special election, 2017, opposing the republican candidate Ron Estes. In the 2016 US Presidential Election, Donald Trump won this district by 27 points. As such, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) estimated that a democrat had no chance to win in this district, and invested little effort into winning it. James Thompson had to rely on small donations to run his campaign. James Thompson was also endorsed by Our Revolution. In the week before the election, polls showed Estes's lead narrowing, and a possibility of a victory for Thompson. The Estes Campaign started putting more efforts into advertising at this point, and vice-president Mike Pense and president Donald Trump made a robocall for constituents of the 4th districts to make sure they vote for Estes.

He accumulated 46% of the vote but lost to the Republican candidate, who received 52.2%. His score was surprisingly high for a Democrat in this congressional district, which was considered to be a safe Republican seat before the campaign.

Significance

Anti-Trump Backlash

According to Mediaite, "The closeness of the contest will be interpreted as a warning shot from voters as the 2018 midterms approach and Democrats energized since Trump’s election as president".

Significance to Berniecrats

According to Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk, James Thompson's campaign success calls into question the DNC's strategy of running centrist (blue dog) democrats in the most conservative district. He argued that that "the only reason Estes won is because he was propped up by big money", and that "grassroots populists" like James Thompson had a chance of winning in other republican districts the national democrats already gave up on.

References

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