Kipp’s Run for State Senate in 2020
In 2020, Kipp ran for State Senate and lost to the Republican incumbent and the (formerly) most powerful Republican in our state government, Senator Scott Wilk, by a mere .8% in one of the closest elections across California for the 2020 election cycle.
He raised more money than the incumbent during the final year of the election and outperformed any Democrat who had ever run for the seat. And he did it without taking a single dime in corporate PAC money. It was entirely a people-powered campaign.
Senator Wilk will be leaving office in 2024, making this an “open seat.”
With redistricting and demographic shifts, the seat is anticipated to be about 5% more favorable to Democrats. Kipp is in a position to flip this seat blue for the first time ever. He has proven that he will do the work to get us across the finish line.
ABOUT KIPP
I grew up in California. My dad was a house painter, so a lot of my childhood was spent on roofs and ladders with a wet towel or rag around my neck. I learned what it means to work hard for a living - to head home, sunburned and sore, proud that you put in a hard day’s work.
My mom was a community college counselor for students with disabilities for thirty-eight years. She brought home some of the most heroic and difficult stories I’ve heard in my life - students who defied all the odds in dogged pursuit of their American dreams.
I learned from a young age that we all have the potential to be great, and that we all stand to gain from one another’s success. Investing in our community comes back around to all of us. It means more prosperity, less poverty and hardship, and less crime. For example, when a community has a quality education system, those who graduate from that system are more likely to build local businesses. Those businesses in turn provide jobs for us, our neighbors, our family members, and our friends.
Unfortunately, no one’s really investing in our community here in the High Desert and Santa Clarita Valley. At the state level, we are a forgotten district. We’re stuck in the last century and we’re last in line for state resources. Our roads are dilapidated and congested. We don’t have a single trauma center or a single public four-year university. And with each year that passes by, we continue to fall behind.
Our families and children deserve better. I’m running to bring our community’s voice in Sacramento and to bring prosperity and public safety back to our community. We need a leader who will fight for good paying jobs right here in our district, for ensuring everyone has quality healthcare, for making housing more affordable for all, and for rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.
I will also fight to establish our first public four-year university in the Santa Clarita Valley and High Desert - either a UC or a CSU. This will bring thousands of jobs to our community. It’s long overdue.
More on my background: I’m a small business owner and a Civil Rights/Labor Attorney, representing employees and union members. I have experience standing up for those who have been left behind, holding big utilities and insurance companies accountable for putting profit over people. I also volunteer my time representing asylum seekers, one of the reasons I am proud to have earned the endorsements from Civil Rights Leader Dolores Huerta and CHIRLA Action Fund. I serve on numerous boards in efforts to promote more access to legal representation for those in need of assistance.
I graduated University of California, Berkeley in 2008 and from Columbia Law School in 2014, where I extensively studied labor rights and employment law. After law school, I served in President Obama’s Department of Justice in the Consumer Protection Branch, and later joined the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office to protect families by prosecuting sexual predators and fraudsters. I currently live in Canyon Country with my dog Baxter.
I hope to meet you. I know that I would be a fantastic State Senator for our community. I hope to earn your support.
Kipp’s Asylum Work
Our world needs more love, respect, empathy, and celebration of our diversity. And we need leaders who cherish these values, now more than ever. Greys had applied for asylum through our legal system. For doing so, she was separated from her children. She was all alone, lost in the system, unaware of her children's whereabouts, and trapped in a private prison. This is Greys' American Story.