I’m a 26 year old progressive running for State Senate in the most conservative state in the country. AMA!
When I graduated from Mississippi State University in 2017, I got the typical question that every new graduate gets- “so now that you’ve graduated, what are you going to do with your life?” I didn’t have the answer at the time, but I knew two things. I knew that I wanted to stay in Mississippi, and I knew I wanted to make a difference. How I was going to make a difference, I had no idea at the time.
Within a year’s time of graduating, I had nearly 10 of my closest friends leave the state. Some left for better job/economic opportunities. Some left because they were members of the LGBTQ community and they didn’t feel welcome in their own home state. It was at that point when I started to think about how we had become a state where people feel that they have to flee in order to be successful, or even as little as to be accepted for who they are. We call ourselves the Hospitality State, yet we can’t show that famous hospitality to all Mississippians.
After spending a lot of my free time being around our state legislators by speaking with them about the issues that mattered to young people, it became apparent pretty quickly that the issues that mattered to young Mississippians were not of high priority to most of them. I took a long look around and didn’t see anyone stepping up for our issues, so I decided to do it myself. I qualified and filed to run for State Senate in District 22 in January of this year.
Before we can begin discussing the issues that matter to young people, we first have to get young people involved. For me, that means getting involved in the heart of the process. Millennials in this state are underrepresented, and I feel the first step in solving the issue of the brain drain that we face is by electing qualified young people for office to make change themselves.
While my goal is to help solve the issues of tomorrow, I realize that we also have the problems of today that need to be addressed. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, so I will be a voice for the solutions that I believe are most important to the problems facing our state today.
We need to stop ignoring the healthcare crisis that we have in Mississippi, particularly the one in rural areas. It’s far past time that we accept Medicaid expansion in Mississippi to support our rural hospitals that operate on the edge of closures every day. We can also provide coverage to nearly 300,000 working Mississippians that currently do not have healthcare. It’s time we stop ignoring our most vulnerable Mississippians.
I will be a voice for the full funding of our public schools and for a REAL teacher raise. It is mind blowing that a state like Mississippi, one that year after year ranks at or near the bottom of education, decides that it’s a good idea to cut education spending. It is maddening. We are letting down our future generations by not giving them our total support. We are also letting down our public educators by not paying them for the crucial role they play in our children’s lives. No teacher should have to work a second or third job just to make ends meet and no teacher should have to pay out of pocket for classroom supplies. We can do better. I will be a voice for a teacher raise every year, not just as a stunt during election years.
So this leads us to now. We have a choice, Mississippi. We can choose to elect the same type of politicians with the same ideologies and we will continue to have the same results. We can do that, or we can take a chance on change and begin voting for new faces with new ideas to help bring us out of our old ways. I hope you will help support me in #MovingMississippiForward
Follow my campaign on twitter @
https://mobile.twitter.com/ThorntonForSD22Proof:
https://imgur.com/UeidvGt/r/politics
https://redd.it/b3sud2
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