{"id":1254,"date":"2024-11-04T20:46:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T20:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2024-11-08T12:44:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T20:44:22","slug":"green-party-congressional-candidate-fights-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/2024\/11\/04\/green-party-congressional-candidate-fights-odds\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Party Congressional Candidate Fights Odds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Long-shot candidate Justin Filip campaigns aggressively to represent Oregon\u2019s 4th Congressional District.<\/h4>\n\n\n
Nate Davis<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n

Watching a third-party congressional campaign is not unlike reading about Don Quixote lunging and tilting at windmills. Like the gentleman from La Mancha, Justin Filip has said farewell to a typical life, and has spent the past few months traversing the countryside, extolling his virtues and serving his nation. Despite impossible odds, Filip is running to represent Oregon\u2019s 4th Congressional District as a member of the Pacific Green Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly two weeks out from his first election, on a crisp, chilly Eugene morning, Filip sat on the back patio of a coffeehouse, framed by old issues of The Black Panther newspaper on the wall behind him. He sipped his coffee with gloved hands. The fog from his breath mingled with the steam from his drink. He sat in anonymity, despite the fact that when the other patrons at the coffeeshop cast their ballots, he\u2019ll be one of their options for the House of Representatives, along with Democratic incumbent Val Hoyle and Republican Monique DeSpain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filip never saw himself as a political candidate, he said. Then, this past spring, he found himself inspired by the pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Oregon campus. \u201cI just felt like the logical next step was taking that pressure campaign that students were trying to have on campus and take it to the electoral level, and really challenge Val Hoyle on her voting record on this particular issue,\u201d Filip said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some voters in his district have responded to Filip\u2019s pro-Palestine messaging. Corvallis resident Ashton Hanson, 23, cast his ballot for Filip because \u201che can actually admit that there is an ongoing genocide that we are directly complicit in,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filip knows that, though he has some support, his chances of victory in November are slim. Hoyle, the incumbent, is heavily favored to win<\/a>, and a Green Party candidate has never been elected to federal office in history. \u201cIt\u2019s a big uphill climb,” and it might not happen in 2024, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To him, the Green Party has already achieved one victory this election cycle. Ranked choice voting, an alternative voting system that would offer a significant boost to third parties, is on the ballot this year in Oregon<\/a>. \u201cI think we have to sort of take a step back and redefine what winning looks like,\u201d Filip said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the funding available to major party candidates, Filip had to launch an aggressive campaign on the ground, adopting a strategy of never saying no. \u201cI have accepted every invitation extended to me by different towns in our district,\u201d he said. He recently attended a forum thrown by the Roseburg Chamber of Commerce. \u201cIt was a tough crowd,\u201d Filip said, \u201cI mean, Green Party is not exactly, y\u2019know, as business-friendly as maybe the Republicans are.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spoke in Reedsport, a marshy, estuarine town near the mouth of the Umpqua River. \u201cA really red area traditionally, but there were some high school students there,” he said. “And they came up to me afterward and were like \u2018I really appreciated your comments,\u2019 which was a pleasant surprise.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Filip knew before he began that there would be frustrations and problems. \u201cThe media is not covering us. We\u2019re being vastly outspent by the major parties,\u201d Filip said. \u201cI\u2019m sure they\u2019re trying to demoralize us, I\u2019m sure they\u2019re trying to get us to give up, but we\u2019re not gonna give up that easily.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-shot candidate Justin Filip campaigns aggressively to represent Oregon\u2019s 4th Congressional District. Watching a third-party congressional campaign is not unlike reading about Don Quixote lunging and tilting at windmills. Like the gentleman from La Mancha, Justin Filip has said farewell to a typical life, and has spent the past few months traversing the countryside, extolling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","pmpro_default_level":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"top_category":[],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-profiles","pmpro-has-access"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Nate Davis","author_link":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/author\/nate-davis\/"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1621,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions\/1621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"top_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/top_category?post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}