DV Journal

Ron Ron Vogel is back.

The Republican candidate for Congress who hopes to take on incumbent Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Chester/Berks) in November took a brief hiatus after what he called a “hit piece” on him ran in the Daily Local News recently. The article slammed him for a video he shared on social media years ago. Vogel said he had a “family huddle” and his wife. She told him that he needed to keep fighting.

Supporters also rallied around him after an article appeared in the same publication saying he was quitting the race.

“Sure enough, it had the total opposite effect,” said Vogel. “I got flooded with hundreds, hundreds, of phone calls, emails, text messages where people were like, ‘You have to fight on. You’ve got to do this. We need you, etc.’ It was very, very humbling.”

“’We saw the article. We know it’s nonsense,’” he said people told him. “Notice they didn’t show the post,” he noted about that article. “If they showed it, they wouldn’t have had a story. Very, very sad. It’s been on YouTube for literally 10 years.”

“I have to fight on,” Vogel continued. “Our country needs people fighting for it.”

Vogel, who is taking a break from his real estate career to run for office, said he would be taking a pay cut if he is elected.

“I’m doing this to give my kids a better future, to give this country a better future,” said Vogel, who is the father of three children.

He also told the Delaware Valley Journal he believes he is the one who will be able to help smooth over differences that have separated his friends and neighbors.

“America has become so divided,” he said. “I remember, as a kid and as a teenager, Republicans and Democrats had their different viewpoints, but they were kind of closer to the middle. Now, neighbors can’t get along. I want to try to bridge that gap. We all love America. We have more in common than our differences.”

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan

Along with Vogel, three other candidates are running in the Republican primary: Guy Ciarrocchi, CEO of the Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry; businesswoman Regina Mauro; and business owner Steve Fanelli. Bob Kennedy is no longer in the race.

“I’m the only one who was recommended by both Chester and Berks County (Republican committees),” said Vogel. “I think I’m the frontrunner, and when you’re the frontrunner this is what happens.”

Meanwhile, Houlahan has been targeted by the GOP as one of the most vulnerable Democrat incumbents this year.

“Republicans are on offense all across the country,” NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer said. “Every House Democrat is facing an uphill battle having to defend their toxic socialist agenda that prioritizes trillion-dollar tax hikes on the middle class, opens our borders, closes our schools. and defunds the police.”

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Move over, AOC. Democrat Alexandra Hunt is running for Congress in Philadelphia’s 3rd District.

The former stripper is turning heads, and not because she’s is taking her clothes off.

Don’t count her out, though. She may have used the money she earned as a stripper to pay for her college tuition, but she has traveled the globe in her quest to do something good in the world.

“I grew up in Rochester, [N.Y.], and both my parents are teachers, so I went to the school that they taught at with my two brothers,” Hunt told Delaware Valley Journal. “With two teachers at home, our lives kind of centered around education, and that was always something that was very important. I see my parents as helping to raise the next generation, and I really think that teachers do such a service to us as a country.”

Alexandra Hunt

Hunt received her bachelor’s in psychology, with a minor in biology and creative writing from the University of Richmond. While she received financial aid, going to school was still expensive.

“During that time, I did work as a stripper,” Hunt explained. “I also worked as a server. I also worked for Victoria’s Secret as a salesperson. So a couple of different hats there. Then I came straight to Philly for what would become the rest of my adulthood.”

Drexel University brought Hunt to Philadelphia to study medicine in 2014, but she stayed for the closeness of the community. However, Hunt also saw the pain in parts of Philadelphia.

“I was also an EMT, and it was powerful just to sit down with someone and listen,” Hunt said. “There’s a lot of pain here too, and that pain comes from the neglect and the lack of resources that folks have to survive these difficult times. That was the state that Philly was in when I got here, and it has only worsened. And it has especially worsened with the pandemic.”

Hunt has always wanted to do something good for the world, and her original goal was to be a doctor.

“During my time in college and while I was stripping,” Hunt explained, “I had an envelope that was kind of my savings, but I didn’t put it into the bank. It was, ‘Do something good in the world with this.’ I put a portion of my tips every night into that envelope, and I used that to go on medical missions trips because I wanted to be a doctor. That was my plan… I traveled to Ecuador and Ghana, and then during my spring break at Drexel I decided to stay in the country, and I traveled to Pine Ridge Reservations, and that was when I decided I didn’t want to become a doctor anymore. I came to my direction toward public health.”

It was the COVID-19 pandemic that sealed the deal for Hunt to run for Congress.

“I was at a distribution site, and the line was extremely long,” Hunt said. “I mean, it was long. It wrapped around the building and down the street. And that was just one site that day. And I just had this thought that they aren’t coming to help us and what was I waiting for. That’s when I decided to run for office, and I’ve been building the campaign ever since.”

From the Alexandra Hunt campaign store

Hunt has an uphill battle ahead of her. The stigma surrounding her past work history could be a significant point of contention for her campaign.

“Yes, that could be the settling issue for them,” Hunt said. She hopes people look past her former job and see who she is now.

She is also fundraising off her unusual background, selling “Elect Hoes” gear on her campaign website.

Education, criminal justice reform, and economic justice are issues that Hunt intends to address if elected to Congress.

“Immediately: climate action,” Hunt said first. “We need to have a planet we can live on, and at the end of the day, regardless of our political views and regardless of whatever else we want to argue about, if we don’t have a livable planet, it’s moot. So we need to start addressing the climate issue now and not just putting drops in the bucket but all hands on deck in addressing the climate crisis.”

“The fact that we’re two years into a pandemic and we still have for-profit health care that is killing people is a major issue. It’s heartbreaking to watch my loved ones die because of this because they couldn’t get the care that they needed, and it doesn’t center on the need for care but rather the payment for care,” she said.

So Hunt is more than just a stripper, but for some, that might be all they see. So, how does Hunt deal with all of the negativity from her work experience?

“I think just trying to roll with the punches,” Hunt explained, “as they come in the hope that if we take these punches, if we take these hits, then the next person who runs with this in their past won’t have as many or they won’t be as harsh. That’s the hope. That’s what keeps me going and keeps me motivated even though it can be really hard. I’ve had people on our campaign who said that they’ve seen really nasty comments directed at some candidates and elected officials, but the degree and the frequency that they come into our campaign is alarming to them.”

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