Latest / Breaking The Meta / Her Congressman Said Talking to Voters Loses Him Votes. She's Taking His Seat | Victoria Broderick
Transcript
- Breaking The Meta: We don't have a representative that is here in district. My opponent doesn't spend any time unless it's a friendly event. He's been caught in closed door sessions saying that if he speaks to constituents, he loses votes. you Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Winson. Today we are sitting down with Victoria Broderick who is running for Tennessee U.S. House District 4. Hello Victoria, how are you doing? Good, how are you? Thanks for having me on. I'm so excited to be here. Absolutely, absolutely. ⁓ So the way I always start, because most people don't know Tennessee at all, ⁓ is what area of Tennessee encompasses the 4th District. Perfect. Well, I'm in Whiskey District. So I house Jack Daniels, George Dickel and Uncle Neers all in my district. ⁓ I don't touch any major cities. I don't touch Chattanooga, Nashville or Memphis, but we are just a nice little rural district in the middle of those. And Jack Daniels is about 30 minutes from my house. Wow. Wow. So I'm sure I'll end up asking it later, but I'm sure your district ⁓ has had to deal with the tariffs in a very ⁓ Unhappy way. So yeah. Yes, we have. Yeah, we'll get into that. It's it's We'll get into that So to start off, could you give us a little background on who you are? Yeah, so I'm Victoria Broderick. I'm running for Congress in Tennessee's District 4 I got my hard lunch in politics in 2024 when I found out my opponent was gonna run on a post and I said over my dead body I ran a campaign in five months working full time, having two tiny humans, four fur babies fostering with our local humane society. And I grew the district and voter turnout as a first time no name candidate. Now my political experience didn't start there. It started back in 2021. I suffered a birth control fail, which found out I was pregnant and had to navigate our medical system. Mind you, 2021, a row is still in place. I'm still able to skip the medical. need my medical needs met. Unfortunately, I miscarried and had to navigate that once again of like medical care and what that looks like. And then a month later I found I was pregnant again. So I had to navigate a ⁓ more complicated pregnancy and nine months later had this really cute baby. ⁓ And for months while I'm on my maternity leave, so he's about four months old, Ro is overturned and I did the logical thing. I started yelling at people on TikTok. created a platform. I became the friendly neighborhood liberal. I started educating around voter turnout, why you should vote, why you should get involved in local and state elections. I also a month later became one of the 93 county, one of the county chairs on the 93 counties at the time and for the Lincoln County Democratic Party. So I represented the county in that for the Democratic Party. We have now gotten all 95 counties with a Democratic party there. I also was able to become an EC member. So I represent the Tennessee State Executive Committee for the Democratic party. So that's kind of how I've gotten involved in politics. you know, it was, I've always been a little political. I didn't realize it wasn't normal to watch West Wing at five years old, but here we are. I literally... as a child watching West Wing. like I don't know. I don't know why, but like here we are. And yeah, so I got a hard lunch into politics and I'm running my second congressional race because I believe Tennessee deserves better. I am the first progressive candidate to run in this district. We've always run moderates and up until 2024, we had a candidate and we thought we weren't going to have one. So that's when I stepped into the race and You know, for those people wondering about what progressive is, it's just, you like your weekend? Do you like your eight hour work days? That's progressive. You know, it's just progress with purpose. I'm running on working class values as a working class mom. You know, I work full time. We were just talking about how I was working prior to getting on here. that is, that's what I do. And that's a little bit about me. Well, and you already definitely gave us a, You also talked about why you decided to run, which is great. ⁓ Let us, so let's go into a little bit about your district in general. What are, what are the pain points? What are the things that most people talk to you about as you walk around your district? Well, the first one is we don't have a representative that is here in district. My opponent doesn't spend any time unless it's a friendly event. He's been caught in closed door sessions. saying that if he speaks to constituents, he loses votes. I am up against a 16 year incumbent. What? Yeah, yeah, close recessions. That's what he says. And he's a 16 year incumbent. So he feels safe in his seat. You know, the next closest election cycle that someone got close was in 2020 with Chris Hale. He ran on Hale. Yes. And like, you know, legalization. But the district was different at that point. At that point, ⁓ we still had some counties south of Nashville. ⁓ But after the 2020 election, they gerrymandered to the districts further and gerrymandered Nashville into three congressional districts. And if for those who were wondering if you're that's starting to sound familiar, yes, we just had a special election where Afton Vane took a 22 plus district to eight points. And I tell people all the time what she did is no different than what I'm doing. The only difference is she did it in two months and I've been campaigning now for two years. So my district is underrepresented. ⁓ My opponent, which we can talk about a little bit later, but complaints I hear is he's not here. He's not bringing, you know, tax dollars back. ⁓ We are a rural district. We are industry driven districts. The only reason that we're not feeling the soybean. short like the short soybean terrorists and whatnot right now is because we have a huge contract south of us with Alabama because south of us is, know, NASA's got, you know, Huntsville is about 30 minutes from my house too. So these are, this is that area we, with the whiskey district, you know, all of my, all of those distilleries are struggling with layoffs right now because you've got the terrorists. And the boycotts across the globe and Jack Daniels and I want to say like the mid 2010s was their number five buyer for ⁓ whiskey, Tennessee whiskey was Spain, the country of Spain. So like this is, and I only remember that because at the time I was too young to drink or I wasn't of age and we toured the distillery before that you could even do tasting tours. ⁓ I remembered it stood out because it was like the whole country is your fifth largest buyer. Yeah. What? But countries like Spain and Canada are boycotting, you know, Tennessee whiskey. And our district is feeling that, you know, we're rural, we are losing rural hospitals. A hospital in my district closed. I'm just recently, the maternity ward closed recently. So now those people out of Pulaski, Tennessee will have to be driving and if Pulaski phones familiar, it's because that's where the KKK started. ⁓ Pulaski, ⁓ their maternity ward ⁓ closed and now you have to drive about an hour south to Huntsville. have to drive the next closest hospital is about 35 minutes or you go to Nashville, which is an hour and a half. So I mean, this is what rural voters are feeling. We're feeling the bite at the grocery store. We're feeling the at the gas pump and we're the bite within our jobs because we're working class district. I'm assuming that your district ⁓ is also feeling the bite of the cut of the ACA subsidies, the changes to SNAP benefits, and probably will also feel the changes to Medicare, Medicaid, I never remember which one, the changes that are going to be happening right about two weeks after the election, actually. Yeah, I actually did a, someone sent me the breakdown for our district and about 45 % of my district's children 45 % are on 10 care, which is Medicaid. That is an insane amount. We are a very impoverished district. You know, we have some of the runoff from Huntsville where people come, they're in Alabama, they work in Alabama, but they live in Tennessee because they take, you know, the no income tax. They take advantage essentially. You can buy land. It's not as expensive. You're not in the city. You get some rural life and you don't have to pay as much in taxes. Makes sense. However, when you have a district where, you know, lot of the median income is like 65,000 or less, you know, where Tennessee just did a report not too long ago, where you need at least, if you're a family of five, with two parents, three children, you have to be making $250,000 to be making it like, to feel like you're not struggling right now. And the average median income in Tennessee is not that. ⁓ Tennesseans supposed to deal with this. Even myself as a working class person, I feel the bite at the grocery store. I'm watching those grocery prices go up. Hell, I'm watching my electricity bill because the subsidies have gone away. Went from where my highest bill would be about $400 in the coldest part of the year or the hottest part of the year. And now we're averaging about $400 and I just had a $600 bill come through. You know, this is this is what happens when we allow politicians free range in DC and don't hold them accountable at the ballot box. Yeah. One of the other things that is pretty consistent that I'm hearing from a lot of people, regardless of of the side of the aisle, actually, this is this is really a ⁓ a society problem is this idea of accountability or the lack thereof when it comes to all of our representatives. You've already talked about the issues with yours specifically. But what does accountability mean to you and what does being held accountable by your district mean and look like? Yeah, so for me and like as a representative, I'm a customer service person at heart. You know, I've worked in tech tech support for the last five years. Prior to that, I worked in international domestic logistics for international domestic logistics for five years. But I have a customer service background. I've always worked in some form of customer service. And, you know, my job is to represent my district, to bring those tax dollars home, to be present in my district. I don't plan to move to DC and live there permanently. I plan to commute back and forth, live there when I need to, and then come home and live in Tennessee. I didn't buy this cute little house just to let it put it up for rent or not live here. ⁓ And I love, I love where I live and I love, you know, I don't always love small town life, but there are some benefits to small town life. You know, when you get, you get to walk around and the square's not that far, it's not downtown Nashville, you know, you ice cream and coffee and all those things. So accountability to me looks like town halls and being president district and having people staffed at my offices so that my constituents have someone they can reach out to and talk to and have those complaints and be attainable, not just. not listen because I think that that's something that my opponent doesn't do. He doesn't listen. He is not in district. You know, he has a terrible rapport with constituents. And I think that in 2026 with everything else that's going on, we're going to see a flip at the ballot box because people are so disenfranchised. They are realizing that Republicans are not working for them and they're not actually making things lower. So why continue to vote for them? So for me, It's also building that name recognition and working with candidates across the country so that when I walk into Congress, day one, I can have a bill and co-signers with me to impeach, convict, remove, because what is going on in our White House is not acceptable and what is going on ⁓ with the DOJ, not acceptable. And we need to have a coalition of candidates who want progress with purpose across the nation fighting for that, because unfortunately we're The other part of this is the Democratic Party has failed us and that is a product of a lot of different things. But my goal is to and job is to give you hope and tell you how we can get it done. And that's how we get it done. It's voting for candidates like myself who don't take corporate money, you don't take APAC money, who want to make sure that your representation matters. And that's what I'm working on. And have you noticed because obviously your district up until this point, at least has been considered a red district. Have you noticed that because of all of the things that this president and this administration and Republicans as a whole have been doing throughout the years and the results that you're seeing and the struggles that you're seeing in your district, have you noticed that walking around and interacting with people that have been lifelong Republican voters are more willing to listen, even though you got a D next to your name? Yeah, I'm actually finding a lot of that. I got it in 2024. It was really interesting in 2024. In one of the most rural counties in my district, Warren County, I went to a forum. I was told I was going to get softball questions. They were not softball questions. They were not at all. And I felt very under, like it was my first congressional run. I was told, like they wouldn't give us the questions ahead of time. So I had no idea what the questions were going to look like. Yeah. However, at the end of that forum, I was the only federal candidate to show up. Only federal candidate to show up at this little forum to talk to everyone. The Republican county chair came up to me and said, you sound so moderate. I think I want to support you in 2024. three other Republicans came up to me and said the same thing. Oh my goodness. I you know, I walked out of there. called my campaign manager. was like, I did it. did it. I got them. But it was really interesting to me because I was just talking about working class values. When they asked me about the economy, I was like, you don't you you want to talk about the grocery prices. You don't want to talk about the Dow. You want to talk about what I'm going to do for your grocery prices. I'm going to make it easier for you. But 50,000, Victoria, 50,000. 50,000. I know. I know. And so And it was this moment where you realized that like, because I'm at that time didn't consider myself a politician, I could speak in a way to voters that they're not used to. They're not getting political answers. And, you know, now fast forward two years, I've been campaigning consistently. I haven't stopped about 15 seconds after a loss. was like, gonna do it again. you know, continued on. And then the numbers came back and we saw that growth. They said, There was a growth there and like, you know when the bootlickers in the comment section you like you lost and I was like, yeah Yeah, I lost I know but you lose you learn in a loss. There's nothing to be learned in a win There is so much to be learned in a loss and what we found in that loss is a no-name Progressive candidate woman openly queer Openly all these things, you know gun owner all these things Democrat liberal, whatever you want to call it moved the needle. Yep in five months That is unheard of. There were districts and there were precincts in my, in one of my district and like one of the counties in my district where I won. we had the same amount of votes as Kamala. So like this tells me that I was doing something that they had not seen before. And that just fueled the fire for my campaign. So here we are, my lawyer's Republican. He volunteered to distribute it. He said he heard me speak. He came up and said that he was like, want to support you however I can. Give me $2. I'm your lawyer now. Cause he's like, you're going to get in trouble. just know that with what's going on. he, like, I just as that removed the regime and he was texting me everything I need to say. He's like, put my Mike number and Sharpie on your arm. You don't say anything. You call me immediately when you get a for us. And like this is that. And then we've had, we just had a forum this past weekend. And a woman came up to me, she goes, I'm a Republican. And I said, thank you for being here. Thank you for coming in the door. Thank you for talking to me. And she was like, everything you said was so just reasonable and well-spoken and moderate. There's that moderate word again. And I was like, this is what people want. And we're seeing that change. She was like, I'm not voting. I'm voting blue down ballot. I'm not voting for a single Republican. What you said, it's true. We need bring change. And this is what we're seeing across the district. And I'm seeing it more and more and more. And I always tell people, I don't have to run a single poll because the one, they're a waste of everyone's money, your money, your donated my campaign. It's a waste of my money. And I'm a penny pincher. So when I know that they're going to take me seriously is when I start seeing Republicans start talking about it. We've already seen it with Marsha Blackburn. She is going after a candidate for governor with Jerry Green and she's never. never once in her run for office gone after her opponent. And this year she is because they know, they know we're coming for their seats and they know they can't stop it. Yeah. It's, really interesting. And it, it, I think it shows a couple things. It shows one, how bad the identity politics got to the point that a lot of Republicans probably have no idea what most Democrats actually stand for. but also how poorly the Democratic Party has done in getting out to some of these rural areas to the point that someone who would consider themselves progressive, at least to some extent, walks around and is looked at as moderate. And it's like, OK. Yeah, a little blonde with tattoos just walking around. It's very interesting. It is very interesting considering, you know, I've lived in this town for a long time now. You know, we've moved, I've moved around a little bit, but back where I went to high school and watching everyone change how they view and getting respect and also ruffling some feathers, because I like to ruffle feathers in Tennessee, because I think it's needed. We're in a student majority. Sometimes I wrote My senator is terrible. I have lots of content around her. If you guys need to see what Miss Janice is up to, go look. She's a whole character. ⁓ these are things that I believe that we need better representation. And I'm not just doing it as a candidate. I'm doing it from within the party because like I said, I'm in the party. I'm helping form how Tennessee's party is looking out. a lot of people don't realize Tennessee was the first ⁓ state to have all of the delegates after the call say, we're going to endorse Kamala Harris. We were the first state to hop on that. And that says that Tennessee has something to say. And a lot of us, you'll hear a lot of candidates say it and I'll say it too. The path to the White House and the path to DC is through the South. Cause the South has something to say. Yep. Yeah. So one of the other things that has, and again, we talked about it a little bit, but Since World War II, America's really been at the head of the table everywhere. And in one year, this administration has destroyed almost all of it, whether you're talking the tariffs or Greenland or Venezuela or NATO or leaving the who or just a myriad of things. Regardless of whether this administration believes otherwise, we are no longer at the head of the table in almost anywhere, or at least we're pretending we're still at the head. How do you see America's foreign policy going forward, knowing that a lot of countries really can't trust America in most cases anymore? I mean, this is where it gets really hairy because we used to have good rapport. We used to have the respect of every single nation. You know, and we don't, and a lot of that is eroded through just our bad politics, our bad policy, the way we treat our citizens, just in general, just taxpayers in general, because green card holders are getting wrapped up in this and they pay lots of money not to be able to vote. You know, they pay no different, you know, as a, as a child of an immigrant, my father immigrated here to marry my mother. And, you know, I watched him, you know, work his entire life only to now be threatened with. deportation. He just happens to be from the right type of country. You know, he's from England and he's not from Mexico. So like, this is things that we see. And I think uniquely, ⁓ I'm positioned as as the child of an immigrant as someone who's traveled extensively, I want us to be back on that stage. I want people to want to come here. I want to the American dream to be something that people still look up to. My me my that's why my dad's here. Yeah. So we're going to have to rebuild and that's going to take time and we're going to have to put some work in. And if we don't have the right Congress, if we don't have the right Senate, if we don't have the right president at least for two to three cycles, we're never going to be able to get back to those glory days and you know, glory days in quotations. Right. Of course. But if we want to have the respect of the entire world, we need to, know, I always think of Teddy Roosevelt. speak softly and carry a large stick. Like that is what we should do instead of blustering and throwing our toys about and catch up at the wall. should be showing that not only are we a good ally to have, but we will hold our allies accountable. Yeah. I want to do a little bit of future casting if you don't mind. November 3rd comes around and Victoria wins. Congratulations. And January 2nd comes around and you were sworn in as the congresswoman for the 4th district of Tennessee. What are the first one or two things that you do? Impeach, Convict, Remove. Yeah, no, that one's at the top of my list. And also I would like to work with my colleagues to expand Medicare for All. Like with Bernie Sanders' plan, I think that that's easily implemented. That's an easy thing that we can do to immediately alleviate the burden that most US citizens have. Because my platform in 2026 is safety, affordability, freedom and equity, make it safe. ⁓ And I want to see affordability and affordability includes making sure your health care is affordable and attainable and there for you. It also gives you a safety net. It provides every single working class person. The opportunity to say, know what, this employer has been abusing me for six years, five years, whatever it is. I'm going to leave because I don't have to worry that my health insurance isn't covered. I've already paid in. I've got that thing. I've got a safety net. I'm going to go start a business. You know, I'm going to go create a coffee shop because now I don't have to worry about healthcare and my family being taken care of. It's just there. That is something that I would love to see implemented because it's something that we can do pretty quickly. We just need. to flip the house. We need to be able to flip these seats. And you know, people, this is why I talk about with people a lot, know, voting is public transportation. You are not looking for a house with white, a white picket fence at the end. You are looking for the bus going in the right direction with the things that you want to see. And that is what voting should be viewed as. Because it's not a cult at the end of the day. We're not, I'm not asking you to support me for five years, 10 years. I'm not a career politician. I'm asking you to work with me and watch me show up for you. Yeah. So for everyone who's been listening, you know, for this entire time that we've been talking so far ⁓ gets to this point. What are one or two things that no matter what you would want them to come away with knowing about you and your campaign? Me and my campaign. ⁓ my gosh, that's a really great question. I've never had a question like that. I think I want them to remember my safety, affordability, freedom and equity. ⁓ and my public transportation, because I want people to feel civically engaged. ⁓ I want them to feel ⁓ power in their vote because right now the Republican party, I say, I'm saying in my live or my Tik TOK, ⁓ and my reels and all that I say, the only thing that Republicans are more afraid of than the Epstein files is voter turnout in 2026. That is the only thing they can't control. And I want to empower you to show up and vote all the way down ballot vote for Democrats across the board and independents make sure that you are voting because right now, if you vote for Republican, Republicans fall in line and Republican party has had a nice little go of it, but it's time for change and it's time to give candidates the opportunity. So supporting them. I also want you to come away. I'm a small dollar candidate that $120,000 that I raised 95 % of it was small dollar donations. people like you listening to this podcast who were thinking about buying a coffee on Friday. I would like you to donate to me $5 and I will write you a handwritten thank you note. Every single one of my donors gets a handwritten thank you card from yours truly because I believe in what I am doing and I want to better representation across the board and I don't want, I want you to hold me accountable in a couple of years. I also want you to get a thank you card because that $5 goes a long way for a small dollar grassroots candidate like myself. Yeah. If someone wants to learn more about you and wants to support you, whether it's via volunteering or donations, where can they find you? You can find me at Victoria, the number four, Tennessee.org or dot com. You can find me there. You could donate, see more about my platform, see things that I'm talking about. I have my safety, affordability, freedom and equity. as well as any other top, there are several topics that I don't cover. If you want to see my content, I have three years, almost four years worth of content on TikTok. I even have them put in playlists so that you can see where I stand on the political spectrum. You can see my votes in real time, like what I believe in real time. You could also just see like fun things about my personality and just who I am, because I share a lot of my life in this as someone who moved from being a TikTok creator or content creator into the political sphere, but I always had a political like net. was basically a net around it and you know, come out. So Victoria, the number four Tennessee.com.org. You can come there and see more about me. Yeah. I love to have your donation. Have you volunteer, know, activism is a muscle. Pick one thing and get on the, get on the train. Let's go. Yep. Yep. Well, Victoria, thank you for sitting down and letting us to get to know you. really do appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. And for everyone that's listened this far, thank you so much as well. It means a lot to me. Please consider hitting all those buttons down below. Like, subscribe, all that stuff. It makes it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing, which is interviewing amazing people like Victoria, who are trying to do things the way we keep saying we want it done, which is not taking pack money, wanting to be held accountable. wanting to fix the problems that we keep have been screaming about for the last decades. But what people like her need are visibility and name recognition, things that you don't get when you're not getting millions of dollars from, you know, from wealthy donors. ⁓ So please watch, share, watch her content, watch this content. If you know people in Tennessee, if you don't know people in Tennessee, one of the things that I've learned from doing this is there are such amazing people in this country that are running for office people, they're veterans, doctors, teachers, union workers, the whole just plain old moms who are like, I'm doing this, like, it's amazing the the kind of people that are running and we if we really want the change that we keep saying we need the we need support and this is one of the this is one of the easiest things you can do watching this watching these kind of videos and sharing them that's easy. Voting is the next easiest thing that you can do, and you better go out and do that too. But before then, share this stuff. Let people see it. And for those of you that might be new to this podcast, just so you know, Breaking the Meta is about ⁓ having hard conversations when necessary, breaking the status quo, and fighting for the idea that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender, or identity, get rights, respect, dignity, and safety. Victoria, thank you again for being here. And for everyone else, we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye, guys.