Nicole Hasso’s congressional campaign kicked off Sunday afternoon in Johnston. United States Sen. Ted Cruz, who has already endorsed Hasso, headlined the event, which about 175 people attended.
Hasso said it would take everyone there to flip the seat.
“I am a Christian. I’m a conservative. I’m a Republican. I’m a proud Iowan. I’m a businesswoman. I am a mother. I am a black woman if you hadn’t noticed,” she said. “According to the Democrat Party that’s all they see when they look out across America — is skin color.”
Democrats, Hasso said, tell people the American dream is not for people who “look like” her or come from where she comes from.
“Well, I’m here today to tell you that the American dream is alive and well for anyone willing to work for it,” she said. “And we have to keep it that way.”
Hasso grew up on the south side of Chicago. Her dad was not around much and her mom struggled with a drug addiction.
Violent crime, drugs and hopelessness damaged her neighborhood for decades.
“The government wasn’t the answer, it was the problem,” she said. “If you want to see socialism in action, look no further than the inner-cities, such as the south side of Chicago.”
Hasso claimed struggling families are dependent on the government for their paycheck.
“They tell them when they’re going to get paid, how much they’re going to make and how they’re going to spend it,” she said. “And that is just a reoccurring cycle that is hard for people to break.”
Liberals “undermine” traditional family values and offer on-demand abortions as a solution to the social problems they’ve created, she said.
Hasso said her “destiny” brought her to Iowa. She was the first person in her family to graduate high school.
“I worked hard. I took risks and I put my faith in God and not the government,” she said. “Your destiny is not determined by your skin color or your gender or your zip code, your destiny is determined by your choices. Where you start in life does not have to be where you finish. But if the Democrats have their way, that is all going to change.”
Hasso criticized Critical Race Theory being pushed in schools, tax increases within the Green New Deal, defunding the police and removing Second Amendment rights.
“They’re crying out for trillions of additional government spending which is causing inflation and is just increasing the debt that we’re going to leave to our children and grandchildren,” she said. “They’re refusing to enforce the laws down on our borders. This is the Democrat agenda. This is Cindy Axne’s agenda.”
Axne has voted with Nancy Pelosi 94 percent of the time, Hasso said.
“The Democrat agenda is not Iowa values,” she said. “Cindy Axne does not represent Iowa values. Nancy Pelosi does not represent Iowa values. I am here today to tell you, we have to turn this seat.”
Hasso called herself an “outsider.”
“But I will not sit on the sidelines while the nation I know and love is being threatened,” she said. “I will no longer sit idle while the American dream is being destroyed right before our very eyes.”
