Alexandra Hunt

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Alexandra Hunt

Democratic Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

May 16, 2023

Education

Bachelor's

University of Richmond, 2014

Graduate

Temple University, 2020

Personal

Birthplace

Rochester, N.Y.

Profession

Public health researcher

Contact

Campaign website

Personal Facebook

Personal LinkedIn

Alexandra Hunt (Democratic Party) ran in a special election for Philadelphia City Controller in Pennsylvania. She lost in the special Democratic primary on May 16, 2023.

Biography

Alexandra Hunt was born in Rochester, New York. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Richmond in 2014, a graduate degree from Drexel University in 2016, and another graduate degree from Temple University in 2020. Her professional experience includes working as a public health researcher.

Elections

2023

See also: City elections in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2023)

General election

Special general election for Philadelphia City Controller

Christy Brady defeated Aaron Bashir in the special general election for Philadelphia City Controller on November 7, 2023.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Christy Brady (D)	81.0	225,917
		Aaron Bashir (R)	18.9	52,603
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	297

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 278,817
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Democratic primary election

Special Democratic primary for Philadelphia City Controller

Christy Brady defeated Alexandra Hunt and John Thomas in the special Democratic primary for Philadelphia City Controller on May 16, 2023.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Christy Brady	46.1	86,884
		Alexandra Hunt	31.4	59,068
	Submit photo	John Thomas	22.4	42,292
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	170

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 188,414
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Republican primary election

Special Republican primary for Philadelphia City Controller

Aaron Bashir advanced from the special Republican primary for Philadelphia City Controller on May 16, 2023.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Aaron Bashir	99.1	13,545
		Other/Write-in votes	0.9	121

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 13,666
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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2022

See also: Pennsylvania's 3rd Congressional District election, 2022

General election

General election for U.S. House Pennsylvania District 3

Incumbent Dwight Evans defeated Christopher Hoeppner in the general election for U.S. House Pennsylvania District 3 on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Dwight Evans (D)	95.1	251,115
	Submit photo	Christopher Hoeppner (Socialist Workers Party)	4.9	12,820

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 263,935
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. House Pennsylvania District 3

Incumbent Dwight Evans defeated Alexandra Hunt and Michael Cogbill in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Pennsylvania District 3 on May 17, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Dwight Evans	75.7	97,709
		Alexandra Hunt	19.9	25,712
		Michael Cogbill	4.4	5,728

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 129,149
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Melvin Prince Johnakin (D)
• Austin Rodill (D)

Campaign themes

2023

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Alexandra Hunt did not complete Ballotpedia's 2023 Candidate Connection survey.

2022

Alexandra Hunt completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Hunt's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am a public health researcher, a girls’ soccer coach, and an organizer fighting for the 3rd district of Pennsylvania. I am a survivor, the daughter of two teachers, and a sister to a twin brother. Growing up in the inner city of Rochester, NY, I attended school in the suburbs and noticed the inequity in resources, education, housing, and job opportunities between both areas. Attending the University of Richmond, I worked as both a server and stripper to make ends meet and save money by graduating in three years. After college, I moved to Philadelphia to attend Drexel University and receive a master’s degree. Living here, I became invested in our community’s everyday challenges by volunteering as an emergency medical technician, working in various medical clinics, and distributing meals out of soup kitchens. In 2020, I graduated from Temple University with a MPH. When the pandemic hit, I did what I could, volunteering at testing and vaccine distribution sites, providing mental health support at local encampments, and advocating for housing and healthcare for all, rent freezes, and criminal justice reform. Seeing the government severely mishandle responses to COVID-19, I crossed a new threshold of frustration and decided to run.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• I am committed to dismantling the establishment notion that equitable and just policy is radical. We need compassionate politics and a radical love for all people.
• It is up to all of us to fight for anti-racist policy. White supremacy will exist until white people realize it is also a white person's problem and not simply a problem for people of color for white people to sympathize with. Our campaign is building a multi-racial, working-class coalition to dismantle systems of white supremacy because nobody should be marginalized in a democracy. We are dedicated to anti-racist policy across every sector because white supremacy has infected our systems of education, healthcare, housing, criminal justice, and foreign policy for too long. I am also working twice as hard to continue to learn how whiteness functions and earn the trust and votes of Philadelphia’s black community. Silence is violence, and I wi
• As a public health worker, I specialize in prevention. When you see a problem and work to solve that problem, that is an intervention. When you see a problem and work to stop that problem from occurring in the first place, that is prevention. I’m running to get at the root of our problems, which takes federal-level solutions to systemic issues.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Abolition, restorative justice, mass liberation, and decriminalizing sex work are issue/public policy areas that I am extremely passionate about and in which I have been an activist and organizer. As the daughter of two teachers and also someone with a student debt burden, I am very passionate about the necessity of fully funding our public education, including public college and trade school, having living wages for teachers, ending the pre-school-to-prison pipeline, and cancelling student debt. The country’s urgent need for a single-payer universal Medicare for All program, a Green New Deal, a federal jobs guarantee, housing for all, and food security for all is also exceedingly important to me. Education, healthcare, a livable planet, clean water and air, employment, housing, and food security are human rights. Ultimately, I’m most passionate about fighting for across-the-board anti-racist policy. Our campaign is dedicated to anti-racism and reparations across every sector because white supremacy has infected our systems of education, healthcare, housing, criminal justice, and foreign policy for too long.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

My run for Congress is very much inspired by activists and abolitionists. I look up to Sarah and Angelina Grimke. The Grimke Sisters were two early activists for abolition and women’s rights. I am grateful for their legacy. I also find Angela Davis such a strong, inspiring activist and abolitionist and like to reflect on her work. Stephen Biko, too, fought against the South African apartheid in such a relentless, nonviolent way and draws my admiration.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

I think that a sense of urgency is crucial. I carry around within me the urgency of a public health worker whose representative opposes Medicare for All as a pandemic bears down upon her and her city. Every day, I live the reality of a status quo that has my community in crisis. We deserve so much better. We need change.

I think that the guiding light for an elected official should be compassionate politics, radical love for all people, and the courage to fight for a free and just society.

On and off the campaign trail, an elected official should refuse all corporate PAC, lobbyist, and other big special interest money. They must answer to and be accountable to the people alone.

An elected official must also stay grounded in principles and let values drive their work to reimagine and transform the status quo. The pressure to cave is likely enormous, and it is precisely under that overwhelming pressure when, to remain true to themselves and do the job they were elected to do, a lawmaker has no other option but to lean into it fiercely and renew their commitment to values-driven public service. Otherwise they’re betraying their communities and underperforming. The way I see it is: When, if elected, I am putting my reputation with the establishment on thin ice, I am doing exactly what shattering the status quo requires of me within the walls of Congress. I am doing exactly what a future with mass liberation, restorative justice, reparations, education equity, healthcare and housing for all, and a liveable planet require of all of us together.

What is something that has been a struggle in your life?

I graduated college in 2014 – a year early. About my early graduation, I remember one of my high school peers making the comment that “Hunt was always too smart for us.” In reality, despite the generous financial aid package the University of Richmond provided, I was actually too poor for them. I graduated in three years to save money, even despite working two jobs as a server and a stripper to make ends meet. Recently, I was pushed out of my job as a soccer coach after my transparency of formerly working as a sex worker.

Do you believe that it's beneficial for representatives to have previous experience in government or politics?

I believe it's beneficial for representatives to have previous experience in activism, advocacy work, and organizing. Previous experience in government and/or politics all too often signals an establishment-backed, corporately sponsored career politician. My community is used to waiting over the course of someone's career for transformative change and never seeing it happen. In the meantime, we lead our country in poverty; are angry, frustrated, and hurt; and need representatives who are going to fight for us.

What do you perceive to be the United States’ greatest challenges as a nation over the next decade?

Mass liberation and restorative justice are among our greatest obligations right now and, unfortunately, among our greatest challenges in the coming years. I support eliminating cash bail, ending death by incarceration, increasing compassionate release, ending mandatory minimums, abolishing the death penalty, closing all for-profit prisons, restoring the right to vote of currently incarcerated people, significantly reducing the United States’ overall population of currently incarcerated individuals, working tirelessly to end the War on Drugs, and decriminalizing sex work. Criminalizing sex workers drives them underground, compromising health and safety. Although attempts to criminalize the purchase of sex work do exist, the stigma and fear of legal repercussions persist for the workers themselves, disproportionately affecting trans women of color. As a congresswoman, I would fight to protect sex workers by decriminalizing prostitution and loitering for adults and expunging past convictions.

Public education is the backbone of a healthy democracy, but our current system is failing students of color, low-income students, and neurodivergent students. Decades of depleted federal funds have created a multi-billion-dollar discrepancy in the funds invested in predominantly white and predominantly minority school districts. Reversing this damage in the coming years is among our country’s greatest, most urgent challenges and obligations. In Congress, I would push for equity-driven and student-focused education policies to dramatically increase our federal investment in public education, pay our teachers a living wage, and make schools the center of thriving communities.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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Candidate

Philadelphia City Controller

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