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Jonah Garson
Jonah Garson is an officeholder of the Democratic Party of North Carolina Vice Chair.
Garson (Democratic Party) ran for election to the North Carolina House of Representatives to represent District 56. He lost in the Democratic primary on May 17, 2022.
Garson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Jonah Garson was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Garson's professional experience includes working as an attorney. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2009 and a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2014.[1]
Garson has been affiliated with Chapel Hill Carrboro NAACP, Carolina Performing Arts, and the Orange County Democratic Party.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: North Carolina House of Representatives elections, 2022
General election
General election for North Carolina House of Representatives District 56
Incumbent Allen Buansi won election in the general election for North Carolina House of Representatives District 56 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Allen Buansi (D)  | 100.0 | 32,064 |
| Total votes: 32,064 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for North Carolina House of Representatives District 56
Incumbent Allen Buansi defeated Jonah Garson in the Democratic primary for North Carolina House of Representatives District 56 on May 17, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Allen Buansi | 51.5 | 7,715 |
 | Jonah Garson | 48.5 | 7,253 | |
| Total votes: 14,968 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Endorsements
To view Garson's endorsements in the 2022 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2022
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released April 27, 2022 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Jonah Garson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Garson's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a Chapel Hill native and a proud alumnus of its public schools. After graduating from Carolina (’09), I worked at the NCGA for Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, Rep. Paul Luebke, and Speaker Joe Hackney, before attending Columbia Law (‘14). While in NYC, I helped found Team4NC, which mobilized out-of-state donors and organizers to support legislative candidates in NC.
Following law school, I returned to NC to serve as field coordinator for dozens of Democratic legislative challengers across the state, and in 2019, I was Voter Protection Director for the special “re-do” election in NC’s 9th Congressional district. Most recently, I chaired the Orange County Democratic Party and served as an Executive Committee Member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP.
- Democracy is under attack by an illiberal Right that has stymied progress in this state for a decade. At this moment, we need legislators who are also organizers, who believe that building Democratic power statewide is as essential to the job as casting the good, progressive policy vote. It will take a full-time, headlong commitment to organizing, to building power and flipping seats, to win any of the points. That's the commitment we need from our next state representative. It’s what I’ve done for the last twelve years. It’s also how I’ve run my campaign for this office — we’ve knocked over 30,000 doors here in the community so far, brought in over 125 volunteers, and we’ve been powered by small-dollar donations from over 500 donors.
- My first policy priority is democracy reform: for a decade, NC has been ground zero for voter suppression and map-rigging. We must fight back with urgency for our democracy, else we risk losing it. Second, fully-funded, equitable public schools: I support dramatic pay raises; universal pre-K; creating new programs to recruit and retain teachers of color. I will fight demoralizing “merit pay” models that exacerbate existing inequities. Third, addressing the climate crisis through transformative, system-level policy change that rebuilds our energy, transportation, and utility infrastructure, with policies grounded in environmental justice and equity, and intentionally center our frontline communities.
- Exacerbating our current challenges is a history of racially inequitable policymaking. As Representative, I will approach every policy question with an equity lens, challenging myself and my colleagues to ensure that policy responds to the needs of communities of color and other historically-marginalized communities. In doing so, I’ll be informed by relationships I’ve developed through years of organizing and policy work, including relationships developed as an executive committee member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, to make sure that these communities are centered in driving the policy agenda and in the organizing efforts critical to winning that policy.
The experience of watching an entrenched Republican majority undo decades of progress has made me passionate about democracy reform, which is a requisite for realizing the progress we’ve been envisioning for years.
Among many other things, as Representative, I will work to finally enact redistricting reform to prevent racial and partisan gerrymandering and to ensure meaningful political representation for every community; introduce automatic registration for all voting eligible North Carolinians, including those turning 18; fight against voter ID requirements and other attempts to disenfranchise voters of color and poor voters; expand the right to vote and participation in our democracy through greater access to voter registration, early voting, and vote-by-mail, and the introduction of ballot drop-boxes; and increase funding and training for county boards of elections.
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.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
|
Candidate North Carolina House of Representatives District 56 |
Personal |
Footnotes
