Kojo Asamoa-Caesar
From Ballotpedia
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Kojo Asamoa-Caesar (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Asamoa-Caesar completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Kojo Asamoa-Caesar was born in Alexandria, Virginia. He earned a B.S. from Old Dominion University in May 2008 and a J.D. from William & Mary Law School in May 2012. His professional experience includes working as an early childhood teacher at Tulsa Lighthouse Charter School, as director of outreach & operations at the office of Sen. Mike Johnston, as founding principal of the Greenwood Leadership Academy, and as interim executive director for 36 Degrees North.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District election, 2020
Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District election, 2020 (June 30 Republican primary)
Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District election, 2020 (June 30 Democratic primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House Oklahoma District 1
Incumbent Kevin Hern defeated Kojo Asamoa-Caesar and Evelyn Rogers in the general election for U.S. House Oklahoma District 1 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Kevin Hern (R) | 63.7 | 213,700 |
 | Kojo Asamoa-Caesar (D)  | 32.7 | 109,641 | |
| Evelyn Rogers (Independent) | 3.6 | 12,130 | ||
| Total votes: 335,471 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House Oklahoma District 1
Kojo Asamoa-Caesar defeated Mark Keeter in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Oklahoma District 1 on June 30, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Kojo Asamoa-Caesar | 63.6 | 34,868 |
| Mark Keeter | 36.4 | 19,924 | ||
| Total votes: 54,792 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. Incumbent Kevin Hern advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House Oklahoma District 1.
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kojo Asamoa-Caesar completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Asamoa-Caesar'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 husband, father of a newborn girl, the son of immigrants, a proud product of public schools and a law school graduate who chose to become a kindergarten teacher in Oklahoma. My mom was a certified nursing assistant and my dad was a taxi driver and they were drawn to the United States in the early 80s from Ghana by the call of the American Dream. Driven by my mother's strength and encouragement, I committed myself to working hard in school and went on to study Communications at Old Dominion University, where I was elected student body president and founded T.R.U.S.T., an organization dedicated to developing young adults as positive change agents in their communities. I then went on to study law at the College of William & Mary, the oldest law school in the nation. After graduating, rather than entering a career in law, I decided to join Teach for America, which brought me to Tulsa as a kindergarten teacher in 2013. I was named Teacher of the Year at my school site after just my second year of teaching. I later went on to serve as founding principal of Greenwood Leadership Academy, a partnership school of the Met Cares Foundation and Tulsa Public Schools. I also served as interim executive director of 36 Degrees North, a co-working space that serves as Tulsa's basecamp for entrepreneurs. I live in Tulsa with my wife, Onikah, and our two rescue dogs, Simba and Zazu. We just welcomed our first child into the world, a beautiful baby girl named, Hadassah.
- I am the son of immigrants, a proud product of public schools, and a law school graduate who chose to become a kindergarten teacher in Oklahoma. I am running for Congress to give everyone a fair shot at the American Dream.
- Our country is made great when we expand opportunity to more and more people, not when we restrict it and scapegoat others and seek to pit one group against another. I'm running to bridge the divide and bring people together to build an America as good as its promise. An America where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are within reach for all.
- We need responsible leadership to advocate for progressive ideas like universal pre-kindergarten, universal healthcare, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, ending mass incarceration, passing comprehensive immigration reform, and addressing our climate crisis.
Education & Opportunity
Health & Economic Security
Justice & Equity
Nelson Mandela. He was a leader with deep conviction and high moral character. He was willing to sacrifice his freedom, and if necessary, his life, in service to his ideals. He believed that to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. And he did that. He spent 27 years in prison fighting for freedom, and he came out still a whole person, without resentment and full of hope for the future. That is the kind of example I want to follow.
High moral character and integrity. Commitment to public service and a worthy cause greater than self. An eagerness to listen and learn from others. Humility to acknowledge you don't know it all. Capacity to be nice to people, even those who may disagree with you.
If I were to win my race, I would be the first African-American to have held the seat. I would also be the first 1st-generation American and the first millennial. The seat has also not been held by a Democrat since the year I was born, 1986. I want to leave a legacy of hope and possibility. A legacy of commitment to public service and of using elected office to bring people together to expand opportunity for all. I want the kids in my district to have better and brighter futures because I served.
I remember when the Columbine High School shooting happened in 1999. I was a 13-year-old middle schooler preparing to go to high school the next year. It was very shocking and unnerving. It was unthinkable that high school students could get their hands on guns and bring them to school and shoot their friends and teachers. Unfortunately, this has now become an all too frequent reality for students all over the country.
My very first job was working as a waiter at Denny's. I was in high school and I held the job for a couple of summers. I remember I would go home at the end of my shift and my jaws would be hurting from smiling at customers all day. It was a fun job, I got to meet lots of people and I got great tips.
Heaven Is A Place On Earth by Belinda Carlisle. My wife and I have been watching the hit series, The Handmaid's Tale and in the last episode we watched, the lead character, June, sings that song in various iterations throughout the entire episode. It's hard for the song not to be stuck in one's head after watching.
No. What I think is beneficial is for representatives to have lived life in the real world in service to others and in service to a cause greater than themselves. That is the essence of being a representative - you are not there to serve your own interests and look out for number one. You are there to serve the people in your district who sent you there and to make decisions that advance the cause of the greater good. Public service over self-interest is so important and absolutely needed in this role. This is why I decided to become a kindergarten teacher after graduating law school. I was passionate about education and its power to lift people up and give them an opportunity at achieving the American Dream. I could have chosen to go straight into politics to try to help address the challenges in our education system, but I decided it would be better for me to step into the classroom and learn about those challenges first hand while seeking to contribute to making it better for our youngest learners. My experience as a kindergarten teacher and a founding school principal has given me an indispensable experience that gives me insight into the needs of kids, families, and stakeholders in my community that I wouldn't otherwise have. It has given me a deep conviction to advocate for and fight for a cause that is greater than myself or any special interests. That kind of experience is what is beneficial for someone seeking to be a representative of the people.
Our greatest challenges have to do with building a better world for the next generation. Can we build an education system that allows us to have the world's best-educated populace and expand opportunity to more and more people? Can we fix a healthcare system that leaves too many millions uninsured or underinsured and is so costly that it leaves countless people bankrupt due to sickness? Can we provide economic security to workers and ensure that no one has to work multiple jobs just to earn a living wage? Can we end mass incarceration and pass comprehensive immigration reform? Can we save our planet by transitioning to 100% renewal energy by the timeframe set by climate scientists? Addressing these challenges will ensure that we build an America that is as good as its promise. An America where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is within reach for all. An America where the next generation can do better than the previous generation. That is what the American Dream is all about.
At a session on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons, I met a 16-year-old named, Angelina, a member of the Comanche Nation. She shared the story of her cousin who went missing, and of the
authorities who failed, at every step of the way, to provide meaningful assistance. And she was not alone - many family members got up to talk about the daughters, the sisters, and the aunties they've lost to this crisis of murdered and missing indigenous people in their community, and the lack of help, or even outright hostility, they've experienced from those who are supposed to protect and serve them. Angelina is now a black belt in martial arts, not because it was a fun hobby she decided to pick up in her spare time as a teenager, but because she fears for her safety and now feels sole responsibility to protect herself because she can't trust that the adults will. This story was touching in more ways than one. But it illustrates the lack of trust and the breaking of the bonds that bind us together. When the next generation believes they have to fend for themselves because they can't trust those who are in positions of authority and responsibility, then we have a huge problem. I'm running to heal those bonds, to bridge the divide and to build an America as good as its promise. An America that the next generation can trust in, rely upon, and build on.
authorities who failed, at every step of the way, to provide meaningful assistance. And she was not alone - many family members got up to talk about the daughters, the sisters, and the aunties they've lost to this crisis of murdered and missing indigenous people in their community, and the lack of help, or even outright hostility, they've experienced from those who are supposed to protect and serve them. Angelina is now a black belt in martial arts, not because it was a fun hobby she decided to pick up in her spare time as a teenager, but because she fears for her safety and now feels sole responsibility to protect herself because she can't trust that the adults will. This story was touching in more ways than one. But it illustrates the lack of trust and the breaking of the bonds that bind us together. When the next generation believes they have to fend for themselves because they can't trust those who are in positions of authority and responsibility, then we have a huge problem. I'm running to heal those bonds, to bridge the divide and to build an America as good as its promise. An America that the next generation can trust in, rely upon, and build on.
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
2020 Elections
External links
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Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 6, 2020
Senators
James Lankford (R)
Markwayne Mullin (R)
Representatives
District 1
Kevin Hern (R)
District 2
Josh Brecheen (R)
District 3
Frank Lucas (R)
District 4
Tom Cole (R)
District 5
Stephanie Bice (R)
Republican Party (7)
