Help us improve in just 2 minutes—share your thoughts in our reader survey.
Steve Kuzmich
Steve Kuzmich (independent) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Texas' 24th Congressional District. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Kuzmich completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Steve Kuzmich was born in New York, New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University in 1991 and a J.D. from Baylor Law School in 1994. Kuzmich’s career experience includes working as a lawyer.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Texas' 24th Congressional District election, 2020
Texas' 24th Congressional District election, 2020 (March 3 Republican primary)
Texas' 24th Congressional District election, 2020 (March 3 Democratic primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House Texas District 24
Beth Van Duyne defeated Candace Valenzuela, Darren Hamilton, Steve Kuzmich, and Mark Bauer in the general election for U.S. House Texas District 24 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Beth Van Duyne (R) | 48.8 | 167,910 |
 | Candace Valenzuela (D) | 47.5 | 163,326 | |
 | Darren Hamilton (L)  | 1.6 | 5,647 | |
 | Steve Kuzmich (Independent) | 1.2 | 4,229 | |
 | Mark Bauer (Independent) | 0.8 | 2,909 | |
| Total votes: 344,021 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Watch the Candidate Conversation for this race!
Democratic primary runoff election
Democratic primary runoff for U.S. House Texas District 24
Candace Valenzuela defeated Kim Olson in the Democratic primary runoff for U.S. House Texas District 24 on July 14, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Candace Valenzuela | 60.4 | 20,003 |
 | Kim Olson | 39.6 | 13,131 | |
| Total votes: 33,134 | |||
| = 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 U.S. House Texas District 24
The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Texas District 24 on March 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Kim Olson | 41.0 | 24,442 |
| ✔ | | Candace Valenzuela | 30.4 | 18,078 |
 | Jan McDowell | 10.0 | 5,965 | |
| Crystal Fletcher (Unofficially withdrew) | 5.7 | 3,386 | ||
 | Richard Fleming | 5.1 | 3,010 | |
 | Sam Vega | 4.5 | 2,677 | |
 | John Biggan | 3.4 | 1,996 | |
| Total votes: 59,554 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House Texas District 24
Beth Van Duyne defeated David Fegan, Desi Maes, Sunny Chaparala, and Jeron Liverman in the Republican primary for U.S. House Texas District 24 on March 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Beth Van Duyne | 64.3 | 32,067 |
 | David Fegan | 20.7 | 10,295 | |
 | Desi Maes | 5.8 | 2,867 | |
 | Sunny Chaparala | 5.6 | 2,808 | |
 | Jeron Liverman | 3.6 | 1,809 | |
| Total votes: 49,846 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
Libertarian convention
Libertarian convention for U.S. House Texas District 24
Darren Hamilton advanced from the Libertarian convention for U.S. House Texas District 24 on March 21, 2020.
Candidate | ||
| ✔ | | Darren Hamilton (L) |
| ||||
| = 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 themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Steve Kuzmich completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Kuzmich's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
I am running for Congress because the American political system is broken, our Country is hurting and our Country is in danger. Elected officials need to represent us, not the far right and the far left of their own parties. I am the candidate for reasonably minded voters who want to put Country over party. I am the candidate for voters who want a candidate that is fiscally conservative and socially moderate.
I have a proven track record as a problem solver and reasonable person who will listen and can see both sides of issues. While I do have strong beliefs, I am willing to work together with people who have different beliefs to work towards common sense solutions. Always keeping in mind that our most important beliefs are the beliefs that unite us as Americans: freedom, democracy, free markets, shared sacrifice, human rights, respect for three equal branches of government and the rule of law.
- I am fiscally conservative and socially moderate.
- I believe that we must always put our Country and our values over the extreme political parties.
- I believe in taking care of business, tackling big problems and finding solutions.
We need a national bipartisan bill to repair our neglected roads, bridges and airports. This is my favorite starting issue where we can all work together. Everyone sees our decaying roads and we all want funding to improve the roads in our congressional districts. If we can find agreement here, we can build upon that accomplishment.
We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform that is tough on border security while supporting generous legal immigration and treating our immigrant communities with respect by giving them certainty on where they stand. Any plan should provide a path to citizenship for our DACA kids and better treatment of countries that share our values.
We need to control spending, balance our federal budget and begin the process of reducing our national debt. We need a government that budgets as opposed to funding by continuing spending resolutions that often threaten to shut government down.
I believe that we can protect the Second Amendment and do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.
I have a detailed health insurance plan that uses the free market and government to provide catastrophic coverage, health savings accounts and cost reductions.
Take the politics out of it as much as possible. Have citizen commissions draw the districts following fair guidelines. The group Voters Not Politicians has great ideas on how to do this on their website.
District 24 is a Gerrymandered district that was originally drawn to be a safe Republican district. After ten years of population growth it is a district that Democrats have carried in other races. The District goes all the way from South Plano/Nebraska Furniture Mart to the top of Love Field, west to the top of Fort Worth, North to Denton County and East back to Lewisville. It has a giant population lake in the center, DFW Airport. It includes parts of over 15 cities and three counties. It takes over two hours to take a lap around it by car. It makes no sense whatsoever. We have districts in Texas that are over 100 miles long including one that runs from Austin all the way to San Antonio.
By the time voters get to the general election in November they really do not have a choice that is suitable for the vast majority of voters in the center.
Ultimately, the candidates that are elected are unwilling to work to find solutions with the opposing party because doing so would cause them to lose in their own primary election. We see this dysfunction when we wonder why our government is unable to pass legislation to solve problems. Social media, the echo chamber, amplifies the extreme voices on the left and right. This dysfunction has no end in sight.
I met a lady who has a relative that died from COVID-19. She was very supportive of my campaign, but I was ashamed that we had a system that works so hard to keep Independents off the ballot that it made us go door to door during a global pandemic to get signatures just to be on the ballot. She agreed. There needs to be some threshold to be on the ballot, but it could have been accomplished with online signatures, letters of support, or the paying of a filing fee.
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
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on August 18, 2020
