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Al-Anbat - He spent part of his childhood in Gaza, and worked as a janitor to help his family. He quickly rose to the limelight Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democratic candidate in the midterm elections for the 50th congressional district in California, and became the frontrunner in the electoral race on Tuesday night, August 21, after the conviction of his Republican opponent Representative Duncan Hunter. According to the American website The Intercept, Hunter and his wife, Margaret, were convicted of regularly using campaign funds to spend on personal matters, including a number of luxury vacations, private tuition for their children, a garage door for their home, the fee for flying the family pet to Washington, and meals they ate at all the restaurants. From Spago to Taco Bell, tequila drinks, and dental surgeries. The conviction of Representative Duncan Hunter will not prevent him from running for elections in California except by a court ruling. The American website said that the conviction indicates particularly flagrant violations; Like buying clothes at a golf supply store and “falsely reporting them to the cashier as golf balls for war casualties.” Hunter himself is a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, described the Justice Department's accusations as "politically motivated" and vowed to face them in court. Hunter has been under federal investigation for some time, and local Republicans have been secretly hoping that if he is convicted it will happen before the primary election, so that the party can nominate someone else in his stead. According to California election laws, Hunter's name cannot be removed from the ballot unless he is requested to be removed from a state judge, an extraordinary step he does not appear intent on taking. In addition, even if the candidate is disqualified, it is forbidden to launch campaigns for candidates whose names are not on the ballot paper on the day of the general elections in California, according to the “Two People with the Most Votes” law. Either Hunter and Campa-Najjar, who won the most votes in the June primary, will be included in the November vote, or only Campa-Najjar will be included. Most likely, the first possibility will come true. "I think the Republicans have lost another seat in the House of Representatives," Eric Baumann, leader of the California Democratic Party, told the Roll Call on Tuesday. "San Diego voters will certainly not elect a con man who has been convicted of his crimes." The incident has a similar story that occurred in the midterm elections in 2006, when the Democrats prevailed. The American website said that this drama brings to mind the midterm elections in 2006, which was the last time the Democrats outperformed the Republicans. In that race, the Republicans were unable to replace Tom DeLay in Texas and Mark Foley in Florida after they were plagued by scandals, which turned Republican districts into Democrats. However, progressives are not celebrating yet, given the conservatism of the district, which elected Hunter's father to the House of Representatives nearly three decades before Hunter Jr. replaced him. But the candidate, Campa-Najjar, has a strong resume that suggests his victory in the mid-term. The American website said: “Campa-Najjar has an unusual background, to say the least, for congressional candidates. He is the son of a Mexican-American mother and a Palestinian-American father, and he spent three years of his childhood in the Gaza Strip. He worked as a janitor to help his family in his teenage years. “My mother has raised me almost single-handedly for most of my life,” Campa-Najjar told The Intercept in May. She did not have enough money to buy a house, as she was a single, working-class mother working as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, and she did not earn much.” "So we moved in with my aunt, and then we lived with my grandfather, my mother's father," he added. Campa-Najjar later worked in politics and government, landing jobs in Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, the Latin American Chamber of Commerce, the White House, and the Department of Labor. His father, Muhammad Yusef al-Najjar, was one of the masterminds of the Munich terror attack, which was the massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes. This family bond has been widely covered in the local and international press. His grandfather was killed by Israeli forces in retaliation for the 1972 attack, long before Kampa Najjar was born. (It is noteworthy that Israeli forces bombed a hospital named after al-Najjar in the Gaza Strip in 2014). Campa-Najjar, a champion of Medicare for All campaigns backed by progressive organizations like Democrats Justices and Our Revolution, is running in the primary against Josh Boettner, a political moderate from a US Navy SEAL. Buettner had the backing of Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who supports war veterans across the country, most of whom are moderate or conservative, Rep. Joe Crowley of New York, chair of the Democratic Caucus, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic leader, and the New Democratic Coalition itself. . In April, The Intercept reported on Boettner claiming to have run as an independent, but records show he is in fact a Republican. Campa-Najjar swept to the endorsement of the entire local party, but before the California caucus met to decide state endorsements, word broke out of the identity of his murdered grandfather in Israel. With the support of local rabbis, and a campaign message of peace and reconciliation, Campa-Najjar easily overcame this family bond, winning the support of the California Democratic Party by a landslide. On election night, he finished second, with 18% of the vote to Hunter's 47%, which was enough to get him into the general election. Republican Bill Wells finished third, ahead of Butner by just seven votes, both at 13%.
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