Ecletic crew compete to fill Hegar’s shoes in bid to boot Carter

The 31st Congressional District could've been a contender for a top Democratic pickup opportunity in 2020. Two years ago, political newcomer MJ Hegar came within 2.9 points of defeating U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, on a ticket led by U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke, who came closer still to beating Ted Cruz in the district.

A once-deep red district that Carter won by 21.9 points in 2016 seemed to be ripening to pluckable purple right before hungry Texas Democrats' eyes.

But then O'Rourke decided to run for president instead of Senate against U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Hegar decided to run for Senate instead of challenging Carter again, taking her star appeal and fundraising prowess with her. And the 31st Congressional District pretty much fell off the map of Democratic desire. The party is more focused on knocking off two other GOP incumbents in Central Texas: U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, and Chip Roy from Hays County.

"I wish MJ Hegar had re-upped," said JD Gins, former executive director of the Travis County Democratic Party, now presiding over his own brewery and tap house in Taylor.

But, starved as they might be for big money or a bright spotlight, Democrats have an eclectic, multitalented band of five candidates to choose from in the 31st District, which encompasses most of Williamson and Bell counties, and bigger forces at play to look to in November.

"They're all working really hard.They're all quality people," Gins said. "I feel like whoever does emerge is going to have the benefits of the rising tide, which is undeniable in Williamson County."

Hegar beat Carter in Williamson County, which accounted for 72% of the vote in the district in 2018. Carter was saved by the Bell County vote.

"The momentum in Williamson County is very real," Gins said. "There's just a completely different demographic living in Williamson County than there was four years ago."

Still, Mike Clark, the Democratic candidate against Carter in 2016, who is now in charge of candidate recruitment for Williamson County Democrats, said, "The attention we had in '18 is definitely missing."

In the GOP primary, Carter, who is seeking a 10th term, faces three little-known political novices.

Early voting continues through Friday. Election day is Tuesday.

Coming out of the Indivisible movement, created in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's election, Christine Eady Mann, 54, ran for the seat in 2018. She rallied progressives but lost badly to Hegar, who ran on her biography as a decorated Air Force helicopter pilot who crusaded to end the exclusion on women in combat.

Mann, a family practice physician in Cedar Park, has been working on a second run since Hegar's loss.

"We can do this; we can flip the seat," Mann told Sun City Democrats at a Sept. 26 fundraising dinner in Georgetown.

Mann backs Massachusetts' Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president.

"Nerd girls rule," she said. "I was a book nerd my entire life. I was never part of the popular crowd. And I love policy."

Donna Imam, a 40-year-old tech engineer, is plowing much the same progressive ground while trying to expand the electorate.

A political neophyte, Imam became so curious why Hegar fell short in 2018 that she quit her job to find out.

"I spent the first six months of 2019 going to every city, precinct, town in Texas 31. I went to Rotary Club meetings; I went to Lions Clubs meetings; I went to Democratic club meetings, basically any club meeting just to observe," she said.

The key, she determined, is knocking on doors in both counties that have never been knocked on before.

Imam was the lone no-show at the Sun City dinner, as well as a Saturday candidate forum the day before sponsored by Williamson County Democratic clubs, though she did manage to snag the state AFL-CIO endorsement that weekend.

Imam said Democrats at Sun City already know her, and "every single person in every club knows me."

She also declined to appear before the American-Statesman editorial board if one of her rivals was being interviewed at the same time.

"That doesn't do anything for our message," Imam explained before a Saturday morning block walk in the Austin portion of her district. "We're not interested in being contrasted with other campaigns."

Tammy Young

The only elected official among the five is Tammy Young, 51, who was elected to the Round Rock City Council in 2017, avoiding a runoff by 13 votes.

She stresses her ability to work in a non-partisan manner on the council to get things done, and her personal story.

"I come from a working family. I lived in public housing as a child. I was a teenage mom. I was a high school dropout who worked two full-time jobs just to survive. I experienced homelessness. I have spent years in abusive and violent relationships until I finally could break out of that cycle to offer my children a better life," Young said.

"It will always be this way until there are people in Congress like us, for whom this is a lived experience and not just an intellectual conversation, or a mission inspired by pity for the less fortunate," Young said.

Dan Janjigian

Dan Janjigian, 47, has perhaps the most exotic biography in the field.

DanJan, as he is known, is in the supplementary health insurance business. He competed in the two-man bobsleigh event at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah on the Armenian team (he has dual citizenship), and won a silver medal a year later in the America's Cup.

He is an actor who had a memorable cameo as a drug dealer in the so-bad-it's-good classic "The Room," and was played by Zac Efron in "The Disaster Artist," a movie about the making of "The Room."

He was a winner on Wheel of Fortune. He lives in Leander with his wife, a professional wrestler, and their children.

And so on.

All these experiences, and varied relationships, make Janjigian a heterodox candidate.

He worries that politics doesn't reflect that, "we're becoming purple as a country right now -- you've got people who kind of feel a little bit this way, a little bit that way."

He said he has already started making contact with some Republican members of Congress to build cross-partisanship relationships if he is elected.

He thought Trump's behavior merited impeachment and removal from office, but that impeachment and the Senate trial were a political mistake that could only help re-elect Trump.

"He galvanizes his base," Janjigian said. "The base is so staunch they're going to make sure they vote, they're going to make sure everybody they know votes."

Eric Hanke

In 2011, Austin Chronicle music critic Jim Caligiuri wrote that, "songwriters with a rebellious streak never get old," and Eric Hanke's "earnest breed of roots-rock is a cool breeze on a stifling summer night."

Hanke, 41, has had a day job in recent years, as he explained to the Statesman editorial board.

"I work for the Texas County and District Retirement System and I spent the last five years of my life talking to thousands of people all over the state of Texas, hearing their concerns specifically about health care, and Social Security," Hanke said.

"When I was a songwriter playing places like Gruene Hall, I didn't want to alienate people ... because music is something that has the capacity to transcend a lot of the boundaries that otherwise divide us.

"But when I decided to run as a candidate, and there was going to be a `D' behind my name, I'm out in the open, right? And so I might as well say exactly what it is that I want to say.

"And I wrote this song called `Turn Texas Blue.' And in the second verse, I communicated what I thought was the most important part of our candidacy and what Democrats need to do.

"The lyric is: `If you need to see a doctor, but you can't afford the dues. If you work all day for minimum wage, and you still can't make it through. And if you're tired of the terror that keeps shooting up our schools. If you want to see some changes made because thoughts and prayers won't do. Turn Texas Blue."

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