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Watch this Texas mom's inspiring, viral campaign video. She's making history — again.

Watch this Texas mom's inspiring, viral campaign video. She's making history — again.

M.J. Hegar has thrived in the face of adversity her entire life.

The 42-year-old Air Force veteran is also an author, wife, and mother. And now she's trying to win in a Texas congressional district that to date has never elected a Democrat.

In late June, Hegar released a campaign video entitled "Doors," which highlighted her life story and her fight against sexism in the military. She won a historic legal fight that overturned the Direct Combat Definition and Assignment Rule that prevented military women from serving in a number of roles.

The video quickly went viral and has been viewed more than 5 million times across Hegar's YouTube and Facebook channels. That's quite impressive for a political ad in a small Texas congressional district, but it wasn’t expected to affect the actual campaign.

And then the donations started pouring in.

Hegar has outraised her Republican opponent by a wide margin, which shows how much her message is resonating.

On July 16, new fundraising numbers were released by the Federal Elections Commission, and the results were stunning: Hegar outraised her opponent, Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) by more than 4 to 1, with $1,171,373 compared to his $266,889.

"The thousands of people who are supporting our campaign show that it is time to show the door to politicians who care more about campaign donors and political parties than protecting our country," she said.

Hegar says that when she tried to meet with Carter to discuss her military reform initiative, his office refused, saying she wasn't a priority because she wasn't a campaign contributor.

Carter's team has denied the claim, but it clearly resonated with donors, who gave her campaign more than $750,000 in just the first 10 days after her video was released.

She still faces an uphill battle — but that's never stopped her before.

Carter is still considered a 10-point favorite according to election forecasters, but that's a big change from 2016 when he won his election by nearly 22 points. And as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and others have proven, 2018 is a year primed for historic upsets.

"A lot of people across the country feel like they have absent representation and that their voices are not being heard," Hegar said in a recent interview.

It's a message that's resonating with people, even deep in the heart of red-state Texas.

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P&G Good Everyday
Let's Do More Together

Husband-wife pastor team built a network of support across Houston

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
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Glenda moved to Houston from Ohio just before the pandemic hit. She didn't know that COVID-19-related delays would make it difficult to get her Texas driver's license and apply for unemployment benefits. She quickly found herself in an impossible situation — stranded in a strange place without money for food, gas, or a job to provide what she needed.

Alone, hungry, and scared, Glenda dialed 2-1-1 for help. The person on the other end of the line directed her to the Houston-based nonprofit Bread of Life, founded by St. John's United Methodist pastors Rudy and Juanita Rasmus.

For nearly 30 years, Bread of Life has been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS prevention, eliminating food insecurity, providing permanent housing to formerly homeless individuals and disaster relief.

Glenda sat in her car for 20 minutes outside of the building, trying to muster up the courage to get out and ask for help. She'd never been in this situation before, and she was terrified.

When she finally got out, she encountered Eva Thibaudeau, who happened to be walking down the street at the exact same time. Thibaudeau is the CEO of Temenos CDC, a nonprofit multi-unit housing development also founded by the Rasmuses, with a mission to serve Midtown Houston's homeless population.

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A man named Edmund simply tweeted 'I am not OK' and received a worldwide tsunami of support

Edmund O'Leary/Twitter, Jake Tapper/Twitter

Eight months into the coronavirus pandemic, many of us are feeling the weight of it growing heavier and heavier. We miss normal life. We miss our friends. We miss travel. We miss not having to mentally measure six feet everywhere we go.

Maybe that's what was on Edmund O'Leary's mind when he tweeted on Friday. Or maybe he had some personal issues or challenges he was dealing with. After all, it's not like people didn't struggle pre-COVID. Now, we just have the added stress of a pandemic on top of our normal mental and emotional upheavals.

Whatever it was, Edmund decided to reach out to Twitter and share what he was feeling.

"I am not ok," he wrote. "Feeling rock bottom. Please take a few seconds to say hello if you see this tweet. Thank you."

O'Leary didn't have a huge Twitter following, but somehow his tweet started getting around quickly. Response after response started flowing in from all over the world, even from some famous folks. Thousands of people seemed to resonate with Edmund's sweet and honest call for help and rallied to send him support and good cheer.

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kindness
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P&G Good Everyday
P&G Good Everyday
Let's Do More Together

Husband-wife pastor team built a network of support across Houston

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
True

Glenda moved to Houston from Ohio just before the pandemic hit. She didn't know that COVID-19-related delays would make it difficult to get her Texas driver's license and apply for unemployment benefits. She quickly found herself in an impossible situation — stranded in a strange place without money for food, gas, or a job to provide what she needed.

Alone, hungry, and scared, Glenda dialed 2-1-1 for help. The person on the other end of the line directed her to the Houston-based nonprofit Bread of Life, founded by St. John's United Methodist pastors Rudy and Juanita Rasmus.

For nearly 30 years, Bread of Life has been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS prevention, eliminating food insecurity, providing permanent housing to formerly homeless individuals and disaster relief.

Glenda sat in her car for 20 minutes outside of the building, trying to muster up the courage to get out and ask for help. She'd never been in this situation before, and she was terrified.

When she finally got out, she encountered Eva Thibaudeau, who happened to be walking down the street at the exact same time. Thibaudeau is the CEO of Temenos CDC, a nonprofit multi-unit housing development also founded by the Rasmuses, with a mission to serve Midtown Houston's homeless population.

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covid-19
popular

Pete Buttigieg gave the best possible answer to Fox News' 'late-term abortion' questions

A G/Fox News/YouTube

The subject of late-term abortions has been brought up repeatedly during this election season, with President Trump making the outrageous claim that Democrats are in favor of executing babies.

This message grossly misrepresents what late-term abortion actually is, as well as what pro-choice advocates are actually "in favor of." No one is in favor of someone having a specific medical procedure—that would require being involved in someone's individual medical care—but rather they are in favor of keeping the government out of decisions about specific medical procedures.

Pete Buttigieg, who has become a media surrogate for the Biden campaign—and quite an effective one at that—addressed this issue in a Fox News town hall when he was on the campaign trail himself. When Chris Wallace asked him directly about late-term abortions, Buttigieg answered Wallace's questions is the best way possible.

"Do you believe, at any point in pregnancy, whether it's at six weeks or eight weeks or 24 weeks or whenever, that there should be any limit on a woman's right to have an abortion?" Wallace asked.

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A short, simple and irrefutable explanation why there's no such thing as 'white pride'

When it comes to the topic of race, we all have questions. And sometimes, it honestly can be embarrassing to ask perfectly well-intentioned questions lest someone accuse you of being ignorant, or worse, racist, for simply admitting you don't know the answer.

America has a complicated history with race. For as long as we've been a country, our culture, politics and commerce have been structured in a way to deny our nation's past crimes, minimize the structural and systemic racism that still exists and make the entire discussion one that most people would rather simply not have.

For example, have you ever wondered what's really behind the term Black Pride? Is it an uplifting phrase for the Black community or a divisive term? Most people instinctively put the term "White Pride" in a negative context. Is there such a thing as non-racist, racial pride for white people? And while we're at it, what about Asian people, Native Americans, and so on?

Yes, a lot of people raise these questions with bad intent. But if you've ever genuinely wanted an answer, either for yourself or so that you best know how to handle the question when talking to someone with racist views, writer/director Michael McWhorter put together a short, simple and irrefutable video clip explaining why "White Pride" isn't a real thing, why "Black Pride" is and all the little details in between.


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