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Friends, I want to share a little background with you about my journey to Congress. When I was three years old, my parents and I moved to Naperville by way of Cleveland. This was in 1990, at a time when the population of our community was growing quickly. As a kid, I believed that public service was cool and understood that it was to be taken seriously. It’s true — just ask my parents! I wanted the best for my community and took on opportunities to help my neighbors by joining the Girl Scouts. I knew then that public service was an excellent way to have an impact. Believe it or not, in high school I served on our local fair housing commission. Thinking back to my early days, it may seem like my path was leading me directly toward public service — but I didn’t have my sights set on running for office at the time. After I graduated from college, I began my career as a registered nurse and worked to implement the Affordable Care Act (ACA), ensuring that millions of Americans, including folks like me with pre-existing conditions, could receive access to high-quality care — some for the first time ever. But in 2017, things took a turn. The Republican House majority was gearing up to repeal the ACA. So I decided to go to the only town hall our former Congressman held that year and hear him out. So here I am, a nurse who worked to expand affordable health care, who has a pre-existing condition of her own, and when our former Congressman said he’d ensure protections were still in place for folks like me, I believed him. But just two weeks later, he voted for an ACA repeal bill in Washington that was anything but that — promising to make health care less accessible and more expensive for millions of Americans. It was then and there that I knew I was going to do something about it. And I decided to run for Congress. Folks like you supported me and in 2018, this incredible team helped me make history by becoming the youngest Black woman ever elected to Congress, flipping IL-14 from red to blue when critics said it was impossible. This team came together in 2022 to defy all odds, flipping IL-13 blue for the first time in three decades and electing Nikki Budzinski to Congress against a self-funded opponent with deep pockets. Nikki made history as the first Democratic woman to serve her district. Since then, we’ve been putting our all into helping our communities. We’ve come a long way, and we have a lot to be proud of, friends. None of it would have been possible without your support over the last few years. Now as you know, our work isn’t finished. Nikki and I are running for reelection because we’re ready to roll up our sleeves and continue our work to make life better for our working families. Some of our shared priorities include protecting the right to vote, reforming a deeply unequal health care system, bringing federal funding back to Illinois to repair our roads and bridges, and protecting a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions. But we can’t do any of it without you. If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your split donation to Nikki Budzinski and Lauren Underwood will go through immediately: This team is unmatched, and we can accomplish anything when we work together. Warmly, Lauren
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