FOLLOW RON
MY MOM'S STORY
I was raised by a single mom who worked as hard as she could to provide for us. But just a couple months after I was born, I caught pneumonia and got really sick. My mom didn’t have paid sick leave or maternity leave so when she had to stay home to take care of me, she lost her job.
We grew up—my mom and me—in a system that wasn’t built for working families like us. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, every week presents an impossible choice: stay home to take care of my kid or take another shift at work? Buy groceries or pay the health insurance bill? Every day, you’re reminded who the country is built for and who it’s not.
But thank God I had my mom. Through pure power of will and a resilience I’ll never be able to fully articulate, she got us through it. So I grew up a healthy kid. I went to a public high school. I saw the value a public education provided kids like me. And through the grace of God and the incredible Minnesota public school system, I was on my way to college.
MY STORY
I remember the day during my freshman year of college when I got my copy of “The Audacity of Hope” by the then young senator—Barack Obama. He was arguing that it was time for a new generation of leadership and it was time for folks who looked like him—and like me—to lead. That we did not have to wait our turn to do so.
On campus, I did everything I could to get Barack Obama elected. I volunteered at the local campaign office, recruiting friends and dorm mates to join me. I believed I could find myself by giving myself to a larger cause. If we were successful, maybe there would be someone in the most powerful seat in the whole country who understood the experience of my mom and me. And who looked like us too.
Election night was the night before my 19th birthday. I’ll never forget when they called the Commonwealth of Virginia for the Democrats; the first time in 44 years! Ten minutes later, they called the election for Barack Obama. You could hear a pin drop and then our entire campus erupted in euphoria. We did it. I saw up close the power of ordinary people—unseen and unheard—coming together to change the world through small acts. I knew I found my calling.
So I later became a community organizer. I went into public service working for local organizations trying to make change and I got a job with the City Council. I was elected to the Democratic National Committee. And eventually, I became Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Minneapolis. And that same word—resilient—the word I saw my mom embody every single day, it became my work too.
OUR COMMUNITY’S STORY
When I got to working full-time in community organizing and policy, I was always thinking of my mom and what she did for our family. So when I had the chance, I helped build and lead the coalition that said all workers deserve paid sick and family leave—the kind of leave my mom didn’t have when I was a kid. And a few years later, we successfully led the push to extend paid sick leave to 144,000 workers in the city. I did it for my mom and for all the moms out there whose voices were never heard until they were heard all at once.
A few years later, I was Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Minneapolis on the day police murdered George Floyd. I will never forget the helicopters circling above the city and the wailing of a grieving community.
In that moment, I wasn’t a young kid with a single mom anymore and I wasn’t a college student knocking on doors for Barack Obama anymore. I was an executive with an office in City Hall and the ability to build bridges and make lasting change for our community. I wasn’t an elected official, but folks across our community were looking to me and asking to make a change that was different than we had before. Something better. Something out of the status quo. So I got to work. I held folks’ feet to the fire. And—together—we turned that tragedy into a shockwave for positive change across our region.
WHY I’M RUNNING FOR CONGRESS
I’m running for Congress because our community needs strong and effective Democratic leadership. But we can’t afford just another politician.
We deserve someone focused on the district with a history of working within systems to bring about positive change; someone with the lived experience to take on the fight for working families; someone pushing for things like paid sick and family leave, an economy that works for everyone, and a justice system that truly treats everyone equally.
And look, the threat to our democracy right now isn’t just a rising tide of extremism coming from the right. It’s also apathy and cynicism coming from all over the political spectrum. I’m running to be one voice among many hoping to inspire young people to see elected office as a place to make meaningful change, to see civic participation as a worthy effort, and to see our generation as the one who can fix what’s broken in our society.
We need something new. We need something energetic. We need something that feels not just like where we are and what we’ve done, but who we’re becoming and where we’re going. Not only do we need to fix what’s broken, we also need to build new systems capable of achieving our highest ambitions.
I’ve seen in my life the way we get that done is by building bridges, bringing people in instead of pushing them out, and elevating young, energetic leaders who can put in the work to make the change we all need. I hope you’ll join me.
-Ron
MEET RON HARRIS
Ron Harris is an energetic and effective leader with both a history of working within systems to bring about positive change as well as the lived experience to take on the fight for working families. Raised by a single mother in MN-03, Ron’s family planted a church, started a small business, and helped others get their businesses off the ground. Ron holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Inspired by Barack Obama’s historic ascent to the presidency, Ron committed his life to public service—eventually serving as Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Minneapolis and as a Democratic National Committee (DNC) Executive Committee member & Midwestern Caucus Chair. He currently works for the Resilient Cities Network, an international nonprofit where Ron helps cities and communities in the US and all over the world prepare for the future.
As a community and policy leader, Ron helped build and guide the coalition that successfully expanded paid sick leave to 144,000 workers across the city and inspired Saint Paul and Duluth to do the same. His effort was inspired by his mother who—when Ron developed pneumonia as a baby—was fired from her job for taking time off to care for him. Now, mothers and fathers across the city can take time to care for their loved ones, knowing their jobs are protected and their livelihoods are safe.
Ron is running for Congress not only to ensure that his community has strong and effective Democratic representation in Washington, but also to fight the forces of apathy and cynicism coming from across the political spectrum.
