TUCSON, Arizona—25-year-old Democratic candidate Deja Foxx—already dubbed “the next AOC”—could become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress if she pulls off an upset victory in Tuesday’s Arizona special election. But she is not exactly welcoming the analogy.
“I remember when she was elected. I was just a teenager,” Foxx told the Daily Beast of the frequent comparisons to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ahead of one of her last big rallies before her primary. “Now I’m old enough to run for Congress. And we are in a very different place.”
Foxx, an activist and social media aficionado, is challenging Adelita Grijalva, 54, for the open seat in Arizona following the death of her opponent’s father Raúl Grijalva—a “true progressive icon,” Foxx said—who served Arizona’s 7th and 3rd Congressional District for more than 20 years before his death in March at 77.
Grijalva was one of three Democratic Congressmen to die in office this year, including Reps. Gerry Connolly, 75, and Sylvester Turner, 70. The string of deaths have called even more attention to the Democratic Party’s growing gerontocracy problem after the push for Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 election—and especially considering that the three seats, if they’d been filled, would have almost certainly killed Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Foxx was joined by fellow 25-year-old activist and Leaders We Deserve co-founder David Hogg at her Tucson rally on Friday, not long after the school shooting survivor was ousted as a vice chair for the DNC on an apparent technicality. Hogg had announced his organization would spend $20 million of donor money in safe blue districts to challenge older House Democrats who he says “are asleep at the wheel.”
Pushback from within the party was swift, with 80-year-old party elder James Carville telling Hogg, “It’s just flat-out wrong. That’s money that could be used to beat Republicans to beat Democrats,” just weeks after dubbing Hogg a “contemptible little twerp” over the move.
Hogg hasn’t been swayed—and one race he’s spending that money is Arizona, supporting Foxx, in a race he predicts could see a Zohran Mamdani-like upset.
“Our party needs fighters, not folders,” Hogg said on stage Friday, “people out there that know how to do more than write a strongly worded letter to a fascist,” he argued, slamming Chuck Schumer’s tepid response to Trump’s war on Harvard. And judging by Foxx’s momentum, Hogg’s not alone in his thinking.
Foxx, a Columbia University graduate, was born and raised in Tucson, where she says she relied on social safety nets like food stamps, Medicaid, and Section 8 to get by. She went viral at 16 when she confronted former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake about his support of defunding Planned Parenthood and cutting Title X funding. At 19 years old, she became the youngest staff member on Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, where she served as an “Influencer and Surrogate Strategist.”
Now, she pushes back against the term “influencer,” which has been used to diminish her credentials. “I am not an influencer, I am a leader,” she told the Daily Beast.
@deja_foxx Rally today, doors tomorrow! Sign up to volunteer now. We have one weekend left to make history. #FoxxForAZ #AZ07 ♬ original sound – Deja Foxx
Her social media-intensive campaign for Congress went from an unserious challenge to being “within the margin of error” as of early July. She told the Daily Beast, “It is not about other electeds and who they want to win. It is about who those people out there want fighting for them,” Foxx said, motioning towards her supporters as they braved the Arizona summer heat to hear her speak at the rally.
Those “electeds” had indeed made clear who they want to win on Tuesday. AOC and Bernie Sanders endorsed Adelita Grijalva to take her father’s place in Congress. Grijalva, the first Latina elected to Pima County Board of Supervisors in District 5, argues that her longstanding service in the local community equips her to take up her father’s torch.
But Foxx says that Grijalva is one of the “asleep at the wheel” leaders that young people want to see replaced. She tells the story of going toe-to-toe with Grijalva over sex ed in their state as a teenager.
“I started showing up to school board meetings” with friends to push for an updated curriculum, Foxx said, after she was taught “outdated” sex education guidelines in public school. “And after six months of organizing, we won. And we showed those school board members, who for decades avoided controversy at the expense of the young people they serve, one of whom I am running against in this race—what it looks like to show a spine,” she said Friday. “And it is exactly what I intend to do in Congress.”
Her fiery words call to mind years of impassioned pushback from AOC, but Foxx suggested that even AOC’s tactics have become outdated.
“I represent a generation who has a different kind of urgency and a different skill set, a different way of communicating,” Foxx told the Daily Beast. “And right now, the Democrats, for the very first time in decades, have lost ground with young people. If we do not get serious about the ways we are communicating with them, talking to them, we are going to be in a really bad spot in 2026 and 2028, and we can’t afford that. Families like mine who rely on the social services Donald Trump is trying to cut, things like Medicaid, SNAP benefits, cannot afford another loss.”
The Daily Beast reached out to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment on Foxx’s candidacy but did not receive a response.
Foxx is aware that being a young woman who wants to intensify the pushback against Trump, particularly from within a party that hasn’t exactly extended a warm welcome to younger candidates who want to step into elected positions, will come with risks. “Donald Trump has changed what it means to be a member of Congress,” she said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I am in this because I am scared.”
“The job is different than it was a decade ago or two decades ago when we last voted on who we wanted to represent us,” she continued, indicating Trump. “This is a man who threatens to arrest his political opponents. People like Alex Padilla are put in handcuffs on the floor for asking questions.”
“I come from a working class family. I don’t have two residences where I can list one and live in the other. To be a young woman in this race and to be unapologetically disruptive and progressive” carries significant risks, she acknowledged. But Foxx insisted she’s up to the challenge.
“Who in this race would you trust to go toe to toe with that administration?” she said. “I’ve been arrested on Capitol Hill, protesting. I know what it looks like to risk something. Who do you see going toe-to-toe with Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene? Be serious.”
