Ammar Campa-Najjar

Ammar Campa-Najjar (born in 1989) is an American Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in the 2020 election.^[1] He is running to represent California's 50th congressional district, which includes parts of San Diego County and Riverside County. He previously lost to Duncan D. Hunter in the 2018 election. He formerly served in the United States Department of Labor. He is the first Latino-Arab American to run for Congress.^[2][3]

His father Yasser Najjar is Palestinian, and his mother Abigail Campa is Mexican American.^[1] His mother is a practicing Catholic.^[4]

His paternal grandfather was Abu Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, a leader of the Fatah political party, one of the largest factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization.^[1][5] In 1965 the grandfather founded Fatah along with Yasser Arafat and other Palestinians.^[1] He was long believed to have been connected to the Munich massacre, perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists who received funding and other support from Fatah.^[1][5][6] He was head of Fatah’s "intelligence wing (which ran Black September [the group that perpetrated the attack])."^[1][7][8] He was targeted in Israel's retribution attacks known as “Operation Wrath of God,” and killed by Israeli commandos in 1973.^[1][5][8] In February 2018 a book published by Ronen Bergman, Rise and Kill First, challenged this historical understanding.^[9] In 2019 in response to this new information Campa-Najjar withdrew some of the condemnations he had made against his grandfather.^[10][11]

His father Yasser, following the killing of his parents by Israeli Special Forces, and his father's siblings were sent to Cairo by King Hassan II of Morocco.^[1] The siblings were separated over the following years, with Yasser attending school in England before immigrating to the US and obtaining American citizenship.^[1] Yasser moved to San Diego in 1981, and earned an MBA from San Diego State University.^[1] Ammar's mother Abigail Campa grew up in the Logan Heights neighborhood of San Diego, and she and Yasser married in the 1980s. In 1994, Yasser moved to Gaza, with his family joining him three years later, and Yasser began to work for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which he worked for for 20 years.^[1] Yasser worked in the PNA Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation and as a diplomat at the PNA Ministry of Foreign Affairs.^[1] During his time in Gaza, he attempted to counteract the rising influence of Hamas.^[1] Yasser left the PNA in 2018.^[1]

Campa-Najjar was born in La Mesa, California.^[4] In 1997, when he was eight years old, he and his family moved to the Gaza Strip.^[1] In 1998, he attended a Catholic school in the Gaza Strip.^[12] After living in Gaza for four years, he and his mother and brother moved back to San Diego County.^[1] At age 15-and-a-half, he worked as a janitor to help his single mother pay bills.^[13]

While in high school Ammar converted from Islam to Christianity.^[14] He considers himself to be Latino.^[15]

He attended community college at Southwestern College, and later graduated from San Diego State University, where he earned dual bachelor's degrees in philosophy and psychology. He is trilingual in English, Spanish, and Arabic.^[1][16]

Campa-Najjar worked as a deputy regional field director for Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign.^[17] During the Obama Administration, Campa-Najjar served in the Labor Department's Office of Public Affairs for the Employment and Training Administration. He was tasked with reading and helping select the 10 letters that President Obama would read each day.^[18]

He has also worked for the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce^[17] as the communications and marketing director.^[19] In this capacity, he prepared to interview then-candidate Donald Trump,^[20] who ultimately pulled out of the scheduled event,^[21] despite having earlier told Geraldo Rivera in an interview that he would attend.^[22]

Campa-Najjar has advocated enhanced vetting and the empowerment of moderate Muslims to help end terrorism.^[23] He has advocated for apprenticeship programs that pay people as they learn, for example the Registered Apprenticeship job training initiative, which has bipartisan support.^[24][25][26]

Campa-Najjar cited the call to service in Barack Obama's farewell address as an inspiration to run for Congress.^[19] Campa-Najjar supports environmentally sustainable developments, including solar farms.^[27] Campa-Najjar advocated for registering young people to vote, especially those who would be 18 by 2018, because they would be on the receiving end of climate change and increasing levels of indebtedness.^[2] His top domestic issue was training Americans to fill job vacancies, and his top international issue was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he opposed Trump's suggested wall with Mexico and travel ban.^[28] He cited economic inequality as a top issue facing California, "other than the severe droughts and fires"^[26] The district in which he ran for office was about 35% Latino and 15% voters of Middle Eastern descent.^[28]

On February 2, 2018, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Campa-Najjar had outraised both the Republican incumbent, Duncan Hunter, and his Democratic rival, Josh Butner.^[29] On June 5, 2018, Campa-Najjar placed second in the nonpartisan blanket primary, earning a chance to compete against Hunter in November.^[17] Campa-Najjar credited support from Our Revolution as an important factor in the primary victory.^[30] The San Diego Union-Tribune endorsed Campa-Najjar as superior to Hunter, citing the "lunacy" of incumbent Hunter.^[31]

He also received significant international coverage as the first Arab-Latino congressional candidate in the United States.^[32][33]

He lost the 2018 election to Hunter by 8,900 votes.^[34]

Campaign controversies

Campa-Najjar's campaign was the subject of numerous controversies due to his opponent making numerous Islamophobic allegations against him.^[35]

Hunter's campaign ran an ad in which it claimed that Campa-Najjar had received support from Council on American–Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood. The fact-checking organization PolitiFact found the claim to be without any merit.^[36] In October 2018, Hunter's father Duncan L. Hunter gave his support on his son's negative rhetoric and attacked Campa-Najjar as a security risk.^[37]

Campa-Najjar's 2018 candidacy attracted international attention due to allegations that his paternal grandfather was involved with the 1972 Munich massacre.^[38] He acknowledged and denounced the alleged crimes of his grandfather, who died 16 years before he was born.^[39]

Campa-Najjar's campaign received a notable degree of coverage following the indictment of his opponent for stealing campaign funds for personal use.^[40] Hunter's scandal gave his campaign a boost.^[41] His loss garnered additional coverage because of the use of anti-Muslim stereotypes against a non-Muslim candidate.^[42][43] However, Campa-Najjar said that he did not blame bigotry for his defeat.^[44]

He announced that he will run for the same seat again in 2020.^[17][45][46] He announced his candidacy on Twitter a day after filing his paperwork with the FEC.^[47] He has stated that his 2020 campaign will run on the dual platform of economic security and national security.^[48] Campa-Najjar said that for this election he will make a more concerted effort to reach out to conservative voters, especially veterans.^[49]

Under election rules in California, the top two vote-getters in the March 3, 2020, primary, regardless of party affiliation, will later face each other in the general election.^[50] Campa-Najjar placed first in the primary and will face a November runoff election against Republican former congressman Darrell Issa.^[51]

• List of converts to Christianity from Islam