My Message To The Democratic Party: If We Ask Voters for Change, We Must Change Ourselves
Democrats must fight harder, show up more, and earn trust in a constitutional crisis.
The following is the speech I gave to the California Democratic Party’s CA-08 pre-endorsement delegates on 1/17/2026:
Hello, it is a pleasure to be here and I’m excited to speak with you about the state of our country, the challenges for our district, and the opportunity to take new directions to solve them.
My name is Nicolas Carjuzaa. I’m a first-generation French-American born in Walnut Creek and raised in Martinez. I got my undergraduate degree from Sonoma State, my Master 1 in Business Management from Université Paris-X Nanterre, France, and my MSc International Relations from the University of Bristol in the U.K. Before running for Congress, I was a Principal Analyst of International Affairs at the financial regulator FINRA, where I partnered with U.S. agencies and foreign governments to protect investors, reduce systemic risks, and hold bad actors accountable. I am running for Congress because Trump’s lawlessness and corruption of our financial system made it impossible to feel I was accomplishing anything in my career for our country’s wellbeing, and I want to bring the knowledge and experience I have to the fight for our democracy, our district, and our future.
Until this campaign, I was a voter like many of you who felt frustrated by our terrible loss to Trump and felt compelled to fight differently. As a candidate, I have personally knocked on 2,000 doors of voters so far. They have shared their anger that the Democratic Party seems to be waiting for the political pendulum to swing back their way, rather than fighting and earning their trust now. Voters want us to internalize a simple truth: The Democratic Party cannot ask the voters for change if we are not open to changing ourselves in the first place.
Many democratic voters have asked me why I am primarying a respected longtime incumbent, Congressman John Garamendi. I agree with likely everyone here that he has served this district and this country for decades, and his record of public service is distinguished. But we are living through a constitutional crisis under Trump, and if we win these midterms, our power will be limited to razor-thin margins in the House, where every vote matters. When our Congressman has missed hundreds of votes, voters and stakeholders notice not because they are ungrateful, but because the country is counting on us.
Voters are fed up with excuses. They know we are the wealthiest country in the world, and by the way, the Bay Area’s GDP is larger than all but four states in the Union; that’s Texas, Illinois, New York, and Florida. So when nothing gets done, people get tired of being told to pay more and accept less. We have a country to pay for, and it’s past time for the very wealthiest Americans and largest corporations to pitch in their fair share. Using the power we gain, we need to redirect capital into areas of responsible economic development already outlined by local initiatives, city plans, and county outlines, but especially towards building equity in our communities in greatest need.
My People’s Agenda starts with reinvestment, real, long-term, permanent levels of investment, especially so that our cities can build future-proof infrastructure and industries, not band-aids, not afterthoughts, not misplaced priorities.
The cost of living is crushing people in our district because our national economy and financial system is built to extract and concentrate wealth, not distribute it. Housing should be a place to live instead of a speculative asset; healthcare a public good instead of a profit center; education should be a pathway to opportunity, not a debt sentence; and energy should create opportunities not volatility. My agenda confronts those failures directly: instituting a national wealth tax and eliminating loopholes on capital gains and estates, reforming the financial system to reduce excessive wealth concentration, working with local governments to disincentivize land vacancy and rent extraction, reducing material costs and zoning restrictions to increase development, expanding public housing in urban centers and near corridors of transit, protecting and expanding labor rights, fighting for universal healthcare to eliminate the waste and profiteering of middlemen, ending predatory interest rates on student loans and increasing funding for public schools, and investing in clean, domestic energy infrastructure.
None of these problems were created by one person, but as Democrats, they are happening on our watch. And voters are asking a fair question: who is fighting for us, every day, with urgency, presence, and imagination?
If we are willing to do the work, I believe voters will meet us there. But to win, we will need more than our delegates here today and more from the democratic process. We must trust change, stand up for our values, and resign ourselves to the power of the people, not to the people in power.
Thank you for your time and consideration of my candidacy. But most importantly, I want to thank each and every one of you for your commitment to rebuilding our country and saving our democracy. I am looking forward to building a better country and future with you.