Deja Foxx is running for Arizona, but her campaign is for America’s future

Deja Foxx wants to become the youngest and first-ever Gen Z woman elected to Congress. 

At just 25, the activist and content creator has attracted a huge online following throughout her campaign for Arizona’s seventh district, centering on her identity as a candidate who is running against what she calls the “Democratic establishment.” 

“It’s true that I have a different kind of experience than most people in this race or most people in DC, part of that is a lived experience,” Foxx told The Copper Courier in an exclusive interview. 

On July 15, voters in this solid blue district will choose a primary candidate to succeed the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who passed away while in office earlier this year after battling lung cancer. The general election will be held in September.

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Grijalva was first elected to Congress in 2002, and for over two decades, he was one of the most progressive voices in the House. He was also the second sitting Democratic member of Congress to call on President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

His daughter, Adelita Grijalva, is currently the frontrunner in the primary, while Foxx, former state lawmaker Daniel Hernandez, Indigenous activist Jose Malvido Jr., and former health care executive Patrick Harris Sr. also trail.

Congressional District 7 is a large, heavily blue district, encompassing most of Tucson and part of the Phoenix metro area, spanning Cochise, La Paz, Maricopa, Pima and Yuma counties—including the US-Mexico border and a large chunk of Indigenous land. 

And while Foxx has centered her personal brand and her youth as the strongest elements of her campaign to represent Arizona in Congress, she’s also tapping into a more national trend: young Americans getting involved in politics.

“What we’ve been doing in this campaign is pulling back the curtain to give people a playbook on what it looks like as someone who’s young and from a working class background without decades of connections to engage with this process and to run for office,” she explained.

Foxx first gained national attention while in high school, when she stood up to challenge then-Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, over Planned Parenthood funding at a town hall, resulting in her first viral moment. 

She consistently shares her personal origin story, raised in Tucson by a single mom in Section 8 housing on food stamps, and she eventually went on to be a first-generation college graduate with a degree from Columbia University. 

“I had the opportunity to be the first in my family to go to college, build new skills and bring them back home. That is what we should want for our young people, is for them to have all the opportunities and to bring them back home,” she said.

As a result, she continued to build her reputation as an activist. Foxx led a student walkout to march to former Republican Sen. Martha McSally’s office after the mass school shooting in Parkland Florida, spoke at Red for Ed rallies advocating for public education, and was arrested on Capitol Hill in an act of civil disobedience after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—among involvement advocating for reproductive rights.

READ MORE: Deep-blue Arizona congressional district is up for grabs. Who will fill Raúl Grijalva’s shoes?

More recently, she was a political content creator for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Her ability to connect through her content and generate buzz online has become key to her campaign.

“I get the backend data, and I’m able to tell you that we have reached hundreds of thousands of individuals in cities in this district without a single dollar paid behind it, just really good storytelling,” she said. “Anybody who says any different, I think, is scared of the kind of reach that we are able to create just by telling the truth, by telling stories, and using social media in a way that is disruptive to the traditional gatekeeping of the political process.”

And while Foxx acknowledges the legacy that Rep. Raúl Grijalva left—she believes he remained in office for too long. The vacancy left by his death, she suggested, is partly to blame for why the GOP was able to advance President Donald Trump’s budget bill. 

Her strength, she believes, is being someone that people can relate to and have a platform worth being passionate about.

“When we give people a candidate they can see themselves in—someone who meets the moment and speaks with clarity to the kind of damage Donald Trump poses to families like ours and a candidate, most importantly, that people can actually get excited about, they show up,” she said.

Regardless of the outcome—and Foxx is in this race to win—her campaign has made national waves and proved that Gen Z deserves a seat at the table.

“This election, this district, is better off because we are in this race,” Foxx said. “We need to look at the kind of candidates we are now, the kind of races we are running, and we are not just talking the talk. We are walking the walk.”