Care you can reach
Keep every community clinic open, cap out-of-pocket costs, and end surprise bills. Health care shouldn’t require a lawyer or a GoFundMe.
[People-powered · the 9th District]
This is a movement — not a campaign.
Power to the people who show up.
Dara Okonkwo is a first-time candidate for Congress — an organizer, a nurse, and a neighbor who is done waiting for permission. No PACs. No script. Just us, and The People’s Agenda.
[01 / Join]
Add your name.
Add your fight.
A movement isn’t a mailing list — it’s people who show up. Put your name in and we’ll put you to work. This is the single most important thing you can do right now.
[02 / Meet]
Not a politician.
An organizer.
Dara Okonkwo has spent fifteen years on night shifts and in church basements — a hospital nurse who kept meeting the same neighbors in the ER for the same preventable reasons: bills they couldn’t pay, care they couldn’t reach, a system built to wear them down.
So she organized. When the county tried to shutter the last community clinic, Dara knocked on two thousand doors in a summer and packed the hearing until they backed off. When rents jumped overnight, she helped tenants win the first renter protections this district has ever seen.
She isn’t running because she waited her turn. She’s running because the people writing the rules stopped showing up — and somebody who does needs a seat at the table.
This campaign takes $0 from corporate PACs. It runs on small gifts, volunteer hours, and The People’s Agenda — written with the people it’s for.
- 15 yrs
- On the front lines
- 2,000
- Doors in one summer
- $0
- From corporate PACs
[03 / The Plan]
The People’s Agenda
Five demands, written with the people they’re for. No consultant-speak, no hedging — a plan you can hold Dara to.
A place you can afford
Real renter protections, a crackdown on corporate landlords, and homes built for people who live here — not investors flipping the block.
Work that pays a life
A living wage, the right to organize without fear, and job training that leads to a real career — in the neighborhoods that got left out.
Schools that show up for kids
Smaller classes, counselors in every building, and free after-school and meals — because a kid’s ZIP code shouldn’t decide their future.
A government that answers to us
Ban members of Congress from trading stocks, get dark money out of our elections, and publish every meeting with paid lobbyists. Power belongs to people, not donors.
[Watch]
Ninety seconds.
One promise.
Video poster · 1920×1080 · 16:9
[04 / News]
The movement
is the story.
Okonkwo campaign crosses 6,000 volunteer signups in ninety days
A first-time candidate’s field program has now knocked more doors this summer than any race in the district’s history.
Read more →“The People’s Agenda” town halls draw overflow crowds
Standing room only across three neighborhoods as Dara takes unscripted questions until the lights go out.
Read more →Small-dollar donors power a record grassroots quarter
An average gift of $22 — and zero corporate PAC money — puts the movement on the map months ahead of schedule.
Read more →[05 / Voices]
People who show up
say she does too.
Dara didn’t send a staffer. She showed up to our picket line at 6 a.m. — twice.
Service Workers UnitedLocal 44
She organized the fight to save our clinic. Now she’s taking it to Congress.
Eastside Neighbors CoalitionMember-voted endorsement
Fifteen years at the bedside. She’s the first candidate who actually asked nurses what we need.
District Nurses AllianceFounding chapter
Renters finally have someone who answers the phone. That someone is Dara.
Tenants TogetherAnytown chapter
[06 / Events]
Show up.
That’s how we win.
People’s Agenda Town Hall — Eastside
Doors & Donuts: Saturday Canvass Launch
Students & Neighbors Kickoff Rally
[07 / Enlist]
The other side
has money.
We have each other.
Doors, phones, porches, letters. This is where a movement actually happens. Pick how you’ll show up.
[08 / Fuel]
They have donors.
We have you.
Dara takes $0 from corporate PACs. Every dollar here is a door knocked, a call made, an ad the machine can’t ignore.