By Joseph Ax
CAPE MAY, New Jersey, Dec 18 (Reuters) – It was Megan O’Rourke’s dream job. As a top climate scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she oversaw grants for research projects aimed at making food production healthier and more sustainable.
But when President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting funding programs associated with climate change, O’Rourke decided she could no longer work for the government and remain true to her moral compass – or the oath she swore to serve the country, not just the president.
A few months after quitting her job, she’s fighting back against Trump by running for Congress as a Democrat in New Jersey’s 7th district, one of the few competitive U.S. House races likely to determine control of the chamber in 2026.
“I literally sat down a year ago with my husband, and we were plotting out our retirement in 12 years,” said O’Rourke, 46. “Then one day, I went to him early this spring: ‘Honey, what if I blow up our life and quit my job?'”
More than a half-dozen federal employees from departments including Justice, Veterans Affairs, State and Agriculture who quit or lost their jobs after the Trump administration swung a wrecking ball through their agencies are running for Congress as Democrats. Each has put their record of public service, and their experience during the opening months of Trump’s second term, at the center of their campaign.
Democrats need to flip three Republican seats in next year’s midterm elections to win a House majority. That would enable them to stymie much of Trump’s legislative agenda and investigate his administration.
FROM FEDERAL SERVICE TO POLITICAL BATTLEGROUND
Ryan Crosswell, a 45-year-old former prosecutor, resigned over the Justice Department’s controversial dismissal of corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. John Sullivan, 41, ended his nearly 17-year FBI career in protest of what he viewed as the weaponization of the bureau. And Zach Dembo, 40, quit his job as an assistant U.S. attorney out of fear he might be forced to violate his oath to uphold the law.
Other candidates who left the government just before Trump took office have also used their campaigns to argue that the president’s assault on the federal bureaucracy is hurting America at home and abroad.
Bayly Winder, 34, a former official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, carries his old business card on the campaign trail as a reminder of the damage he says Trump caused by bulldozing the agency.
None of the five candidates Reuters interviewed is a sure bet. While O’Rourke, Sullivan and Crosswell are running against vulnerable Republicans in swing districts, each must first outlast a field of Democrats seeking the party’s nomination. Dembo and Winder, meanwhile, are campaigning in Republican-leaning districts that have proven elusive for Democrats in past cycles.
In a statement, Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the national Republican party’s congressional campaign arm, sought to tie the candidates to former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, even though all but Winder also worked for the government during Trump’s first term.
“We will ensure voters see them for exactly what they are: willing accomplices to a failed presidency,” Marinella said.
The House candidates are among a larger cohort of former government workers running for everything from state legislature to city council. Many resigned or were fired under pressure from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, part of a broader downsizing that has reduced the government’s 2.4-million-strong workforce by 317,000 jobs, according to Trump officials.
Trump has defended the reductions as necessary for a bloated bureaucracy, while Democrats have decried the layoffs as haphazard and chaotic.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
DEMOCRATS SEE RECRUITMENT OPPORTUNITY
Democratic activists say former civil servants possess natural advantages as candidates.
“They understand what works and what doesn’t work,” said A’shanti Gholar, the president and chief executive officer of Emerge, which recruits Democratic women to run for office.
Her organization has held two dozen training sessions designed for former federal workers, drawing hundreds of participants. Some graduates have already been elected, like Erika Evans, a federal prosecutor who resigned in protest of Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship and won Seattle’s city attorney election in November.
Run for Something, another Democratic training group, had more than 600 former government workers attend an open call this spring, according to founder Amanda Littman.
“If you’re the kind of person who went to work for the federal government, you did it out of a love of service, or love for your community, or patriotism – you didn’t do it for the money,” she said. “That is a really compelling starting point for a campaign.”
AN ABRUPT END
O’Rourke, Crosswell, Sullivan and Dembo said that while they disagreed with some of Trump’s policies during his first administration, they viewed that as an inescapable part of the job.
But they said it soon became clear to them that Trump’s second term would be very different, with an unconstrained president showing scant deference to traditional political norms.
For Sullivan, the realization began hours after Trump’s inauguration, when the president granted clemency to more than 1,500 defendants convicted or charged in the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Sullivan, whose FBI team had analyzed video footage to identify participants in the attack, was worried he might be targeted, as Trump officials began purging the Justice Department of people who investigated January 6.
One of the highest-ranking openly gay officials at the FBI, Sullivan was also involved with the bureau’s LGBTQ employee resource group, FBI Pride, which was disbanded under Trump. And he grew increasingly concerned that Trump was transforming the FBI into a nakedly political entity.
“I just knew I couldn’t stay there and be a part of that,” Sullivan said.
The Trump administration has asserted that it is restoring integrity to the FBI after the Biden administration “weaponized” it against Trump.
Crosswell’s career came to an abrupt end in the span of a workweek.
On Monday, February 10, news broke that the Justice Department intended to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Adams. The decision was widely understood to be a quid pro quo in exchange for Adams’ cooperation on immigration, and the federal judge who would eventually grant the motion said it “smacks of a bargain.”
Both Adams, who maintained his innocence, and Trump officials denied any deal, saying instead that they were rectifying a miscarriage of justice.
Over the ensuing week, the department suffered a cascade of resignations from prosecutors, including Crosswell.
He interviewed at law firms but decided to run for Congress after concluding that he could not sit back while Trump ran roughshod over the government.
“You’re either fighting for what you know is right, or you are enabling what you know is wrong,” said Crosswell, a former Marine.
Watching from Kentucky, where he was working as a prosecutor, Dembo – also a veteran – came to a similar decision.
“I never questioned that the oath that I swore to the Constitution was still being honored – up until the second Trump administration,” said Dembo, who served in the Navy.
The former workers have touted their outsider status – and their experience in government – while campaigning.
“I’ve never been in politics before, but I have been in public service,” Winder told attendees during a recent campaign stop.
The novice candidates also face a steep electoral learning curve. As federal employees, they were legally barred from most overt political activity.
Dembo has compared notes in a group chat with other former workers who are running for office.
“So many of these people I’ve talked to never once thought about running,” he said. “But either because they’ve been fired or forced out, these folks who have been non-political their entire lives…are now running to oppose the administration.”
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Paul Thomasch and Suzanne Goldenberg)
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