North Texas Daily

Linsey Fagan announced in a Facebook post shortly after the 2018 midterm elections that she will run for office again. Fagan ran her first campaign this year, challenging incumbent Michael Burgess for US Congressional District TX-26.

Fagan said she does not yet know what seat she will be running for in her second campaign, but will have a mid-December meeting with her team to discuss next steps.

“I am terrified of what this country will look like in 10 or 20 years,” Fagan said. “I’m not going to sit by and just watch my country become unrecognizable.”

Fagan said she decided in 2016 that she was in it for the long haul and knew before Election Day that she was going to run again.

“The American people deserve people that really care about them [in office],” Fagan said.

With her first campaign, Fagan lost to Burgess in a 59-39 percent margin, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. The independent candidate, Mark Boler, received 1.6 percent of votes.

Fagan said with a second campaign, she will have more experience that will help her.

“The first six months of my campaign were spent figuring out how to run, how to navigate who to trust and establishing alliances,” Fagan said. “I have a head start with all of that this time. I also have a deep understanding of what’s important to people.”

Fagan said that while she was disappointed she lost against Burgess, she is proud of the work she and her team did.

“I also understand I’m part of a team, and candidates I helped and recruited won,” Fagan said. “I’m confident that no group of people could have worked harder than we did.”

Shane Warren, the vice president of the UNT Democrats and a political science sophomore, said he hopes Fagan has done an autopsy of her candidacy.

“It’d also be great to see her and many others invest more in Denton campuses, which are sleeping giants for progressive and liberal minded coalitions,” Warren said.

Warren also said it is critical for women to run for office and that we’ve had a “de facto system” where men are the majority of our representatives for too long.

“It’s also important that parties and movements give institutional support for women running for office, in addition to encouraging them to run,” he said.

Social work junior Deana Ayers is a Student Government Association senator and an officer of the UNT chapter of Ignite, which is an organization that helps women become political leaders.

Ayers said she thought Fagan announced her intention to run for office again too soon, before being able to dig into the data and analytics of the race results between her and Burgess.

“Because of the margin between her and Burgess,” Ayers said.” It’s important to me that she understands why she lost and what she needs to improve on before she starts planning her next campaign.” 

Ayers also said she thinks it is important to have women run for office because they can advocate for the issues that affect them the most.

“Women in elected positions are more likely to understand the experiences of other women in the community and more likely to consider those experiences when they make decisions and create legislation,” Ayers said.

Ayers said that it is about time women take their talents and passions and run for office.

“The more women we get in office, the more normalized it will be for then to run,” Ayers said. “And the higher the quality of all candidates might become.”

Featured Image: Linsey Fagan (right) during her midterm election watch party in Keller. Dimmagio Escobedo