Alysa Kassay, a 30-year veteran of the Internal Revenue Service, had no immediate plans to retire until President Trump began upending the federal work force last year and firing probationary employees without cause.
Mr. Trump was “making things as horrible as he can inside the federal government and then taking an ax and hacking it to death,” said Ms. Kassay, 60, who had managed insolvency specialists in the agency’s collection division.
One day, she said, “I said to my husband, ‘I’m going to run for Congress, and I’m going to change the world.’” She launched her campaign nearly four months later.
Ms. Kassay, who is now running to be the Democratic nominee in North Carolina’s solidly red Sixth Congressional District, is part of a cadre of former civil servants who left the federal government in 2025 and is now seeking office at the local, state or federal levels.
The unusually large collection of former federal workers who have jumped into political campaigns — many but not all as Democrats — illustrates one of the byproducts of the administration’s aggressive attacks on the bureaucracy. While many employees left their posts feeling deeply demoralized, others say the attacks mobilized them to try to serve in new ways.
The New York Times identified at least 34 novice candidates who worked in the federal government until last year, including some who left after careers that spanned decades. Others were in the early years of what they hoped would be a long and rewarding stint in public service.
Some of those running were fired, laid off or pressured to resign. Two — both running as Republicans — said they left the government because they wanted to serve in Congress, and the timing was right.
Twenty-one of the former civil servants are running for Congress this year, and of them, 13 are trying to unseat incumbents. Many face steep odds and big learning curves. They are grappling with the mechanics of fund-raising and adjusting to putting themselves out front to meet voters after working largely in the background.
But they say they are singularly determined.
“Donald Trump, I don’t think he really understands what he’s unleashed here,” said Michael Masuda, a former engineer who worked for three and a half years with the State Department on science and technology policy. He is a Democratic candidate for the solidly Republican Fifth Congressional District in California, which includes the Central Valley.
Mr. Masuda, 37, said that onetime civil servants are well positioned to provide oversight of the executive branch.
“We had to work across the federal government and understand how those other agencies operate, what they care about, what their priorities are, and how to get things done in this very complicated, bureaucratic environment,” he said.
‘Step Up and Do Something’
Many former federal workers are positioning themselves as outsiders looking to take on the status quo — including current Democratic officials, who they say have been too complacent.
After Allison Eriksen was forced out of her job at the U.S. Agency for International Development last year, she said that she and other former colleagues went to Capitol Hill each week to meet with lawmakers and explain what was happening. She said the Democratic members they encountered did not have a sense of urgency.
“We’re telling you that people are losing programs that help them to heat their homes or that track deadly diseases around the world. And I don’t think we have time to wait for the midterms,” she recalled telling members of Congress.
“I realized that I was waiting for someone to step up and do something,” said Ms. Eriksen, 39, a former humanitarian assistance officer, who is running as a Democrat for a seat on the Montgomery County, Md., council.
Rachel Porter, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, said there has been a rise in the past decade of what she calls “amateur” candidates — those without previous political experience — running for Congress. The pandemic prompted many doctors and scientists to pursue office, she noted. But this may be the first time in recent history that so many former federal workers have jumped into the fray, she said.
While some members of Congress formerly worked in the federal government, it’s not a common path to elected office. Civil servants are required to be apolitical and closely adhere to a federal law designed to safeguard the federal work force from political influence and coercion.
Mr. Trump’s efforts to politicize government agencies prompted some former federal workers to run, particularly those who worked at agencies such as the Justice Department, which have been at the center of his retribution agenda.
“The overt hostility toward all these hard-working men and women I knew in the F.B.I. and D.O.J. was really galling and unpatriotic for me,” said Zach Dembo, 40, a former Justice Department prosecutor who is running as a Democrat in Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District.
Some candidates hail from departments such as Agriculture, like Megan O’Rourke, 46, who is running as a Democrat in New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District, a seat now held by Republican Thomas Kean Jr. Or the Social Security Administration, where Lauren Reinhold, 55, worked for more than 15 years and is now running as a Democrat in Kansas’s very red First Congressional District.
Alissa Ellman, an Army veteran, was just shy of her one-year mark at the Department of Veterans Affairs when she was swept up in Mr. Trump’s purge of probationary employees last year.
After she spoke at a city committee meeting in Lockport, N.Y., last May about her experience as a casualty of Mr. Trump’s government-shrinking efforts, a political consultant approached her about running for office. She said she was initially skeptical.
“I’m not a weirdo who’s a narcissist, which is like half of our government right now,” said Ms. Ellman, 42. But she decided to launch a campaign as a Democrat to challenge the Republican incumbent, Claudia Tenney, in the seat representing New York’s 24th Congressional District. The political consultant who approached her is now her campaign manager.
A few former federal workers are running on the G.O.P. ticket.
Jorge Malavet, who worked as a branch chief in a field office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is competing in the Republican primary in the Ninth Congressional District in Central Florida, a seat currently held by Democrat Darren Soto.
Mr. Malavet, 56, a Navy veteran, said running for office has long been on his bucket list. And when he was given the chance to leave his job early last spring and continue to be paid through September, it presented the perfect opportunity.
He said he supports the Trump administration and its efforts to deport immigrants who are in the country without authorization. But if he makes it to Congress, he said he wants to move past the extreme rhetoric.
“We still need to be able to have a conversation about policy, about its implications, and about the ultimate benefit for the country as a whole,” Mr. Malavet said.
Crash Course in Politics
For Star Black, a nearly 30-year veteran of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “Going from ground zero to launching a full federal campaign was wild, I have to admit.”
Ms. Black, 63, is running as a Republican to represent former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district. She launched her primary campaign before Ms. Greene announced her plans to step down, and is now in a crowded race with at least 20 others for a special election in March to determine who will serve in the seat the rest of this year. She is also running in the G.O.P. primary in May to compete in the fall election.
Before leaving FEMA, where she worked managing training for the agency’s public assistance program, she said she used her vacation time to attend classes at a program for conservative leaders in Arlington, Va., where she said she learned about fund-raising, how to deliver a stump speech and other campaign fundamentals.
Three days after she resigned from FEMA at the end of May, she launched her campaign.
Eric Chung, who left the Commerce Department last year where he was working on a jobs creation program, led his own educational journey.
“I just honestly texted almost every friend I knew who had some experience in politics,” said Mr. Chung, 33, who is running in the Democratic primary for a congressional district just north of Detroit.
Eventually he had a spreadsheet filled with a list of people to contact and questions to ask. People were generous with their time, he said and offered tips. “You have to find a media consultant. You have to get a mail firm. You have to have a compliance firm.”
Mr. Chung said he has already been endorsed by 10 current members of Congress representing districts around the country. And he has raised more than $1.1 million, including, he said, donations from current and former federal employees across the country.
In the 88 percent white Minnesota congressional district north of the Twin Cities, where Mr. Trump’s deportation offensive has been on full display, Trina Swanson, a Democratic candidate for a House seat, said she has noticed that more voters are asking questions about immigration policy at town hall meetings and community events.
“People are very interested, one — to just learn more about immigration and the processes, and actually engage with me on how things happen, how people get here, what vetting they go through, and who they’re detaining,” Ms. Swanson, 45, said.
And after working for almost two decades at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — the agency that facilitates all legal immigration into the country — Ms. Swanson said she has answers.
Chris Backemeyer, a nearly 20-year veteran of the State Department, has found that his background as a diplomat is striking a cord with voters in Nebraska’s First Congressional District, where he is running as a Democrat to unseat Republican Mike Flood.
“There are concerns about the possible permanent loss of the Chinese market for soybeans and what that means for demand in the long term,” said Mr. Backemeyer, 50. “I’ve been to Beijing, negotiated with the Chinese. I know what it takes to make deals with them.”
“That resonates with people,” he added.
At least two former federal workers are running for Congress as Democrats to unseat Democratic incumbents in the suburbs of Washington, home to a large concentration of federal workers who were affected by the administration’s cuts.
“Bringing people back to work is my top priority,” said Michael Duffin, who was among the more than 1,000 employees laid off from the State Department in July. Mr. Duffin, 47, is running against Representative Don Beyer, who has represented the district in Northern Virginia since 2015. Mr. Duffin said someone in Congress needs to make this issue a top priority, or nothing will happen.
Others agree.
“If this were a Pennsylvania steel town, and someone were doing this to the steel mill, that steel town congressman would speak of little else,” said Jonathan White, 56, who retired from the U.S. Public Health Commissioned Corps last year after a 21-year career.
He is running as a Democrat in Maryland’s Fourth Congressional District against incumbent Representative Glenn Ivey, a Democrat. Mr. White, 56, said he wants to see more former federal workers challenge incumbents from both parties.
“I think we need more people who are career technocrats making decisions and fewer demagogues,” he said, adding: “Recently departed feds need to get into Congress and start passing laws.”
Kitty Bennett and Dylan Freedman contributed research.
Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.
The post After Trump’s Cuts, Some Former Federal Workers Are Now Seeking Office appeared first on New York Times.
