Adam Roosevelt is a moderate Republican running for the Virginia House of Delegates against current Democratic Delegate Alfonso Lopez, who has never before faced a GOP opponent during his six years in office.
Roosevelt, 25, a Republican born in Portsmouth, Va., shared his experience with The Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview on his background and his current campaign for the 49th district seat of The Virginia House of Delegates.
Roosevelt has served the U.S. across the world for the Army for several years, earning a bachelor’s degree in information technology management from a California-based online college while fighting for the U.S. in Afghanistan. He still currently serves in the military in the Army Reserves as an information technology specialist at Fort Meade in Maryland, as well as a contractor for the Department of Homeland Security working for intelligence and analysis in cybersecurity.
“I went overseas to fight for all the Americans here. I’ve never been in politics before but I felt it was my calling as I went out to all these different countries and made a lot of things happen, change, I helped a lot of people. I saw my people in need and I saw that my generation needed to secure their future and knowing that we can do that we to be involved in our community,” Roosevelt said.
The candidate shared the fact that he is unhappy with the current political climate in his district, as well as across the country, saying he has a method to securing the younger generation’s future.
“I’m not particularly happy with the way things are in my community, as well as my nation. So the only way I can secure this generation’s future is to go out there every day and fight for those issues that are important to us,” Roosevelt said.
Roosevelt is confident in his efforts to defeat Lopez in a historically left-leaning district, saying he believes he can provide hope to those that have previously chosen not to run due to the political climate of a certain region.
“I think we can win. I also think we can provide hope to the next generation of people who are afraid to run because some districts are one sided. Whether they’re heavily Republican whether they’re Democrats. This will give people a chance to say I can have hope and I can try all that hard work. I think we can take it,” Roosevelt said.
His campaign platform is four-pronged but straightforward: education, small business, transportation and veterans, issues that are important to both sides of the aisle.
Roosevelt also strongly believes that Confederate statues should remain where they are, mentioning the importance of the history of this country and how the monuments show how far the U.S. has come as a nation.
“We cannot allow the counties to have authority to remove history because that history doesn’t belong to the county the history belongs to the Commonwealth … If we don’t want to repeat ourselves we need to know what happened in our history,” Roosevelt said.
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The general election will be held between Roosevelt and Lopez in Virginia’s 49th district Nov. 7.
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