State Rep. Angelina Cruz:
I was unopposed in the primary. I was unopposed in the general election. A lot of people asked me why I felt like it was important to be on the doors, and my response was, "That you're asking that question, I think, is the problem with politics." I think if I'm going to — I know that I'm going to have this job, and I think it's important to connect with the people in my community to know what it is that they are mandating from their representatives. I'm not here to represent myself, I'm here to represent my community. And so I think that it's important to have these conversations. I was on the doors pretty regularly, and that's how I always sort of opened: "Hi, I'm Angelina Cruz, I'm running to be your next state representative, and I'm running unopposed, and I would really like to both introduce myself to you and hear about the things that are important to you so that when I'm there, I'm ready to get to work right away."

Aditi Debnath:
When you're having those conversations, what did people tell you? What issues do your constituents care most about?

State Rep. Angelina Cruz:
Yeah, that's a really great question. People, a lot of people were surprised and said as much, "Thanks for knocking on my door, I haven't had a lot of conversations or the opportunity to voice my concerns about things that are important to me." It was a lot of — I mean we were seeing, very working class, it was a lot of bread-and-butter issues, concerns about employment, concerns about wages, concerns about child care, concerns about our public school system. Things that just impact their day-to-day lives. How they were going to put gas in their car, how they were going to, you know, get their kids from here to there, get to work. Those were, I mean, those were the, like, "How do I buy groceries?" Things like that. So I don't think, I mean, the people in Assembly District 62, I didn't hear anybody, people just want a hand up in terms of meeting basic needs. That's mostly what I heard on the doors. The opportunity to purchase a home, the opportunity to send their kids to school, just to have, like, just their basic needs met.