Durham’s Nida Allam running for Congress in newly drawn NC district
The first Muslim woman to win elected office in North Carolina is now seeking higher office: U.S. Congress.
Nida Allam, a Durham County commissioner, is announcing her run for the seat currently held by longtime Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat who is retiring at the end of his term in 2022.
It will be the first competitive Democratic primary in the district in three decades, Allam said, and she says she’s the best one for the job in what will be a safe blue seat in the U.S. House.
In an exclusive interview with The News & Observer ahead of her announcement Monday, Allam said she is the candidate that is “ready to go to Congress, ready to hit the ground running, and ready to fight.”
Climate change, affordable housing, universal pre-K, canceling student debt, transportation and a living wage are among Allam’s policy priorities.
Allam, 27, said the district needs a representative who will feel the impact of all those issues themselves.
She said that housing and transportation are still important issues in the Triangle as they have been during Price’s tenure.
She said there needs to be a mass transportation plan that works for Wake, Durham and Orange counties. While many people move to Durham because of Research Triangle Park, she said, it’s not affordable for everyone. She said one way to address that is more access to transportation, along with investments in the youngest residents like a universal free pre-K program.
An ‘energizing’ candidate
Under congressional maps just drawn by the state legislature — and being challenged in court — the 6th Congressional District will serve Durham and Orange counties and part of Wake County that includes Cary.
State Sen. Wiley Nickel, a Cary Democrat in his second term, has already announced his campaign for the seat. He told The N&O previously he had raised about $253,000 when he announced in mid-October.
Allam, who is Asian-American, was born in Canada and moved to North Carolina when she was 5, spending most of her childhood in Cary. Her parents were immigrants to Canada from India and Pakistan, and moved to North Carolina when her dad worked at IBM.
The youngest of three girls, Allam said her dad has always “been big on making sure me and my sisters were able to be independent.” She said whether or not they are married, he still wanted his daughters to stand on their own two feet, be strong and able to take care of themselves and their families.
Cary was where they joined and helped build the Muslim community and large South Asian community there, she said.
“I’ve been touched by every part of this district,” Allam said, adding that “my friends were murdered in Chapel Hill,” which “connects with my decision to run for office to begin with.”
Allam was an N.C. State student when three close friends, Muslim students Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha, were murdered by their neighbor in Chapel Hill in 2015. It spurred her interest in politics, and she went on to work for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president in 2016. In Durham, she unsuccessfully sought a vacant Durham City Council seat appointment in 2017 but was later appointed to the Mayor’s Council for Women and then ran and won a seat on the Durham County Board of Commissioners in 2020.
Allam said she and her husband chose to settle down in Durham because they felt like it was the most welcoming place for them being immigrants, people of color, and Muslim-Americans in the South. She is leaving her job at the progressive State Innovation Exchange, a policy and research organization, for her run.
Allam said her campaign has $112,000 in donations pledged so far.
She said that Price, who held prominent committee roles, “carries a lot of information and knowledge that is going to leave when he leaves the seat. That level of leadership is going to be gone for the state of North Carolina’s delegation.” She said the state needs someone “energizing and exciting” to build themselves up to leadership roles in Congress.
“It takes a certain candidate who excites people who have never been engaged in the political process,” she said.
Allam said the Democratic Party, in which she has held multiple statewide leadership roles, needs to be invested in outreach to communities of color and groups who have been marginalized.
She said Democrats need to center the people who will benefit most from President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and focus on why politicians run for office: “to better the lives of our constituents, our neighbors.”
Allam said she supported Sanders’ campaign because he showed that he actually cared about her as a Muslim immigrant woman and saw her as a member of a coalition and movement for social justice.
“That is who people want to see,” she said, someone who will represent them.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 6:05 AM.
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