Southern Colorado’s 5th Congressional District is known for military bases, evangelical Christian politics and long, long track record of electing Republicans to office. The last time a Democrat served the district was in the 1970s. Transgender woman and Army veteran Misty Plowright hopes to change that. She’s the Democratic nominee seeking to win a seat that incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn has held for nearly a decade.
Interview Highlights With Misty Plowright
On Her Gender Identity And Her Open Marriage
"Love is a great thing. If we have a little bit too much love, well I figure that's a good thing, because the world could use a lot more of it. You know, Lisa and I have been together for nine years now and we have a great, strong relationship. We've known Sebastian here for about six years, and we've been with him for two, and things are great. And as far as me being trans, bring it. [Rep. Doug Lamborn] can't do anything to me than has already been done in my past. Twice in my life people have tried to kill me. It can't get worse than that."
On Working Across The Aisle With Christian Conservatives
"We were at pride this last weekend, and there was somebody standing outside of pride waving a bible around and yelling at people who were going, and I went out and I engaged him for a while. We had a great conversation. I came up Southern Baptist so I can talk to a lot of those things. I don't know if I fully got him on my side, but I definitely intrigued him and he was going to be looking at the rest of my platform pretty closely. Because I offered a novel idea, I suggested a solution to a problem that both sides can agree with and it was actually abortion. Even though I'm adamantly pro-choice and he was adamantly pro-life, instead of talking past each other we talked to each other and he liked what I had to say. So, even if we don't necessarily line up ideologically, that doesn't mean that we can't come up with solutions. "
On Her Political Platform
"One of the biggest things I'm running on is infrastructure. Politicians always talk about we need to rebuild and repair our infrastructure - and that's absolutely correct - but we really also need to modernize it. This is the 21st century and we have so much better ways of doing things. One example of that is broadband internet. When FDR took office in the 1930's, something like 11 percent of farms had access to electricity. He created the Rural Electrification Administration by executive order, Congress turned around and funded it soon after, and we got electricity rolled out to this entire country. Later on, telephone service was added to its mandate. It's long past time that we add wired broadband internet to that as well. That impacts everything, it impacts education, jobs, manufacturing."
On Being Called A "BernieCrat"
"I think I'm a little more Libertarian than Bernie Sanders on some issues. I don't really fit neatly under any particular label, but BernieCrat is probably pretty good."
