Yet another young, new Republican candidate for Congress has catapulted herself into the national media spotlight, vying to displace Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
She is 26-year-old Catalina Lauf, billing herself as “Latina by heart, American first,” is running to challenge Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District.
Who is she, and why is she exciting conservative media?
Lauf is running in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood. The district is west of Chicago, Underwood is a freshman Democrat elected to Congress in 2018, defeating four-term incumbent Republican Randy Hultgren in what many pundits considered an upset victory.
As an incumbent, she is most well known — or perhaps "notorious — in Congress for controversial remarks accusing the Trump administration of intentionally killing migrant children.
According to the biography on her campaign website, Lauf was born and raised in Woodstock, Illinois. Her father is a small-business owner from Chicago, and her mother and grandmother are legal immigrants from Guatemala. She graduated from McHenry County College with an associates degree at only 17 years old.
From there, she went to the University of Miami (Ohio) and completed a bachelor’s degree. Lauf went to work for the ride-sharing service Uber before being appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as an adviser to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
After leaving the Trump administration, she returned to Illinois and is now running for Congress as one of the youngest Republican candidates in the 2020 election cycle.
Lauf campaigns in the West Chicago suburbs to unseat a first-term Democrat who has embarrassed herself on the national stage. (Photo: Conservative Review)
In the opening ad of her campaign, Lauf says she’s a “product of the American dream,” and she’s running to defend it.
"Today, angry voices seek to divide us by skin color, economic class, and where we come from. They use envy and bitterness, trying to convince us to surrender our personal freedoms for the false promises of socialism,” Lauf narrates.
Lauf criticizes her potential opponent Underwood as one of several Democrats dividing Americans by calling Republicans racist and sexist.
“They forget that America is an idea, an idea that we are all created equal and that what we have in common is far more powerful than any of our differences,” Lauf says.
She expanded on her message of unity in an interview with Fox News, pledging to counter the Democrats’ divisive political attacks.
Lauf is a self-described“lifelong conservative.” With a background in small business, she is making entrepreneurship and economic opportunity central to her campaign. Over the weekend on Fox & Friends, Lauf said, “There’s a lot of regulation and so much tax that really hinders the innovation that entrepreneurs can have.”
In an extensive interview with the Daily Wire, Lauf said, “I stand with President Trump on securing our border and closing loopholes in our broken immigration system.” She criticized the Green New Deal as “ineffective” and “harmful to American families.”
Lauf firmly rejects socialism, calling it “a strong contrast to everything that makes America great,” and said Republicans must offer the country the American dream as an alternative.
Notably, Lauf expressed a willingness to criticize Republicans who move to the left after winning elections. She firmly believes that Republicans must engage with minority and young voters to win in 2020 and beyond.
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