Ammar Campa-Najjar


Ammar Campa-Najjar is an American political candidate and former official in the United States Department of Labor. Campa-Najjar has twice been a candidate for the United States House of Representatives, first running unsuccessfully in the 2018 election against incumbent Duncan D. Hunter. Campa-Najjar announced that he would again campaign to represent California's 50th congressional district. He is the first Latino-Arab American to run for Congress.

Early life and education

Campa-Najjar was born in La Mesa, California. His father, Yasser Najjar, is Palestinian, and his mother, Abigail Campa, is Mexican American. In 1997, when he was eight years old, he and his family moved to the Gaza Strip. In 1998, he attended a Catholic school in the Gaza Strip. After living in Gaza for four years, he, his mother, and brother moved back to San Diego County. He said he was not "Arab enough in Gaza, Latino enough for the barrio, or American enough in my own country." When he was 15, he worked as a janitor to help his single mother pay bills.
While in high school, Campa-Najjar converted from Islam to Christianity. He considers himself to be Latino and Arab-American, and is fluent in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
He attended community college at Southwestern College, and earned a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and Psychology from San Diego State University.

Family

His father Yasser Najjar is Palestinian and his mother Abigail Campa is Mexican American. His mother is a practicing Catholic. Following the assassination of his parents by Israeli Special Forces, Yasser Najjar and his siblings were sent to Cairo by King Hassan II of Morocco. The siblings were separated over the following years with Yasser attending school in England before immigrating to the US and obtaining American citizenship. He moved to San Diego in 1981 and earned an MBA from San Diego State University. Abigail Campa grew up in the Logan Heights neighborhood of San Diego, and she and Yasser married in the 1980s. In 1994, Yasser traveled to Gaza to work for the newly legitimized Palestinian National Authority and explore his family's roots. While working for the PNA he was seen as a moderate who advocated for peace. In his later years he was an important internal critic of Palestinian hardliners. During his time in Gaza he attempted to counteract the rising influence of Hamas.
Campa-Najjar's grandfather Abu Yusuf al-Najjar has been the subject of significant controversy. In 1965, while working in Kuwait, Abu Yusuf al-Najjar founded Fatah along with Yasser Arafat and other exiled Palestinians. Abu Yusuf al-Najjar was long believed to have been affiliated with the Munich massacre. Al-Najjar was among those targeted in Israeli retribution attacks known as Operation Wrath of God. On April 9, 1973 al-Najjar and his wife were assassinated in front of their children in their home in Beirut, Lebanon by Israeli commandos including future Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In February 2018, a book published by Ronen Bergman, Rise and Kill First, challenged this historical assumption. In 2019 in response to this new information, Campa-Najjar withdrew some of the condemnations he had made against his grandfather.

Career

Campa-Najjar worked as a deputy regional field director for the Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign. During the Obama Administration, Campa-Najjar served in the Labor Department's Office of Public Affairs for the Employment and Training Administration. He was tasked with reading and helping select the 10 letters that President Obama would read each day.
He has also worked for the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as the communications and marketing director. In this capacity, he prepared to interview then-candidate Donald Trump, who ultimately pulled out of the scheduled event, despite having earlier told Geraldo Rivera in an interview that he would attend. Following the election, NBC News and the San Diego Union-Tribune published his op ed, with a slightly different version published by The Washington Post a few days later, expressing his faith in America despite Trump's election. "Let's not seek comfort in the easy traps of either normalizing or demonizing the decision half of America has made. We must do what is hard, what is necessary and what is right."
In 2017, The Hill'' published another op ed by Campa-Najjar where he advocated for enhanced vetting and the empowerment of moderate Muslims to help end terrorism. He has advocated for apprenticeship programs that pay people as they learn, for example the Registered Apprenticeship job training initiative, which has bipartisan support.

2018 congressional campaign

Campa-Najjar cited the call to service in Barack Obama's farewell address as an inspiration to run for Congress. Campa-Najjar supports environmentally sustainable developments, including solar farms. Campa-Najjar advocated for registering young people to vote, especially those who would be 18 by 2018, because they would be on the receiving end of climate change and increasing levels of indebtedness. His top domestic issue was training Americans to fill job vacancies, and his top international issue was the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and he opposed Trump's suggested wall with Mexico and travel ban. He cited economic inequality as a top issue facing California, "other than the severe droughts and fires" The district in which he ran for office was about 35% Latino and 15% voters of Middle Eastern descent.
On February 2, 2018, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Campa-Najjar had out-raised both the Republican incumbent, Duncan Hunter, and his Democratic rival, Josh Butner. On June 5, 2018, Campa-Najjar placed second in the nonpartisan blanket primary, earning a chance to compete against Hunter in November. Campa-Najjar credited support from Our Revolution as an important factor in the primary victory. The San Diego Union-Tribune endorsed Campa-Najjar, citing the "lunacy" of incumbent Hunter.
He lost the 2018 election to Hunter by 8,900 votes.

Campaign controversies

During the campaign, the Hunter campaign ran an ad in which it claimed that Campa-Najjar had received support from Council on American–Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood. PolitiFact found the claim to be false. In October 2018, Hunter's father, Duncan L. Hunter, attacked Campa-Najjar as a security risk.
Campa-Najjar's 2018 candidacy attracted international attention due to allegations that his paternal grandfather, Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, was involved with the 1972 Munich massacre. He acknowledged and denounced the alleged crimes of his grandfather, who died 16 years before he was born.
Campa-Najjar's campaign received a notable degree of coverage following the indictment of his opponent for stealing campaign funds for personal use. Hunter's scandal gave his campaign a boost. His loss garnered additional coverage because of the use of anti-Muslim stereotypes against a non-Muslim candidate. However, Campa-Najjar said that he did not blame bigotry for his defeat.

2020 congressional campaign

In 2019, Campa-Najjar announced that he would run for the same seat again in 2020. He announced his candidacy on Twitter a day after filing his paperwork with the FEC. He stated that his 2020 campaign will run on the dual platform of economic security and national security. Campa-Najjar said that for this election he will make a more concerted effort to reach out to conservative voters, especially veterans.
Initially characterized as a progressive during his 2018 run, Campa-Najjar has since walked back his support of Medicare For All and a Green New Deal, calling the latter "impractical".
Under election rules in California, the top two vote-getters in the March 3, 2020, primary, regardless of party affiliation, will later face each other in the general election. Campa-Najjar placed first in the primary, and will face a November runoff election against Republican former Congressman Darrell Issa.