Meet The Candidates: Kevin Burge For Texas Congressional District 24

A serious contender taking on MAGA’s Fox News princess.

This series is called Meet The Candidates. Over the next twelve months, I’ll spotlight a handful of Democratic races each month, mainly in the Legislature and in Congress. These aren’t endorsements. They’re introductions, a way to understand who’s running, the districts they hope to represent, and what’s at stake for people across Texas.

Who is Kevin Burge?

Kevin Burge grew up in a trailer outside Los Alamos, New Mexico, the child of parents who worked for every inch they had. When 9/11 happened during his junior year, he enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17. He spent the next decade in Iraq and Afghanistan running logistics and security operations, where mistakes meant people didn’t come home. Later, he worked in national intelligence and served as a technical advisor in the White House Situation Room during the Biden administration.

He and his wife, Jessy (who came to the US as a child, became a citizen, and now serves as a commissioned officer in the Texas Army National Guard), built their lives in North Richland Hills. They’re raising their son in a public school, facing the same costs, hopes, and anxieties as every working family in Tarrant County. Burge is running for Congress because he sees what many of us see. The country he fought for is being hollowed out by a political movement that glorifies grievance, celebrates cruelty, and calls it patriotism.

His platform is straightforward and unapologetically pro-people, affordable housing, Medicare for All, abortion rights, immigration reform that treats families like humans, tuition-free higher education and trade school, and an economy where billionaires don’t write the rules. Burge is positioning himself as serious, grounded, and focused on the actual lives of the people who live here.

The district.

TX24 is the blue district you see at the northern ends of Tarrant and Dallas Counties ⬆️. Yes, this is the new map.

Overwhelmingly, this district is Tarrant County anchored, and seeing how Democrats swung +8 points in a special election in Tarrant County this week, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities to expect this district also to see a wide swing left next year, but will it be enough?

This district is 60% Anglo and 40% non-Anglo. Notably, with a 10.5% Asian VAP (Voting Age Population) and 15.9% Hispanic VAP, we don’t know how that will play out in 2026, but we have some ideas based on this week’s exit polls.

From Virginia:

From New Jersey:

What this says to me is that currently Latinos and Asians are leaning back further to the left than they were in 2024, plus while Republicans still have a majority of the white vote, that share has shrunk.

The ingredients for a Democratic flip are in this district, younger voters, Asian and Latino families, high-education suburban households, but they’re not automatically breaking left. Not yet. With an 11% Asian population and a Hispanic voting age share in the mid-teens, this isn’t a “just register more people and pray” district. This is a persuasion + turnout district. The issues that move these voters are clear and tested, including women’s rights, health care costs, school censorship/book bans, and whether we want a functioning government or chaos as a lifestyle brand.

Right now, as drawn, TX24 is still a Republican-leaning district. To make it competitive, Democrats need to do three things. Shave the GOP margin in the Tarrant half down to single digits, run up the score in the Dallas slice, and hold onto the turnout gains we’re seeing in special elections and off-year races. And that last part is actually happening, Democrats just overperformed by +8 in Tarrant County this week. If Tarrant County Democrats keep up the same momentum, county-wide, through November 2026, they can pull it off.

Meanwhile, Republican numbers across the board are sliding. White suburban voters are bleeding away from the GOP because the party cannot talk about anything except punishing women, banning books, and worshipping Trump. Latino and Asian voters are drifting back left. And Republicans know it.

So yes, TX-24 is a climb. But it’s not a pipe dream. The path isn’t “hope demographics save us.” The path is to meet people where they are, talk about the things that hit their real lives, and keep turnout from collapsing in a midterm. If Democrats keep overperforming like they are right now, this district gets very real very fast.

The incumbent.

Beth Van Duyne may just be the most evil New Yorker ever to pretend like she was from Texas. Not because she puts beans in her chilli or forgets black-eyed peas on New Year’s, but because Van Duyne is single-handedly responsible for the 2015 Muslim-panic in Texas. Have you not heard the story?

Pull up a chair.

If you were involved or paid attention to politics in 2015, you likely remember the right’s hate vitriol toward the Muslim community. During that time, Van Duyne was awarded her own page on Southern Poverty’s HateWatch. She made national news more than once with her racist and Islamophobic crusade while mayor of Irving, Texas.

To this day, Van Duyne is still the only congressperson with her own page on SPLC.

Van Duyen was born and raised in Upstate New York. She moved down to Texas with her parents when she was 17. However, she soon returned to New York, Ivy League, Cornell University. Then, after she graduated, she moved back down south to the upscale town of Las Colinas, TX.

Before her big, bright, racist spotlight in 2015, she was unknown nationally. Then, one little Facebook post put her on an ambitious political path.

On February 6, 2015, she made the following Facebook post:

Afterward, Beth Van Duyne, as mayor, passed an anti-Sharia law in the city of Irving.

After Van Duyne’s stupid Facebook post, she strongly supported House Bill 562. Or, as this bill was so dubiously named, the Anti-Sharia Bill (it never passed).

The observers watching the events in early 2015 gawked in horror. Like wildfire, Tea Party conservatives all over Texas fell in line, and Muslims became the Republican target of hate. Mosques were burnt down in Houston, and Republican Molly White went on social media and demanded that all Muslims renounce terrorism and pledge allegiance to America. Breitbart announced it would hold a “Draw the Prophet” event, which led to an attempted terrorist attack.

After that, she served as Trump’s Regional Administrator for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she was involved in an ethics scandal and was found to have used taxpayer money for personal travel.

But she got Trump’s kiss, so Republicans in Texas elected her to Congress. She’s been alleged to have had multiple affairs. One, with a married peer. And then there was that whole business with her staffer who committed suicide in her driveway.

When Van Duyne isn’t busy running amok, she spends the rest of her time on TV making up lies.

In Kevin Burge’s own words.

Below are some questions I asked Burge, based on previous reader polls, and how he answered:

Q: Do you support universal, publicly funded healthcare?

I support Medicare for All. Healthcare should be a right and not a privilege. Today, our population pays around $5 trillion a year in health care while simultaneously being in around $220 billion in medical debt. The main driver of both of these issues is the soaring cost of private health insurance and the reluctance of those companies to provide coverage for health issues, especially for preventative care. Here in the TX24, there are approximately 75,000 people without health insurance. They are gambling with a health crisis that could potentially lead to death or, in the best-case scenario, financially crippling them for the rest of their life. Additionally, we, the taxpayers, pick up the bill when an uninsured person receives care and cannot or will not pay. This means that we currently pay more, get less, get into debt, risk non-coverage, and pay for-profit companies to deny us care. Time to change!

Q: Do you support federal student debt cancellation and tuition-free public college?

I support reimplementing President Biden’s SAVE Plan that Trump cut to help students who currently have college debt because our young people are starting out their adult, working life saddled in debt that many can never pay off.

To put it in perspective, when I should have graduated from college in 2007 (had I not been deployed to Iraq twice), the total student debt in the US was around $516 billion. Today, that number has tripled and sits at nearly $1.7 trillion. This is unsustainable and puts us behind every other developed and many developing countries.

Moving forward, we must implement tax payer funded public education starting at Pre-K by fixing the Federal Funding Formula and then continuing to invest in America’s future by providing our young adults fully funded public higher education options for those who qualify, be it Public University, paid internships, paid apprenticeships, or public service in exchange for educational debt cancellation for private school education. These initiatives will give our future a holistic, diverse, and individualistic educational path choice for a strong and competitive America.

Q: Should Congress codify the right to abortion nationwide and repeal the Hyde Amendment?

Yes. Period. Women are dying. As a matter of fact, in Texas alone, maternal deaths rose from 79 women per year (pre-COVID) to 120 women per year in 2024. Women’s healthcare needs to be determined between a patient and a doctor. Not the government.

Q: Do you support expanding the Supreme Court or instituting term limits for justices?

Yes. In 2016, President Obama nominated a qualified judge, but the Republicans decided to shatter norms and deny a hearing. This action broke precedent and ultimately the court. So, since Republicans don’t want to uphold their constitutional duty, it’s up to Democrats to right the wrongs by expanding the court. I propose one justice per federal circuit, which is today 13.

I support term limits for Supreme Court Justices. In 1970, the average tenure of a Justice was 16 years. It is now ~28 years. Implementing a 15-year term limit on Justices would bring rationality and stability to an expanded court. Both of these proposals should be added to the Constitution.

Q: Do you support DC statehood, Puerto Rico self-determination, and expanding voting rights through federal law?

Yes. I worked in DC for many years and can say that a majority of the patriotic Americans in DC desire full representation in the federal government, the type that only comes with Statehood. I would fully support PRs' right to self-determination, be it Statehood or Independence. That is their right as a people. Either way, they are not currently getting the future and freedom that they deserve; instead, they are having rolls of paper towels thrown at them.

Bonus Question: What does being a Democrat mean to you in 2026?

It means that we are not just the party that wrests back power from this corrupt Republican regime, but instead the Party that builds a future that lifts up our people. It means taking back the meaning of patriotism from superficial slogans, and instead, living patriotism through our love of Americans of all walks of life. Our values are not to be bartered or compromised for a quick deal. Because the Republicans don’t care if we compromise or move right to appease. They are doing real harm to our communities, economy, and global standing. So being a Democrat is to stand firm on our beliefs for what is right, ensuring that the American experiment in Democracy and good opportunities are still alive and available for our children.

That’s the race in TX24.

On one side, you have a deeply competent, grounded, service-oriented Democrat who has actually seen what it takes to hold a country together. A man who has carried loss, responsibility, and the weight of the flag in its most literal and human form. Someone who talks policy because he has lived policy.

On the other side, you have Beth Van Duyne, a politician who has built her entire career on fear, resentment, and cheap Fox News celebrity. Someone who treats cruelty as a brand. Someone who has never once tried to make life meaningfully better for the people who live here. Someone who thrives when we are divided and exhausted.

The question in 2026 is not whether TX24 can be won.

The question is whether we are willing to do the work, knock on the doors, have the uncomfortable conversations, bring in the neighbors who sat out last time, and make sure the people who live in this district actually get to define it.

People are tired of the chaos, the hate campaigns, the culture war theater, and the nonstop exhaustion of Republican rule. This district does not need another stunt politician. It needs someone who remembers what service actually means.

And Kevin Burge is asking us to choose a future that moves toward repair, dignity, stability, and community, instead of another two years of televised hate and nothing to show for it.

The path is real. The question is whether we’re ready to take it.

You can learn more about Kevin Burge on his website, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter, or TikTok.

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