The System Failed His Family Too

Tim's brother was born with a serious heart condition.

The insurance company called it a pre-existing condition and refused to cover the care. His mother — a teacher now but a lawyer then — fought back and forced them to pay. But even with coverage, the bills came anyway. And at some point the choice became brutally simple: pay the medical expenses, or keep the house.

His family made it through. A lot of families don't.

So when Tim talks about healthcare — about what it means when the system fails, about the gap between what's promised and what's delivered — he's not reading from a briefing document. He's drawing from something that happened at his own kitchen table.

He Took the Long Way Around

Tim's introduction to politics came in his senior year of high school. In 2008 he interned on Obama for America in Fauquier County — already convinced that elections mattered, already willing to do the work. After graduation he couldn't afford college, so he kept working campaigns through 2011, long enough to see the promise of what politics could be, and the gap between that promise and how it actually works.

When he earned a scholarship to Germanna Community College, he took it. Then he worked two jobs in Prince William to cover everything the scholarship didn't — bartending, waiting tables, catering. When he transferred to finish his Political Science degree at Roanoke College, he kept working two jobs while in school and working doubles through the summers. Sixty hour weeks — with managers cutting his hours on paper to thirty-eight so they could keep his labor without paying what they owed him. He still took out student loans. He's still paying them off.

He knows what it means to work that hard and still not be able to get ahead. A lot of people in this district do too.

There was a woman he worked with in the kitchen — a single mother from Honduras, also working two jobs. She had less than Tim did. She gave him $120 toward his tuition and asked for nothing in return.

He's never forgotten that. He never will.

That's the kind of community this district is capable of being. That's what he's fighting for.

After graduating he worked inside government — interning for U.S. Senator Tim Kaine — and outside it, doing grassroots organizing with the National Education Association before moving to Richmond to lobby and organize for a nonpartisan, nonprofits focused on college affordability, campus safety, and economic fairness.

Since 2019, he has served as Communications Director for the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter — working alongside communities across the Commonwealth to take on powerful interests and win.

Tim Fights With Communities That Aren't Supposed To Win

The fights Tim has been part of weren't supposed to be winnable. The other side had money, connections, and people in the right rooms.

What they never counted on was a community willing to push back — and an organizer who showed up, helped them organize, and refused to let them be ignored.

In Russell County, a developer proposed what would have become the largest private landfill in Virginia. They hired the former director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality as their lead consultant. They had every structural advantage.

The community called Tim. They fought back together. They won.

That wasn't the only time.

Stopped massive data center developments in Chesapeake, Charles City County, and Hanover — protecting rural communities from projects designed to serve corporate interests at local expense.

Helped secure tens of millions in new financial aid funding for Virginia students — and passed protections shielding student loan borrowers from predatory servicers. Tim was still paying off his own student loans while fighting for this. He knew exactly who it was for.

Trained frontline leaders to fight for Medicaid expansion — because healthcare access is not a talking point. It's the difference between getting care and going without it.

Every single time, someone with more power, more money, and more connections was on the other side. Every single time, they lost.

Why he’s running

If you're exhausted by politics, Tim gets it. He's been in it long enough to understand why.But here's what he's also seen — in Russell County, in Chesapeake, in Richmond, in every room where someone was told the fight wasn't winnable:

People win anyway. Not because the system suddenly became fair. Because they refused to accept that it couldn't change.

That's not optimism. That's evidence.

Tim is running because the rules of our politics were written to protect the powerful — and until we change them, the best ideas in the world won't be enough. That's what the Fair Shot Agenda is about. Not just better policy. Better rules. Real representation. An economy that works for people who don't have lobbyists.

Not Done Yet

The path was never clear. Tim went anyway. That's not going to change.

He's a community organizer who has fought all across this Commonwealth and has never taken a corporate PAC dollar. He's seen what changes things and what doesn't — and he's tired of watching good people wait for a system that wasn't built for them to suddenly start working.

So is this district.

The family choosing between a mortgage and a medical bill. The single mother working two jobs who gives what little she has because she believes in something bigger than herself. The student working doubles all summer and still taking out loans. The worker whose hours get cut on paper so the boss doesn't have to pay what's owed.

This campaign is for all of them. It always has been.