Formerly Homeless NJ Senate Candidate Rages Against The Machine

NEW JERSEY — “Hard work doesn’t get you anywhere in life.” Sound like a tough pill to swallow? Welcome to the reality of millions of people across the nation who are working their fingers to the bone in pursuit of the American Dream – only to find it slipping through their grasp, a U.S. Senate candidate from New Jersey says.

Christina Khalil isn’t a stranger to burning the candle at both ends. The 33-year-old Green Party of New Jersey candidate has been employed since she was 14. At one point in her life, she was working two jobs and going to school full-time.

But when you go to sleep every night exhausted – and you still can’t afford your own home – you eventually have to confront the fact that something is broken in the system, she says.

“It doesn’t matter how hard you work,” Khalil told Patch. “It doesn’t get you anywhere in life.”

Khalil, a social worker and longtime community activist, is among the candidates who have thrown their hats into the ring for a U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey this year. The 2024 election already has a crowded field of hopefuls competing to replace embattled Sen. Robert Menendez, who hasn’t announced if he will run for re-election following his latest bribery accusation.

Patch recently got a chance to sit down with Khalil and hear about her campaign platform, background and thoughts on whether she’ll be able to get a fair shake as a third-party candidate in New Jersey. Here’s what she had to say.

HARD TIMES

Khalil, a New Jersey native, racked up experience as a front-line employee in the medical field while attending Ramapo College, working at a medical detox facility during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, she also volunteered at Hackensack High School and for advocacy groups such as the Bergen County LGBTQ+ Alliance.

“It was a level of stress I never wish on anyone,” Khalil said.

A first-generation daughter of an Egyptian immigrant, she is the first in her family to graduate and attend college – an achievement she wears like a badge of honor.

But the good times haven’t come easy, she says.

For starters, her family is yet another victim of the War on Drugs, Khalil claims. In a recent interview, she said the much-maligned policing policy “broke up my family,” and that “no one thought that I was going to graduate high school” – let alone end up running for the U.S. Senate.

“My mother got addicted to substances due to being abused by my father,” Khalil explained to Patch. “Instead of getting her into treatment, they arrested her and put in jail and took my mother – who was a victim – away from me.”

Soon afterwards, Khalil spent some time in the New Jersey foster care system. It wasn’t always easy, she says.

“I had one set of foster parents who hated me,” Khalil remembered. “I was asked to always leave the house when they had family or friends come over, and I was always reminded that I was not part of their family and never will be. I was emancipated, yet still had to live with them.”

Then there was the family that wanted her – but she didn’t learn about until she “aged out” of the system. They were strange times, to put it lightly, Khalil said.

For a brief time, she “couch-hopped,” bouncing from one temporary stay to another. But it’s a dangerous life for teens who are left to fend for themselves, Khalil warned.

“There are many low points when you grow up with no family or stability – it's like trouble finds you,” Khalil said.

“I remember at 15-years-old, I had a guy trying to get me to work in a strip club,” Khalil recalled. “I didn’t know what trafficking was at that age. I happened to move to another foster home, so it was just luck and timing that saved me.”

It was yet another lesson in how America fails to protect some of its most vulnerable residents, she added.

“I knew I couldn’t tell anyone, because society doesn’t believe people like us, and if I were to ever go missing no one would look for me,” Khalil said.

It’s not easy to find companions in such situations, she added.

“I lost friends because they couldn’t understand I didn’t have money to do things,” Khalil continued. “They thought I didn’t want to hang out. They couldn’t understand the truth when I explained that I didn’t have enough money for the week if I went out with them.”

Even in dark times, there are people who will lift you up, however.

For a time, Khalil found refuge at the Conklin Youth Center in North Jersey, sharing food, laughs and outings with the other kids who grew up there. There were other high points in those days, such as the time her mother came to her high school graduation.

But more low points quickly followed.

After “aging out” of the foster care system, Khalil struggled with a problem that many other youth in her shoes experience: an abrupt cutoff of social services.

“I graduated with my bachelor’s degree and was homeless,” she told Patch. “The system is really messed up. We age out with no support and are expected to ‘just figure it out.’”

And then there’s the racism.

After the September 11th attacks in 2001, Khalil was one of many people of Arabic descent who faced discrimination and bigotry in New Jersey and other states across the nation. She began to hide her ethnicity and race from others, something she now feels ashamed about.

“It was tough growing up, but it was about survival,” she insisted, sharing a memory that still sticks in her mind to this day:

“I remember I was working at the mall – our radios were connected to the police department – and my one supervisor kept calling me a ‘terrorist.’ I finally got the courage to stand up for myself. That started a whole separate issue, because he was mad that I didn't just take his abuse. I reported it because of the fear of randomly getting arrested and interrogated. I didn’t have money for a lawyer or a family or anyone to call. If I got arrested, I would have had to figure it out on my own and alone – in jail.”

It isn’t the only time a boss at work has taken advantage of her desperation, Khalil added.

“I’ve experienced a lot of different abuse throughout my life, and some of the craziest was at my workplace by multiple supervisors,” she said. “They knew I couldn’t quit or I was homeless. I wasn’t a person – I was just an object. I was just someone to overwork and take advantage of.”

CAMPAIGN PLATFORM

Khalil said that her in-real-life experience has made her painfully aware of “how the [political] duopoly truly protects predators” – and seldom their victims. It’s something that many of her fellow senate candidates might not understand unless they’ve also walked in her shoes, she says.

Now, Khalil is hoping to repurpose some of the skills she’s picked up creating policies and managing grants to craft federal policy – while staying true to her roots.

One of them? Ending the War on Drugs.

“The War on Drugs was created to police and harm marginalized and vulnerable communities,” Khalil writes on her campaign website. “The United States spends at least $100 billion a year on drug control systems, and state and local drug-related criminal justice expenditures are estimated to amount to $25.7 billion.”

“However, policing and criminalization still haven’t curbed the issues with addiction in struggling communities,” she argues. “Combatting this crisis requires investments in communities, not policing and criminalization. Once elected, we will support legislation that redirects the billions in the War on Drugs to community development, healthy living policies, mental health support and family support programs.”

• See Related: New Jersey Spends $1B Every Year Fighting The Drug War: Report
• See Related: It's Time To Finally End New Jersey's Drug War, ACLU Says (VIDEO)

In recent months, Khalil has also railed against corporate tax cuts and credit scores, challenging the financial systems that seemed like alien forces when she was a struggling youth.

Here are some other federal policies Khalil is planning to tackle if elected:

IMMIGRATION – “Despite disputes from current elected officials, many families and children continue to experience extreme abuses within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. Improving our immigration policy will require a complete redesign of current policy, including investing money out of ICE investment in immigration lawyers, community support, mental health support for asylum seekers, and immediate pathways to citizenship, including paperwork and support the moment they arrive.”

ENVIRONMENT/CLIMATE CHANGE – “As a result of the contamination of our water sources, the harmful pollution from manufacturing waste, and the impending climate catastrophe that is causing mass weather and ecological devastation, Americans face major health and environmental impacts that ruin quality of life. This campaign will prioritize investing in clean and reusable energy and resources immediately. We will utilize initiatives in the Green New Deal, and introduce legislation to clean our water supplies of dangerous pollutants immediately. We will also hold corporations accountable by combating destructive projects like the Willow Project and Mountain Valley Pipelines.”

HEALTH CARE – “It is time to remove corporations and big business from health care, once elected our team will fight for universal health care from the first day in office. By investing in education to combat the detrimental shortage of health care workers, supporting Black and Brown investors to increase minority-owned hospitals throughout the country, and introducing legislation in support of quality health care for all Americans. This will help rebuild trust among the vulnerable and marginalized communities that our current elected officials have ignored.”

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TURNING GREEN

According to Khalil, she began her quest for a Senate seat as a “progressive Democrat,” but nobody in the party machine took her up on the offer. Her far-left politics didn’t win her any fans, she says.

“I was told by an elected Democrat that I have to ‘wait to be given permission to run,’” Khalil alleged. “I cannot decide to run because I want to.”

“It was such a shocker because the mainstream media tells us that the Dems are progressive, when in reality they are not,” Khalil charged.

Since launching her campaign, Khalil has made several statements challenging Menendez and his policies, calling the latest bribery accusations “deeply disturbing, but sadly not surprising.” She has also criticized the longtime senator’s stance on the Israel-Palestine war, particularly his comment that the U.S. should help Israel to “effectively wipe Hamas off the face of the Earth.”

• See Related: NJ Green Party Candidates Blast Menendez's Comments On Israel-Hamas

And as it turns out, finding political allies is as tough as finding a friend as a lost and frightened teen, Khalil says. She’s reached out to local progressive groups, police officers, environmental advocates and local faith leaders – and they “won’t give her the time of day.”

“I can’t figure out if it is because I am a woman, or if it’s because I’m a third-party candidate,” she said. “I’m not asking for endorsements, I’m not asking for money … all I’m asking for is a couple minutes to share my platform and answer questions.”

Eventually, Khalil reached out to a Green Party of New Jersey member, who replied that her policies lined up well with their political platform. When she met with party leaders, it was “just amazing” and they clicked right away.

The switch happened soon afterwards.

In the meanwhile, Khalil is getting a firsthand glimpse behind the campaign curtain that many New Jersey residents will never experience. And it’s not always pretty.

“Progressive policies are frowned upon,” she told Patch when asked about some of the most infuriating things she’s encountered since jumping into the Senate race.

“Corporations run this state – they don’t care about you or the kids, and it’s only going to get worse,” she added.

RUNNING AS AN UNDERDOG

For now, Khalil continues to reach out to the press, hoping to get a fair shake as a third-party candidate.

She’s not holding her breath.

“The biggest challenge is the warped mainstream media and getting the truth and solutions to the everyday people,” Khalil lamented, accusing political pundits of deliberately leaving her name out of the public discussion.

In another recent interview, Khalil criticized the requirements to qualify for an upcoming Senate debate on Sunday, Feb. 18. That debate – which is being sponsored by the New Jersey Globe, On New Jersey, and the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University – will include appearances from Democratic Party candidates Tammy Murphy and Andy Kim.

According to the Globe, candidates were asked to meet the following criteria by Feb. 11: $750,000 raised and a public endorsement by Democratic elected officials and municipal/county party chairs from at least five municipalities; or 10 percent of the vote at the Feb. 10 Monmouth County Democratic convention.

Menendez has also been invited to participate if he announces his candidacy by Feb. 11.

Khalil, who has not managed to meet the threshold, isn’t the only candidate complaining about being shut out of the debate.

Lawrence Hamm, who is competing for the Democratic Party nod in the upcoming primary election, has called them “onerous” and “anti-democratic.” And Patricia Campos-Medina, another Democratic contender, said that “New Jersey’s political machine” is making it hard for working-class people to participate in the democratic process.

• See Related: 'Big Money' Rules NJ Governor Debates, Third-Party Candidates Say
• See Related: ‘The Line’: Fight Continues Against New Jersey's Weird Primary Ballots

If the latest statewide voter registration statistics are any indication, Khalil likely faces an uphill battle at the ballot box.

As of January, there are 11,395 registered Green Party voters in New Jersey’s 12 Congressional Districts, which sits far behind Democrats (2.5 million) and Republicans (1.54 million). The state’s largest third-party – the Libertarian Party – has 24,749 registered voters.

Khalil feels the disparity in numbers with each “inspiring” message she gets from naysayers: “You aren’t rich, no one is going to care … You don’t have connections because you grew up in foster care … You have to wait until you are asked.”

Meanwhile, the self-described “underdog” continues to work two jobs, living paycheck to paycheck and campaigning in her spare time.

So what keeps her going? The hope that she can make things better for the next young person who finds themselves without anyone to turn to.

“I am not running for myself, because if I lose, I will be alright,” Khalil insists. “I am running for those who have been abused, neglected and forgotten by our corrupted system.”

And when the smoke from New Jersey’s 2024 Senate election finally clears, it won’t be the vote tallies that define success, she said.

“I think a successful campaign is doing my best with the odds stacked against me,” Khalil told Patch. “I’ve always been the underdog in my life so this pressure isn’t something new. I won’t give up this fight.”

“If I lose, at least I lose knowing I gave it my all in such a corrupted system,” she added.

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