U.S. House candidate who lost job to DOGE campaigns on grassroots fundraising, rural Kansas issues

LAWRENCE — Democratic candidate Lauren Reinhold decided to run for Congress in Kansas after the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Government Efficiency — better known as DOGE — eliminated her federal position.

“It wasn’t about me losing my job,” she said. “It was about my commitment and faith in federal government, and watching what they did to break it.”

Reinhold and Colin McRoberts, both Lawrence attorneys, are challenging each other for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 1st Congressional District in the Aug. 4 primary. The Democratic nominee is likely to face an uphill battle against  Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann of Salina, who is seeking a fourth term in a district he has handily won since 2020. Mann is also facing GOP primary opponent, Craig Musser of Ellinwood.

Reinhold has traveled 20,000 miles crisscrossing much of the state so far, she said, focusing on rural counties. The 1st Congressional District includes rural, western Kansas with an arm that stretches to Lawrence in the east. She said gerrymandering to maintain a GOP seat has divided the district. So, she ventures far from the largely Democratic city of Lawrence, despite facing conservative voters’ skepticism of a candidate from liberal Lawrence.

“The best thing I can do is just gain trust and listen and say, ‘I’m dealing with the same crap you are,’ ” she said. “I lost my job. My 401(k) is dwindling.”

Anticorporate upbringing, career, campaign

Reinhold worked for several years in the U.S. Social Security Administration from Kansas, first as an attorney and then as a human resources administrator. DOGE cuts to the Social Security Administration in 2025 slashed her job.

Before her federal roles, she specialized in immigration law under her private practice. For two years she served as an officer in her federal employee union chapter.

She received her law degree from the University of Kansas. Her parents, both government workers at one time, raised her in Topeka, Kansas City and St. Louis.

“My dad represented unions as an attorney for many, many years,” she said. “I come from a background of fighting for people.”

Reinhold promised potential voters to fight corporate interests if elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Her plan involves strengthening unions and reversing tax advantages established by the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, particularly the tax cut program for private school donors Kansas joined in 2026.

“The rich are not paying their share of taxes,” she said. “We need to tax capital gains, corporations that pay their CEOs outrageously and rich wage earners.”

Without corporate connections, something she said Mann and her primary opponent both have that she doesn’t, her campaign runs on grassroots fundraising, she said. She also said she has not accepted any corporate PAC money for her campaign.

McRoberts said he hasn’t either.

“I was the very first candidate in Kansas to sign the Political Integrity Pledge promising to reject corporate PAC money,” he said in an email. “Every dollar we’ve raised came from individual donors, giving under $100 on average. With their support, not corporate money, we’re leading Democratic fundraising in the district by a very large margin.”

Mann and his campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

On immigration, tariffs, housing, small towns

While working as an immigration attorney years ago, Reinhold said she was never a big fan of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But, she said, ICE has grown out of control under President Donald Trump’s leadership.

This summer, ICE officers have tried to employ a new Kansas law to block observers from videotaping their crackdowns in the state. This year, federal agents have killed people in Maine, Minnesota and Texas, and shot at even more across the country.

Reinhold blamed Congress.

“ICE is wildly veering all over everybody in this country, rather than staying in its lane,” she said. “This is a perfect example of where Congress has abdicated their power. The House of Representatives has the power of investigation and holding ICE to account.”

She also blamed the president and Mann’s loyalty to him.

“Tracy Mann is just a rubber stamp for Trump,” she said. “He does whatever Trump wants.”

Congress should stand up to Trump’s administration, Reinhold said. To her, that means fighting tariffs, particularly for farmers in rural Kansas facing rising costs and falling crop prices.

“Congress has let this presidential administration take control of tariffs,” she said. “We have really, arguably, the weakest Congress probably ever.”

As someone who switched from owning a home to renting, Reinhold said she feels the housing crisis.

“I’m at the mercy of my landlord who keeps hiking the rent, and it’s eaten into my budget, and it’s eaten into so many people’s budget,” she said. “We need to build more affordable housing.”

Strengthening the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, she said, will lead to subsidized affordable housing. And, she added, so will tax reform.

“All these issues — healthcare, housing — they need to be addressed aggressively,” she said. “And we can afford it. You know how we can afford it? Tax the rich. Period.”

Much of the focus, Reinhold said, needs to be on small towns. A major part of her platform is a plan to support infrastructure deals advantageous to rural communities. She said infrastructure laws – such as the Biden administration’s bipartisan law that spent $1.2 trillion on roads, bridges, public transit and broadband internet access –  often benefit urban areas the most.

“In the meantime, we have schools in rural Kansas in serious disrepair, hospitals in disrepair,” she said. “Communities needing water, sewer upgrades that they can’t afford. We have roads out there that are flat-out dangerous.”

So, she said, she will continue on the western Kansas campaign trail.

Accusing Mann of neglecting rural areas, Reinhold mentioned her next stop would be his hometown of Quinter.

“I can’t wait to learn about Quinter,” she said, “and learn what people there think about their hometown boy and what he’s doing for our rural communities.”

“That county has 120 registered Democrats,” she added. “I texted all 120 of them to let them know about the forum.”