Rustin Knudtson

Rustin Knudtson (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent California's 36th Congressional District. He lost in the primary on June 2, 2026.

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I'm Rustin Knudtson and I'm a socialist. I'll cut through the bull****: this country is on a trajectory that is incredibly normal historically and always ends in chaos and violence. That's the result of a complete dereliction of responsibility by establishment Democrats, the media, and whatever Republicans have become. And when they, along with the very wealthy and other members of the elite class can no longer be trusted to provide basic stability, then we no longer have a functioning state and we should start acting like it.The good news is socialism actually has answers. At its core, socialism is just more democracy, and more democracy is more stabilizing than letting the powerful run everything into the ground while the rest of us watch.That's why I support Medicare for All, because healthcare shouldn't be a financial instrument. It's why I oppose U.S. military aid to Israel while they carry out a genocide against Palestinians, something Ted Lieu has been unwilling to do. It's why I want to break the grip financial institutions have over housing, over wages, over every material condition of ordinary life. It's why I believe we need to hold the executive branch accountable and pull power back toward Congress and toward the people.Socialism isn't a dirty word. It's just the belief that government should represent the actual material interests of the public. That's all I'm pushing for.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Through incompetence or malice, our elected officials have kept us on a trajectory where ordinary people absorb increasing levels of harm while they protect themselves and the class they belong to. They make a simple life harder and harder, not always because they benefit directly but because they just don't care. Unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, a warming planet, Israeli genocide funded with your tax dollars, all of it aided and abetted by an elite class that has decided their comfort is worth more than your stability, more than your prosperity. We can do better by at least electing people who actually want to fight this descent.Ted Lieu has been in Congress for eleven years. He sits in Democratic leadership, takes corporate PAC money, and things have gotten worse. CA-36 doesn't need someone to manage the decline with a smile and some mean tweets. It needs someone willing to fight. We need elected officials who aren't in it as a career, who are willing to reassess the underlying assumptions about how governing works, what our place in the world means, and what new ideas can actually get us through this period without destroying ourselves. Ted Lieu and the Democratic establishment will never do that. I will.Socialism is just more democracy, and more democracy is more stabilizing than letting the powerful run everything into the ground. Medicare for All means healthcare belongs to people, not shareholders. Housing as a human right means shelter isn't a financial instrument. Workers' rights means the people doing the work have a say in how it's done. Reining in the executive means Congress actually does its job. These aren't radical ideas. They're what happens when government represents the people paying into it instead of the donors funding it.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Financial institutions are the root cause. Healthcare costs more here than anywhere in the developed world because it's a profitable industry, not a public good. Housing is unaffordable because scarcity is profitable. Breaking these institutions up and nationalizing them is overdue. Medicare for All is just the decision to start treating healthcare like it belongs to people.

We are funding a genocide in Gaza, destabilizing Lebanon, and edging toward a wider war. The bipartisan consensus is to keep going. It has to end.

Congress handed decades of authority to the executive and now acts surprised. Pulling that back is existential. ICE and DHS need to be dissolved.