Tommy Holstein

Tommy Holstein earned a high school diploma from Wright City High School and a bachelor's degree from Lindenwood University in 2018. His career experience includes working as a small business owner.[1]

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I'm a husband, a dad, a small business owner, and a lifelong Missourian. I grew up in Wright City, graduated from Lindenwood University in 2018, and I've been self-employed ever since.

Today I run VideoPunk, a video production company in St. Charles. I've spent my entire working life in the 1099 economy that millions of Americans now live in but almost nobody in Congress represents. I know what it's like to budget around an unpredictable month, stress about health insurance, and struggle to buy groceries.

Outside of work, I volunteer a lot. I advise fraternity chapters, facilitate leadership programs for college students, and serve on the board of Destination Imagination for Missouri and Kansas.

I'm not a politician. I'm a guy who got tired of watching people do everything right and still fall behind, while the people who rigged the system tell us to be mad at each other instead of them. So I'm running to un-rig it.

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?

Working people are producing more than ever and keeping less of it. The pharmacy closed. The land got bought up. The new job pays less than the old one. I want to raise wages, protect the right to organize, tax wealth the same way we tax a paycheck, and break up the monopolies squeezing family farms and Main Street businesses across this district. Hard work should be enough again.The basics cost too much. Childcare can run more than rent. Four companies control most of the beef in your grocery store. Starter homes in St. Charles County are out of reach for the people who grew up here. One ER visit can wipe out a year of saving. I want universal pre-K, Medicare For All, real action on grocery price-gouging, and homes built for families instead of hedge funds.Big Tech is building its future in our backyard. Data centers pull power from our grid and water from our communities while our utility bills go up to cover it. Meanwhile, AI is eating entry-level jobs and algorithms built like slot machines are raising our kids.

I want schools that teach kids to think for themselves, limits on companies harvesting kids' data, and real consequences for platforms that push harmful content to minors. I also call for a 5-year moratorium on building new data centers while we study the impact on our environment, our utility bills, and our children's education.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Kids and technology. I make digital content for a living, so I know how these platforms are built to hold your attention. As a mentor/advisor to young adults, it concerns me. As a dad to a 3-year-old, it frightens me.

I grew up alongside the internet, and have always been an early adopter for emerging tech. But we can't make the same mistakes with AI that we did with social media. We need regulation, now. I'm also a strong believer that for our society to be at its best, we must invest far more resources into educating future generations.

Campaign websiteHolstein's campaign website stated the following:An economy that works for all of usFor decades, workers in this district and across America have increased their productivity while receiving a smaller and smaller piece of the pie. Where has the money gone? It certainly hasn’t trickled down.Wealth disparity is hitting a critical threshold. Billionaires do not work 1000x times harder than you. Their wealth isn't possible without our labor. We must correct the broken system before more of our jobs are automated or relocated.How'd we get here?Capital gains are taxed at half the rate of an hour clocked in, monopolies have swallowed family farms, pharmacies, hospitals, and main streets, and the cost of putting groceries on the table or sending a kid to Mizzou keeps climbing.The deal we were promised (that hard work would be enough) has been quietly rewritten without our consent.I'm running to rebuild an economy that rewards the people who do the work — not just the people who own shares.From the family farmer in rural Missouri to the line cook in St. Charles to the nurse in Columbia to the freelancer running her own business out of a spare bedroom, we deserve a country that treats our work like it matters.What I'll fight for:• Increasing the minimum wage and closing the tax loopholes favored by billionaires• Protecting your right to organize by passing the PRO Act• Restoring competition and ending corporate consolidationBetter schools and more educational opportunitiesPublic schools in Missouri and across the United States are being asked to do more with less while politicians play games with budgets and stoke the flames of culture war issues.We can't stand by and let the next generation hand over their critical thinking skills to big tech. We need to prepare our students to think for themselves and equip them with essential 21st-century skills, especially media literacy.College is more expensive, and many of the jobs that higher education has focused on are disappearing. According to Gallup, 71% of student loan borrowers have delayed a major life event due to rising tuition costs. This means that so many young people are skipping or delaying starting a family, buying a house, starting a business, and moving out of their parents’ home.We’re being squeezed. And it’s not as simple as the rich getting richer, it’s the richest of the rich getting exponentially richer. Quality education for all is an absolute necessity for a democracy, so why has our system refused to pay our teachers, improve our schools, and fund higher ed? Simply put, it’s because the wealthy donor class wants to get the best government they can buy. They want government programs and the broader economy to serve their interests. A well-educated society would be harder to distract with culture war diversions. We have to demand better education to continue the project of civilization and leave our children’s generation better than ours.What I'll fight for:• Fully funded public schools• Putting our students' and teachers' interests above big tech• Tuition-free community college, trade schools, and registered apprenticeshipsLower cost of livingThe cost of living shouldn't cost this much. The working class is following the plan we were given. Many of us went to college, entered the workforce, and started families. Yet, we feel perpetually behind.Childcare costs more than rent. Starter homes are out of reach for many. A trip to the emergency room can wipe out a month (or more) of careful budgeting.This Gallup poll found that over 40% of respondents are worried that inflated prices will cause them to not afford routine healthcare costs, cover their monthly bills, or afford college. Your health, your baseline standard of living, and your education. These foundational pieces of life should not move out of reach of everyday Americans while billionaires pull in record profits and layoff workers.Markets are an economic tool. When abused and consolidated to form monopolies (or more commonly oligopolies), consumer prices skyrocket along with share prices.The basics of feeding your kids, raising them, keeping a roof over their heads, and keeping them healthy should not be a luxury in this country.A better America will no longer be a place where healthcare expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcies, where anyone skips necessary medication to feed their family, and where childcare costs more than a paycheck.What I’ll fight for:• Medicare for All• An end to price-gouging monopolies• Increase first-time home buyer incentivesA fair deal on AI, data centers, and big tech A handful of tech companies are trying to build super-sized data centers in rural America. They don’t want the noise, water, and air pollution in their neighborhoods, and neither do we.I’m so proud of the way the St. Charles city community organized and pressured the city council to permanently ban data centers. We can hear out any company’s pitch for new construction, but many of these planned data centers are looking to draw power from our grid, water from our aquifers, and tax breaks from our communities. That’s simply too high a price to pay without tangible, long-term benefits. We can’t let big tech treat Missouri or any other state like a free resource extraction zone.When we identify a need for something like a new data center, the company building it needs to be responsible for its energy needs. We cannot allow the cost to shift to our utility bills. In Congress, I’ll for a strict cap on state and local tax abatements for data centers that don’t deliver permanent, full-time jobs for their community. We cannot trade hundreds of millions in school and hospital funding for a building with 12 employees.Missouri is becoming a destination for data center development, and that means MO-3 families, MO-3 farms, MO-3 schools, and MO-3 utility bills are now in the path of decisions being made in boardrooms in California, Seattle, and Washington. In this same moment, recent grads in Columbia are watching AI eat away the entry-level jobs they trained for, parents in St. Charles are watching their kids' attention get strip-mined by apps, and small business owners across the district are wondering how they're supposed to compete with platforms that already have all of their data. This is not somebody else's fight. It's already here.What I’ll fight for:• Big tech regulations and an AI bill of rights• Protecting our natural resources• Innovation that benefits all of humanity— Tommy Holstein's campaign website (July 14, 2026)Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.