Sophia Chitlik ‘07 goes on a walk and contemplates what she can do to improve maternal health and affordable childcare in North Carolina. Passionate about this from a young age, she hopes to implement these policies about health and child care, along with her own values if she is elected into office. As she looks back at her experience working in politics, Chitlik sets her campaign in specific ways to convince the South to vote for her.

   Chitlik started her career in politics working on the Obama Campaign during his term. She enjoyed the job and wanted to continue working there, but knew she had to continue her studies. This caused Chitlik to transfer to New York University to finish her education, which later led her to start working in the White House as an associate in the  Office of Presidential Personnel. Finally, she reached the United States Department of Labor as a confidential specialist. These roles made Chitlik want to become more involved in trying to make a change, and as she ultimately tries to reach the North Carolina Senate, Chitlik works to improve the rights of women and children in North Carolina. Looking back at where she started, and how far she’s come, she believes that politicians and voters need to bring back care into politics.

   “I’ve been advocating for women and children my whole life,” Chitlik said. “It started with my dad talking to me about the civil rights movement. I’ve always been interested in politics and I now know that a confidence boost is so critical to being comfortable in the politics world, especially being a woman who speaks her mind. It rallies and motivates other women.”

   Living in a state where the Republican party leads with the supermajority, Chitlik finds different ways to try and break that supermajority. While she is campaigning against them, her Libertarian opponent Ray Erbinger and her get along, but don’t work in collaboration. Chitlik wants the community to know what would happen if a Democrat was elected. 

   “The courts have been stacked by generations of Republicans.” Chitlik said. “Both in terms of our state Supreme Court, as well as our national Supreme Court, that makes justice impossible for our community. We’ve got a supermajority in the Senate Democratic Caucus, and it is extremely hard to break out of that because the Republicans, instead of being equitable, have been punitive.”

   Chitlik wants to create a world where the child care industry is stabilized and wages for early child care workers are higher because she believes no one is focused on that right now which is causing the economy to suffer. She hopes to use her platform to spread awareness of these issues, so that the future generations will have better foundations to lean on.

   “In the past 20 years, we were supposed to make progress.” Chitlik said. “ We want to create a vibrant society where everyone can thrive and I want to leave a good legacy for my son and for our family. For me, the passion to make a change just comes from looking at the world and having an understanding of how it works for me and our community.”

   Chitlik advocates for solutions to the maternal mortality crisis, along with trying to build power among parents which allows access to guardians to see the best education options that fit their child’s needs. She thinks that this power creates the base in being able to create the next generation of candidates who are qualified, and help the community infrastructure.

   “Challenging the leadership within our own party and having the bravery and the courage to do that helps us win, because with mediocre talent we can’t win.” Chitlik said. “Another thing is we need to build power in communities outside of the political traditional party infrastructure. It’s about advocating for solutions to our maternal mortality crisis or building parent power around education. We have to nurture those coalitions with our dollars, our investment and our time and energy, because that power creates the base.”