Meet Katrina Nguyen, an Independent for Colorado’s 5th District

Katrina Nguyen is an independent candidate running to represent Colorado’s 5th Congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Colorado’s 5th district includes Colorado Springs, along with the surrounding communities of Security-Widefield, Fountain, Cimarron Hills, Fort Carson, Black Forest, and Monument.

As an independent and GoodParty.org Certified candidate for Congress, Nguyen hopes to bring more meaningful representation and real solutions to her district. GoodParty.org spoke with Nguyen about her Congressional campaign, background, and goals for her time in office.

Inside Colorado’s 5th Congressional District

Colorado’s 5th Congressional district is unique because of its high percentage of independent voters. In fact, the 5th district has the highest percentage of unaffiliated voters in Colorado. Half of the active registered voters in the district are unaffiliated. Meanwhile, 30.2% of voters are registered as Republicans, and 17.6% are registered as Democrats.

Colorado Springs made history last year by electing independent Yemi Mobolade, who is both the city’s first Black mayor and the first non-Republican mayor in the history of Colorado Springs’ mayoral elections. Mobolade won the election against Wayne Williams, a Republican and the former Colorado Secretary of State.

Nguyen has a similar chance to make history. If elected, Nguyen will become the first non-Republican leader to represent Colorado’s 5th Congressional district since its creation in 1973.

The district’s incumbent officeholder, Doug Lamborn, has been in office since 2007. After being reelected eight times, Lamborn will retire at the end of his current term. This means the field is wide open for fresh voices and new perspectives.

Nguyen is one of six independent, No Party Affiliation (NPA), and third-party candidates currently running for U.S. House in the district. There are also two Republican and two Democratic candidates, all four of whom will compete in partisan primary elections on June 25, 2024.

Nguyen and the other remaining candidates will appear on the ballot during the general election on November 5, 2024.

Katrina Nguyen: An Independent Advocate for Colorado Springs

As an independent candidate, Nguyen hopes to bring solution-oriented representation to Colorado’s 5th Congressional district. She said she has been frustrated by the lack of progress being made at the congressional level and plans to disrupt the status quo.

Some of the policy areas where Nguyen hopes to make progress are affordable housing, consumer and environmental protection, and disability rights.

“I was feeling really hopeless, waiting for someone to step up and start working on the things that I really care about,” Nguyen said. “It finally got to the point where I was like, ‘Okay, I'm going to have to either completely give up, or I have to really go out there and try to do it myself,’ because a lot of these issues, we can't see progress on until we tackle it on the level of legislation.” 

Affordable housing is an issue that has touched Nguyen’s life on a personal level, as she was unhoused for a period of time following the 2008 financial crisis.

“It was a very traumatic time, so I really understand trauma, I understand desperation, and I understand not having anyone out there to support you,” Nguyen said. “I think that a part of the government's role is to make sure we have infrastructure in place that supports people who don't have people supporting them. Right now, we have lots of holes in society that let people fall through the cracks and into homelessness.”

The issues of consumer and environmental protection are also important to Nguyen because of personal experience. As someone who requires a specific diet due to a neurological disorder, she wishes that more Americans had access to clean, healthy food.

“People shouldn't have to worry about harmful chemicals in their food,” Nguyen said. “[Personally,] I always took a proactive approach. Back in the day, I went all-organic and I watched what I eat because I have a neuro disorder, and I have to eat in a certain way to manage my disorder. This was back in college, 15 or 20 years ago. I was waiting for government officials to start tackling this, and they haven’t after all this time has passed.”

Nguyen’s partial disability has also made her passionate about advocating for the rights of the disabled community.

“I had several major accidents, so I'm partially disabled and I walk with a cane. That has helped me understand the disabled community, because there's a lot that the disabled community needs that they're not getting. Especially if you're a disabled person who doesn’t have your family’s support, it's very hard for people, and that's very important to me,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen also said she has felt frustrated by the government’s lack of progress on reducing plastic pollution, especially given the health risks posed by microplastics.

“We have alternatives, so why aren't we working on them? We still don't see our government taking a proactive stance, even though more and more statistics are coming out about microplastics being found in our brains and our bloodstreams,” she said.

Overall, Nguyen hopes to make it easier for more Americans to access clean food, live healthily, and participate in environmental efforts.

Addressing Big Money in Politics

Nguyen said that part of the reason so little progress has been made on key issues is because of the influence of lobbying money in politics.

“Unfortunately, for some of these issues that I care about, the reason why they aren’t being solved is because the corporations that own these plastic products, or the corporations who own all these chemicals that are going into our food, have the money. They're bribing our politicians to vote certain ways or to focus on other things in exchange for money,” Nguyen said. 

“I know that's a really negative perception, but you can look it up on OpenSecrets.org, and you see people taking this lobbying money. I think that's wrong, because politicians end up representing lobbyists instead of the actual people who voted them in.”

According to Open Secrets, the amount of lobbying money accepted during the 2022 election cycle in Colorado totaled $55 million. Some of the top industries represented by lobbyists included education, pharmaceuticals, and insurance.

Nguyen said that one of the reasons she is running for office as an independent is because she refuses to be bought out by lobbyists.

“Lobbyists are kind of out there purely for profit,” she said. “These issues affect me just as much as they affect everyone else, so I don't understand how I would let myself get bought out. I'm going in not for power or money. I'm going in purely for change.”

As an independent candidate, Nguyen plans to run her campaign with greater integrity.

“We're independent, we're unbought, and we represent the people,” she said.

Standing Up for the People, Not for Partisanship

Another way Nguyen hopes to provide authentic representation for Colorado’s 5th district is by standing up for the people, not for any one political party. She said her campaign has been received positively by voters across the political spectrum.

“The truth is that when I'm talking to people out here, it doesn't matter if they're Republican or Democrat. When they sit down and talk to me, they agree with what I'm saying,” Nguyen said. “I'm not going out there and making a point that this party is evil or that this party is obstructionist, because that's what the major-party candidates are doing. That's how they're trying to get supporters. They're basically ramping up the negativity to gain support. For me, that's just not how I'm going about it.

“I'm focusing on very non-partisan issues: food, plastic, waste, cost of living, affordable housing. Everyone understands these issues, and the way I approach them, I aim to be as solution-oriented as possible, where there's no partisanship involved in it. That's really how I'm different.”

Nguyen said that her diverse life experiences have helped her to understand and connect with a wide variety of voters.

“I've had a really, really diverse life experience. I have had really, really high highs and really, really low lows. I've experienced it all, honestly,” she said. “I'm someone who has been homeless, for example, but I'm also college educated, and I've worked with people who are on Wikipedia, people who are out there.

“I've walked in many different shoes, and I've seen different lifestyles and experienced them as well. That has helped me know how to talk to people wherever they are, in a way where they can understand and they can relate.”

For example, Nguyen’s experience of living on a low income has shaped the way she relates to fiscally conservative voters.

“I understand many of the more sensitive people in our country and some of the more hardcore people. For many years, I couldn't find a job and I was on very low income. During that time, I learned how to maximize my money. The little money that I had, I had to maximize it,” Nguyen said. “When I'm looking at the U.S. budget and foreign policy, it drives me crazy because we waste so much money. That [experience] has developed my economic sense, because we could be doing so much more with the resources that we have.”

In the end, Nguyen said there is no other candidate running to represent Colorado’s 5th district who is standing up for the values she believes in.

“If I were another person and I had the opportunity to vote for myself, I would probably vote for myself, because I believe in what I'm running for,” Nguyen said. “If I dropped out or if I didn't make it, I don't know who I would vote for. I don't want to vote for any of them, so that's really the thing that's keeping me going. I would vote for myself, and that means there must be someone else out there who wants a candidate like me. None of my opponents are really talking about things that I care about and that many other people care about.”

How You Can Get Involved

Here are a few ways that you can learn more and make a difference:

• Learn more about Katrina Nguyen’s campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. You can learn more by visiting Nguyen’s campaign website, or by listening to her recent appearance on a local podcast by Studio 809.

• Register to vote. Are you local to the Colorado Springs area? Get ready for the general election on November 5, 2024 by registering to vote. 

• Volunteer. If you’re local to the Colorado Springs area, consider signing up to volunteer with Nguyen’s campaign. Or find volunteer opportunities to support Nguyen and independent candidates across the country as part of GoodParty.org’s volunteer network.

Looking to make an even bigger impact in your community? Book a free consultation to learn about how you can launch your own independent campaign for elected office. Whether you’re running for the U.S. House or a local position like city council or school board, GoodParty.org has free campaign tools and resources to support your independent campaign.

Photo by Fox Fotography