Three Things Progressive Democratic Candidates Have in Common with Progressive Romance Authors

The 2026 midterm elections are on November 4, and Virginia’s first congressional district has strong potential to flip from Republican to Democrat. As an author of progressive sci-fi romance and a progressive Democrat who lives in VA-01, I was thrilled that multiple candidates stepped up to challenge the incumbent.

Several of them are progressive candidates, and I’ve been following their grassroots campaigns since last summer. The challenges they face got me thinking about what progressive candidates and progressive romance authors like me have in common: progressive ideas, marketing challenges, and people who have a fear of change.

For this “case study,” I’m going to compare my experience as a progressive romance author with Democratic primary candidate Ericka Kopp because among Virginia’s 1st congressional district candidates, her campaign platform mirrors my progressive ideology and book content the most. Like me, she’s a caregiver to a disabled family member, biracial, and bisexual.

Campaign logo for VA-01 Democratic candidate Ericka Kopp

‍Progressive ideas

‍Progressive candidates pledge to channel their progressive ideas into laws and public services that benefit Americans. Progressive romance authors bake progressive themes, characters, and elements into their stories to entertain readers. Ericka and I are both unapologetically progressive. My goal is to get readers excited about progressive ideas through storytelling. Ericka’s goal is to get voters excited about having a representative who puts people over partisan politics.

‍Progressive ideas include universal healthcare; reducing income inequality; a progressive tax (i.e., making billionaires pay their fair share of taxes); robust social safety nets; public education, reproductive freedom, and environmental justice. Progressive ideas are based on love, compassion, collaboration, and the universality of human rights.

A case could be made that some romances are progressive by their very existence, e.g. ones featuring BIPOC/LGBQT+ characters. But for this comparison, “progressive” means the deliberate inclusion of progressive story elements, e.g. a romance set in a queernormative world.

Covers for Heather Massey’s steampunk romance quartet, A Villainous Affair

My specialty is sci-fi romance, which I’ve been writing since 2010 (even earlier if you count my Space Battleship Yamato fanfiction). Science fiction harnesses futuristic story elements to comment on contemporary societal issues. Progressive romances encourage readers to cherish the inclusive idea of romantic love and a happily ever after for whoever wants it and to contemplate progressive issues in the context of romance. In my books, I provide social commentary using the dual-genre lens of SFR while exploring aspirational, progressive versions of our world—along with plenty of action, adventure, and hot sex.

My body of work is full of political romance stories. In my steampunk romance saga, A Villainous Affair, the protagonists’ goal is to transform Victorian England into a social justice utopia while falling in love along the way. I deliberately made them villains because in our world, progressive people are frequently demonized. If someone’s going to vilify us for caring about other people, then we might as well go for the progressive gold. That’s why I wove numerous progressive ideas into AVA, including:

• wealth redistribution

• decolonization

• interrogating whiteness

• dismantling classism, racism, and misogyny

• challenging white feminism

• trans rights

• accessibility for disabled people ‍

Progressive Democrat Ericka Kopp is for many progressive goals, including taxing the rich, universal healthcare, abolishing ICE, supporting Palestinian statehood, tax reform, and “raising the Social Security Administration asset limitation” for disabled people receiving SSI income. Such social safety nets and oversight and government reform strategies echo similar ideas in A Villainous Affair.

Another similarity is that Ericka is a regular person, not a career politician, who stepped up to run for office. In AVA, the protagonists challenge England’s monarchy from outside the system and seek to reform Parliament. She’s also a Courage Candidate, which means she stands for taking action to hold accountable everyone in the Trump administration who abused their power and failed to uphold their Constitutional oath. Her bold anti-corruption position reveals how important it is to rip corruption out at the roots before attempting to govern like usual.

Citizens’ Impeachment Courage Candidate Ericka Kopp

Challenges in marketing

Candidates running a grassroots campaign and self-published, progressive romance authors usually lack huge platforms/independent wealth, so they face similar challenges in marketing. Our content marketing strategies depend on skills and resources we already have as opposed to hiring a team to deploy our social media marketing, email marketing campaigns, and viral marketing strategies. We are our own influencer marketing team, as it were.

Progressive ideas are so powerful that many people actively work to suppress them. For progressive candidates and authors, the biggest hurdles are getting past the Democratic Party and traditional publisher gatekeepers, respectively. That’s because said gatekeepers are invested in maintaining the status quo, not exposing readers and voters to progressive ideas and policies. So, folks like Ericka and I are often on our own.

Marketing progressive ideas is difficult because we live in a world where money and power earn instant trust rather than people who advocate for things like income equality and sharing resources. Ericka said the Democratic Party isn’t funding her or “getting the work done” on her behalf. She’s working independently of the Party as she builds a grassroots campaign “to change the way that our system exists.”

Stylized graphic (by me) of Ericka Kopp featuring various aspects of her campaign platform

I also work independently because these days publishers generally only want authors with big platforms (and historically, publishers never provided marketing funding equally to all their authors). After years of publishers/literary agents rejecting my perfectly good books, I turned to self-publishing (as did thousands of other authors in the same boat). The creative freedom is great but comes with a cost: difficulty cultivating a wider audience. For example, my Draft2Digital May 2026 sales report was $.40, for the sale of one unit (*laugh-cry emoji*). All this means that progressives like Ericka and I can’t pay-to-play to reach vast numbers of people.

On the upside, Ericka doesn’t take AIPAC, foreign interest, corporate PAC, lobbyist, or billionaire money. That means she “won’t be bought,” and if elected, she’d be beholden to her constituents and no one else. If I can’t profit from my books, I’d at least like to have a representative who’ll put my interests above those of money-hoarding billionaires.

Mainstream media often locks progressive candidates out of news features. Self-published authors have pretty much zero access to mainstream reviewers. Even many niche/obscure romance reviewers haven’t been interested in my books. As the VA-01 primary began, Ericka’s candidacy wasn’t covered by local newspapers, let alone regional or national ones. But you know who gave her an opportunity to communicate with voters? A grassroots volunteer group called Neighbors for Change (full disclosure: I’m a volunteer writer for them).

Ericka appeared on Chelsea Yigan’s Political Makeup channel, which as of this writing has 137 subscribers. She then appeared on Foggy Bottom Line Media, which “only” has 112 subscribers. That may not seem like a lot, but progressives like us will happily take those numbers! Sometimes, making progress means winning over one voter or reader at a time.

Another marketing challenge is that people tend to be wary of progressive candidates and romance authors unless they’re familiar to them. They tend to think, “If I’ve never heard of [candidate or book], then [they/it] can’t be any good.” They fail to consider that the establishment, whether it’s the Democratic Party or mainstream publishers, deliberately kneecaps progressive voices. Audiences of all kinds aren’t routinely exposed to progressive ideas—and that’s by design because they threaten existing power structures.

Cover for Alyssa Cole’s historical romance An Extraordinary Union

Voters and audiences who have a fear of change

Several years ago, I heard that some readers objected to the progressive content in Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary Union. This romance is about a former enslaved Black-woman- turned-Union-Army spy who joins forces with a white, male Pinkerton detective to infiltrate a Rebel enclave.

Upon reading it, I was shocked because while Cole did indeed include progressive content in the story, it wasn’t off-the-charts. If anything, the book had a standard amount of progressive content. It’s perplexing that some readers took issue with the interracial romance/social commentary about the Civil War from the perspective of a Black female character. Then again, some people think that Black-authored books shouldn’t exist, period. That’s why it’s extraordinary that Cole’s book even became a mainstream published romance.

That anecdote is yet another reminder that far too many people struggle with progressive ideas in entertainment and politics—especially in politics. One example: the current discourse about democratic socialists. People oppose progressive ideas for various reasons, but mainly because they challenge power, status, and wealth. They challenge white supremacy, classism, ableism, queerphobia, the idea that humans are superior to animals, and religious bigotry.

Cover for Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzl

Progressive ideas, policies, and laws seem like a threat to those who don’t believe in universal human rights or reproductive freedom. People fixated on hoarding money and resources fear the idea of abolishing wealth inequality. They fear universal healthcare because it means sharing healthcare resources with BIPOC. They fear gun reform because it means redefining who has the right to bear arms in America. They fear defunding the police because they think their property is more important than the lives of Black people.

They’re afraid to confront their privileges (e.g., intergenerational wealth) and the pure luck that gave them a higher quality of life than people born into poor families. They desperately cling to the myth of meritocracy rather than acknowledge that systemic racism is the reason for their success rather than personal qualities or skills. They’re still in the thrall of the enslaver mentality. At the same time, none of us are immune to the effects of systemic racism.

In my time travel romance Julie & Winifred’s Most Excellent Adventure, I imagined a near-future world where queer rights are more valued. In our world, Ericka has pledged to protect and expand LGQBT rights. That’s an important promise because in recent years the GOP made a wedge issue of transgender people and spread vile propaganda about them. Fortunately, there’s hope: a 2026 May Times/Siena National Poll revealed that 50% of Democratic voters under thirty want the party to move left on transgender issues. More progressives in Congress would help accomplish that goal.

The irony is that progressive laws and policies will benefit everyone and improve our quality of life across the board, but too many people care more about dominating others, either at the individual or international level (e.g., “digital colonialism”). Classism often plays a role in suppressing progressive ideas because more people than not are deeply invested in preserving political and publishing hierarchies, all for the fantasy that one day they, too, might reach the top. Too many of us would rather suffer than treat everyone as their equal, share resources, and live in a society where everyone thrives.

One way to counteract hate and promote love is to support progressive voices in all areas. You can start by supporting Ericka Kopp for Congress. If you can’t afford to donate to her campaign, there are free ways to help (e.g., boosting her on social media). And if you like sci-fi romance, check out my books. For those on a budget, help yourself to my free ebooks.

The most important action you can take is to make a plan to vote on November 4.

Thanks for reading!