Congressional candidate Joe Collins, a Black Republican Navy veteran challenging Rep. Maxine Waters in California, released a new campaign ad this week criticizing the mansion and wealth of his career politician opponent.
The new video opens with Collins standing in front of Maxine Waters’ multi-million-dollar mansion, declaring, “The problem is this is where Maxine lives, and it’s not even in our district.” Maxine Waters’ $6 million mansion is located in California’s 37th Congressional district despite her representing the far more underserved 43rd district.
“Since she doesn’t actually live in the district she was elected to represent, she was never there,” Collins continued.
The video then shows actual constituents of the 43rd district criticizing Waters.
One former Waters supporter declared, “I voted for Maxine Waters, but I want to know why she wants to represent us even though she doesn’t live in our district.”
Another one of the voters asks, “Maxine I want to know why I lost my job.”
While a 3rd voter simply questions “Maxine why haven’t you cleaned up the community?”
Collins notes in the video that he was shocked to come home to his community in ruins after serving 13 years in the US Navy. He also questions how a prominent black leader could continue to fail a minority-heavy district for several decades.
Joe Collins continues his critiques of Rep Waters, saying “She’s too busy living in Washington D.C. making deals with lobbyists to line her own pockets with money.” Maxine was named the most-corrupt member of Congress 5 times by the anti-corruption watchdog CREW.
Collins does not stop there, however. The video continues with him noting prominent statistics from his own district showing negative trends, like 1-in-5 people living below the poverty line, 1-in-3 children living in poverty, a large increase in violent crime, and 59 shooting victims this year versus 7 at the same time last year. He also reminds the audience of Maxine Waters’ speech calling on her supporters to harass and attack members of former President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
The video goes on to show Joe Collins discussing his 2022 platform which consists of ending homelessness, bringing quality jobs and housing back to the community, creating paths for families to create generational wealth, significantly improving the education system, and reducing crime through border security and police reform. He ends his video by declaring “It’s time for something different.”
The video is a follow up to another video Collins made last year which received tens of millions of views, was discussed on national television, and raised over $1 million for the Joe Collins for Congress campaign.
In 2020, Joe Collins challenged Maxine Waters for California’s 43rd Congressional District. Collins managed to receive nearly double the votes of any Republican in the history of the district and out fundraised Waters 5-to-1. Collins has already filed to run in California’s 43rd Congressional district again in 2022.