2. Learn How to Swim by Jumping In

Lee got his start by participating in student government as student body president while he was at UC Davis. He represented 30,000 students, which he compares to being a mayor of a small town. As study body president he advocated for lowering tuition, increasing student services and tackling the local housing scarcity and affordability — all while closing the $13 million budget deficit of the student association.

Through this experience he learned the fundamentals of campaigning, which he says are similar across all types of races, and only vary in scale. Before running for state Assembly he was also a legislative staffer at the state Capitol, where he helped write the bills and prepare all the needed documents for the Assembly member he worked with.

In terms of campaigning, Lee just jumped in. “My timeline is [legislative] staff and student government,” Lee said. “Then someone asked me to be their campaign manager after never literally running a real campaign before.” He applied the same principles of his run for UC Davis student body president and it turned out to be such a successful campaign that he was asked to be a campaign manager once again.

He credits his friends and mentors that helped him demystify the process. “Elections are made intentionally to be exclusive, intimidating. But once you kind of strip down a lot of the B.S. and ask, ‘Why do people do these things?’ And their answer was, ‘Well because they just do it.’ ” Lee decided to take a different path. That meant Lee’s campaign would be free from some of the traditional obligations of campaigning, most of which would have required him to spend time fundraising instead of actually going out to get votes.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Do Things Your Way

Some of the things Lee decided not to do are actually pretty common in the election process. For example, hiring consultants. In California, you can hire a political consultant to help with strategy, communications, fundraising, polling or research. For many first-time candidates, having a political consultant with experience and expertise can be an invaluable resource in navigating elections, although pricey. Lee passed on getting a consultant because it was a cost-saver and he says he already knew his strategy.

Because of the high cost of running for office there is a lot of money that needs to be raised to break even. But, that also changes the mindset and focus of the campaign in Lee’s opinion. “Consultants would have told me to do otherwise,” he said. “To this day, I still don’t have any consultants.”

The biggest surprise for Lee was that his strategy and methods worked. He was competing against nine total people who had been in politics longer than he was alive, Lee had no elected title, was not well known, and he was not rich. “I don’t have any of these advantages. I just went out there every day with my team and we talked to people and we shared progressive values and we weren’t shy about saying the things that we wanted to do,” he said. “It’s translated to the things we are doing in office now. We’re doing exactly what I said I would do. And I think there’s a lot of people in my community who are really heartened by that.”

4. Don’t Let Money Run Your Campaign

As you can imagine, Lee was serious about not centering money in his campaign or his mindset. He refers to what he calls “industrial-electoral-complex” where most candidates spend most of their time raising money instead of actually going out to get votes. “I kind of flipped it,” Lee said. “I mean, the people I know have net worth that is close to zero or are young people with student debt so I knew we were always going to be at a disadvantage. And I think our approach is hopefully going to be a model for the future.”

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