More than three dozen former federal workers who quit or lost their jobs last year in the wake of cuts from the Department of Government Deficiency or Doge are now running for political office.

Most but not all are Democrats who say the assault on public service inspired them to seek change by standing for office themselves.

We spoke with three candidates running for

Congress in the upcoming midterms. My name is Bailey Winder. I live in Mays Landing, New Jersey.

I'm running for Congress in New Jersey's second congressional district. I'm Lauren Reinhold. I live in

Lawrence, Kansas, and I am running to be U.S. representative for the first congressional district of Kansas.

My name is Eric Chung. I live in Sterling Heights, and I'm running for Michigan's 10th congressional district.

I was proud of the work that we did at USAID, and I remember the day when Donald Trump and his administration issued that executive order to basically pause for an aid.

It was a day one priority for the administration, and it was shocking.

It was gutting.

When the Trump administration took over the Social Security administration, I was a headquarters employee.

They wanted about 7,000 of us to quit, or they would riff us do a reduction in force.

We were also aware of Doge starting to mine data from our agency.

I was a career civil servant at the Commerce Department.

I worked on implementing the Chips and Science Act.

They came in with this approach where they were going to cut first and figure it out later,

and then they just made firings across the board.

I have vivid memories of seeing when USAID first got torn down in the news like everyone

else.

I have recollections of colleagues in tears, of us just being in disbelief and trying to

even fathom what was going on.

That moment is seared in my memory, and it's one of the reasons why I'm taking on this

...