Live from Virginia Thursday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed Congressional candidate for the 43rd district in Los Angeles Republican Joe Collins to the show to talk about his new ad, his failing district, and beating Maxine Waters.
Fredericks: Joining us now Joe Collins. Joe Collins is a Republican veteran. Lived there his whole life. Running for Congress in the 43rd district. That’s in Los Angeles against Maxine Waters who doesn’t even live in the district. And before Joe gets on, Joe hang on a second. I’m gonna play his new ad that he’s got out on social media which is, I can’t do it justice so here it is.
(Joe Collins ad plays)
Fredericks: Thanks for being with us. I know you’re up early in L.A. Thank you.
Collins: Thanks for having me. And I’m always up. I mean we got a few days to the election and we haven’t slept in a year at Team Collins.
Fredericks: Well Joe that is one of the best ads I’ve seen right up there with the Kim Klacik ad in South Baltimore. I think there’s a trend here. I mean but you know even different than Kim Klacik is you actually grew up there and I think that story hearing it on the radio is one thing showing it on the screen because it was a video ad as well you know showing this beautiful mansion she doesn’t even live in the district. I mean how do the people of South L.A. not hold Maxine Waters accountable for anything Joe?
Collins: You know what? I have no idea but I know that they did know she lived in a huge mansion you know somewhere outside of the district. And so when we showed the contrast of how she lives versus how we live in a district it made a lot of people upset.
Fredericks: Tell us about your campaign. I mean obviously, she’s been there 44 years. She’s got a ton of money. She’s a very powerful legislator. She’s got a machine going. How do you break into that make some noise and actually make the race competitive Joe Collins?
Collins: Well I think one of the biggest issues that we had whenever we first started the campaign, I’m a Republican in a predominantly Democratic district. And so we had to figure out a way to out fundraise Maxine Waters which we did. You know we raised $8 million on our campaign she only raised $1.4 million. and so we were able to buy all the TV advertising.
All the radio advertisements. All the billboards and get really connected and visible in the community. And so we just started pointing out the injustices that we’ve been seeing when it comes to the lack of education. The lack of quality jobs. The poor economic development in our communities and opportunities that we haven’t had a long time. And people started to listen. And we gained a lot of momentum you know which is why we’re doing so well right now.
Fredericks: So when you say momentum I mean obviously you’re making some noise. Have you gotten her attention? I mean has she campaigned at all or is she just blowing you off like she’s done everybody else in that district?
Collins: Oh yeah she’s campaigned. I remember the first time I heard an advertisement from her. She said my name six times in a one-minute advertisement. And I was like wow, she’s really campaigning. But she sucks at campaigning. She’s running a slander campaign the whole entire time to try to discredit me but it hasn’t worked in her favor. We even filed a few lawsuits against her for defamation for literally lying to try and sway voters and everything. So she’s trying to campaign but I don’t think it’s gonna work out in her favor this time.
Fredericks: So what could she be saying about you, Joe? You’re a veteran. You grew up in the district. (Collins chuckles) I mean you went to school there you got shot at. What possibly negative things could she be saying about you?
Collins: She told everybody I was just trying to be discharged. She’s told people I’m a womanizer. And she says I’m a Trump puppet. All the ridiculous things that someone who has done nothing for their district for 44 years would say to try and convince people not to vote for me.
Fredericks: When you say you outraised her, I mean have you raised enough money to actually run a competitive campaign?
Collins: Oh yeah absolutely. Absolutely. We’ve done really good at fundraising.
Fredericks: What’s your game plan here for the next five days Joe?
Collins: For the next five days, we’re just going to continue what we’ve been doing. I think now we’ve switched up our messaging to talk about the type of leader that we need in the district. We’ve talked about how we’re going to rebuild our district. Improve our education system and that message has just hit home now that we finally exposed Maxine Waters for the fraud and crook that she is.
Fredericks: Tell us Joe Collins about are you knocking on doors? How are you engaging voters in the district?
Collins: Well yeah we knock on doors. We’re making phone calls. We have a lot of community events. We started off with the free food pantry when COVID hit and the shutdown took a toll on a lot of families. We’ve done a ton of back to school drives. Backpack drives. We’ve done prayer breakfasts. We’ve literally cleaned up the streets on a regular basis. And pretty much anything we do to engage voters. I know last week we had a grab and go for Halloween. We had the game truck we had the snow clown trucks and food out. And we had all the community kids come up to the office and enjoy themselves for a couple of hours. So we’ve been doing a lot of positive things in the community.
Fredericks: When you’re talking to people one-on-one about Maxine and about the district what are they saying Joe?
Collins: Well, I think a lot of people are telling me that um you know they’re ready for a change but they want somebody who’s gonna actually do something for them. Someone who they can relate to. A lot of people in the district some like President Trump, some don’t like President Trump. But they’re all looking forward to me working with the president to bring opportunities to our communities. We all know that President Trump has the the platinum plan with the $500 billion. And the people in the district understand that he’s not going to give that to Maxine Waters because nobody likes Maxine. They are ready for some new leadership.
Listen to the full show here:
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Photo “Joe Collins” by Joe Collins.
