Earlier this month, Virginia House delegate Lee Carter announced his candidacy for governor among a crowded field of establishment Democrats. The thirty-three-year-old socialist and antiwar Marine Corps veteran is running on an ambitious platform to reimburse Virginians for out-of-pocket COVID-19 expenses, to establish statewide universal health care under Virginia’s Medicaid system, and to legalize marijuana and use the tax revenue to fund reparations, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, and more.

During his time representing Virginia’s 50th District, Carter has passed bills capping monthly insulin prescriptions at $50 (one of the lowest prices in the nation), expanding wage protections for airport workers, reinstating teachers’ right to strike, and establishing worker cooperatives as legal entities. Carter is the former cochair of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign in Virginia and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Carter spoke to Jacobin about democratic socialism, the storming of the Capitol, the threat of white supremacist violence, and why he entered the race.