Marcus and Madeline sit down with Nico Parra, a 21-year-old son of Colombian immigrants, Gwinnett County public school product, schoolteacher, and first-time candidate who ran for Georgia House District 109. He lost in May — and hasn’t slowed down for a single day.
Nico’s path into politics started at 16, when he became a poll worker during the height of COVID and spent an 18-hour Election Day falling in love with the front lines of democracy. From there it was voter registration drives, language equity advocacy, legislative internships, and eventually a grassroots campaign funded not by PACs or corporations but by the neighbors he grew up with.
Marcus and Madeline dig into what it actually feels like to run without money, without a machine, and without anyone handing you a roadmap — and why the doors Nico knocked on, and the hour-long conversations that happened on those porches, were the fuel that kept the campaign going. They talk about the issues that cut across every party line in Gwinnett: property taxes, school quality, gun safety, and the simple desire to afford a life.
The conversation closes on something Marcus has been saying for years and Nico lives every day: that politics, at its best, is just community. And the people trying to break it know exactly what they’re doing.
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