In her own words, Cornell alumna and ecologist Megan O’Rourke, Ph.D. ’09 is running for Congress because she “has a backbone.”
A Blairstown, New Jersey native, O’Rourke is emphasizing her working-class background in an effort to contrast her personal story with other candidates in the race. She’s also made affordability and opposition to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill a centerpiece of her campaign.
O’Rourke has joined a primary field in New Jersey’s 7th district so crowded with competitors that national Republicans have called it a “clown car.”
The district, expected to be one of the most competitive of the 2026 midterms, is currently held by a Republican, Tom Kean Jr., but votes regularly for both parties. Donald Trump won the district in 2024 by 2 percent, though Biden carried it by 4 percent in his 2020 victory.
Candidates for the Democratic primary include fighter pilot Rebecca Bennett, Biden Small Business Administration official Michael Roth and magazine executive Brian Varela, among others.
In order to stand out among so many candidates, O’Rourke said she will emphasize affordability and her personal story.
“Growing up poor, issues with food security were troubles in our family. We often relied on our church's food pantry,” O’Rourke said. Her family’s struggles, along with her love for nature, compelled O’Rourke to pursue an “intersection of environment and food” in her career.
After graduating from Cornell, O’Rourke worked as a Senior Environmental Advisor for the United States Agency for International Development in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, before joining the Virginia Tech faculty in 2013.
Eventually, she decided to work for the federal government once again, this time as a program leader for climate in the Department of Agriculture, where she managed grants on sustainability that the department awarded to universities.
In July, she resigned from her position in protest of the Trump administration’s decisions to cut many of the same grants she had worked on only a year before. Since then, she has been running for Congress full-time.
O’Rourke said her decision to run this August was in part because she believed “there was some weakness” in the field, and that the candidates already in the race didn’t have the “strength” it took to defeat incumbent congressman Kean.
“People don’t have to doubt whether or not I have sacrificed,” O’Rourke said, referring to her decision to leave the Trump administration. “People don’t have to doubt whether or not I have the backbone.”
O’Rourke has lived in Blairstown, New Jersey, since she was born, moving only for college. She attended SUNY Stony Brook University before getting her master’s at Iowa State University and her doctorate in Agricultural Ecology from Cornell in 2009.
Attending graduate school at Cornell while raising a family made O’Rourke “stand out,” she says, especially on a graduate student’s stipend, which she estimated was around $25k.
While at Cornell, O’Rourke said she and her family utilized the Women, Infants, and Children program, Medicaid and the Headstart program. She also started a community garden in Slaterville Springs, where she lived, to make some extra money.
“It was really hard, but we buckled down, because from a young age — for whatever reason — I wanted to do a Ph.D.,” O’Rourke said.
Though O’Rourke’s platform centers around affordability, during an interview with The Sun, she did not outline any specific priorities or policy proposals to combat the cost-of-living crisis that a majority of New Jersey voters say is their top issue. A review of her campaign website found that O’Rourke does not specify any policies to address affordability.
O’Rourke was also noncommittal on her stances regarding accepting corporate PAC money, whether she would vote for Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, sending aid to Ukraine and Taiwan or a position on the Israel-Gaza war.
“We need to look at the conflicts as they come, because [between] right now and 2026, they are going to be completely different,” O’Rourke said. “I’m not going to be pinned down on every controversial vote, but the principles I will bring to the table are that we need to be proactive, we need to take a multilateral approach.”
However, O’Rourke did emphasize a few issues she would take a side on. She expressed support for a Congressional stock trading ban, the reversal of the 2010 Citizens United decision — that led to the rise of large political action committees’ influence in politics — and maintaining a state-and-local tax deduction.
Turning to her Alma Mater, she gave a message to Cornell students.
“My district, New Jersey’s 7th, may not be your home, but you can still pay attention to it, contribute to it,” O’Rourke said. “Don’t be apathetic in this current political situation. You can make a difference.”
Atticus Johnson is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a senior writer for the News department and can be reached at ajohnson@cornellsun.com.
