On what would have been her late mother’s 51st birthday, social-justice activist Aeiramique Glass Blake announced that she would challenge Rep. Juan Vargas in next year’s election for California’s 51st District congressional seat.

The campaign announcement, which came in a four-minute video posted Thursday on social media, emphasizes Blake’s record of fighting for vulnerable populations across San Diego County and beyond.

“Early on I loved problem-solving and providing solutions to issues,” she says in the introductory video.

A San Diego native who, in addition to her political advocacy, works as a motivational speaker and mental-health counselor, Blake said she supports women’s reproductive rights, restorative justice and police reform in order to “disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.”


If elected, the 31-year-old El Cajon resident said she would work to pass tuition- and fee-free college and trade school as well as healthcare for all. She also said housing is a human right that she would work to promote more widely.

“When I’ve seen people were being dehumanized, I knew I had to put my body on the line, so I began to sleep outside to humanize a deep-rooted issue of the criminalization of people who are unhoused and dealing with mental illness,” she said.

In addition to social advocacy, Blake works with young people to engage them in the civic process. She founded Generation Justice, a San Diego community organizing group that works to promote activism and fights racism and inequality.

Blake has been a mainstay in recent years in the activist community, participating in protests of Earl McNeil’s death following an encounter with National City police last spring and a La Mesa police officer’s videotaped slamming of a Helix High School student earlier last year.


She will face a challenge trying to unseat Vargas, a well-known Democratic incumbent and political veteran who was handily re-elected in November to his fourth term. Prior to winning election to Congress, Vargas served in the state Legislature and on the San Diego City Council.

The 51st District stretches from San Diego Bay east to the California-Arizona border, and includes much of the southern portions of the city of San Diego as well as Imperial County.

jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald