In a political landscape often defined by cautious rhetoric and incremental promises, progressive advocate Lisa McCormick has launched a defiant bid for the U.S. Senate, framing her 2026 campaign not as a mere political choice but as a last stand for the planet and its people.
Her platform is as stark as it is simple: “Outlaw bribery, reverse Reaganomics, save the world.”
The urgency, McCormick argues, is dictated by science. She points to what experts have termed the Sixth Mass Extinction—a catastrophic, human-caused collapse in biodiversity threatening over a million species. Unlike the asteroid that sealed the fate of the dinosaurs, this crisis, she asserts, is born from decades of industrial recklessness and a political system she claims is too corrupt to stop it.
“We are not facing a political problem; we are facing an extinction-level event,” McCormick stated in her campaign announcement. “And the same forces that have poisoned our rivers and air have also poisoned our democracy. You cannot solve one without curing the other.”
At the core of her remedy is a radical reordering of the American economy, drawing direct inspiration from the populist policies of the past. Her flagship proposal is a $50 million cap on personal wealth, a measure designed to dismantle what she calls “the new Gilded Age” and fund a sweeping social and ecological overhaul.
This wealth cap is the engine for a broader agenda that includes:
A Constitutional Amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision and publicly finance elections to “outlaw bribery.”
A return to a 90% top marginal tax rate on extreme incomes to “reverse Reaganomics.”
A Global Green New Deal to transition the world to clean energy and create millions of jobs in environmental restoration to “save the world.”
Medicare for All, a $20 minimum wage, tuition-free college, and major criminal justice reforms.
“This is not radical. It is responsible,” McCormick said, invoking Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms,” particularly the freedom from want. “A person can live magnificently on $50 million. No one deserves to amass billions while children go hungry and the planet burns.”
The campaign directly targets the record of incumbent Senator Cory Booker, juxtaposing her transformative vision against his ineffectual tenure. A campaign graphic starkly lists consequences since Booker took office: the gutting of abortion and voting rights, tripled mass shootings, and a soaring atmospheric CO₂ level of 427 ppm. It further notes a shrinking New Jersey middle class and alleges $29 trillion in productivity gains have been “stolen from workers” through stagnant wages.
McCormick’s bid, while a long shot against the well-funded Booker, seeks to channel growing populist anger and climate anxiety into a political insurgency. It is a campaign that speaks less of bipartisan compromise and more of existential survival.
“The planet won’t save itself,” McCormick concluded. “The choice is no longer between left and right. It is between saving our world or accepting its decline. We will do the saving, or we will do the suffering.”