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Former stripper Alexandra Hunt running for Congress in Philadelphia

Hunt, an ex-stripper from New York, is running for congress in Philadelphia’s 3rd District with a soft-on-crime platform.

With a refreshing political tact, Hunt is totally unapologetic for her former work practices.

Not only is she unapologetic, Hunt is using her stripper past to her advantage in political slogans: “I may have danced for money but I’m no corporate whore”, and “Elect hoes”.

One of Alexandra Hunt’s campaign t-shirts for sale. Credit: Nobleteeshirt

Hunt recently wrote in Daily Kos that she stripped during college to “pay the bills“.

She further wrote that her, “involvement in sex work was very dangerous — if I had gone missing, like so many sex workers do, no one would have known how or where to find me. I began speaking about sex work and my personal involvement in the industry on the campaign trail“.

Hunt is using her underprivileged past as a cornerstone of her campaign philosophy, promoting leftist, socialist principles of working-class representation. She has been candid about her struggle to pay college fees, her feelings of inaccessibility to medical school, her experiences with sexual assault and abortion.

Hunt supports “significantly reducing” the prison population through “compassionate release” and an end to cash-bail policies. She also hopes to decriminalise sex work.

These crime stances are especially topical for Hunt as a candidate in Philly’s 3rd district, an area troubled by exceptionally high crime rates. Robberies are up 36 per cent this year and 2,073 shootings were reported in the last year, a 2.3 per cent increase with 1,171 victims.

Hunt hopes to unseat Rep. Dwight Evans who pushed the city to adopt New York’s tough-on-crime tactics. She recently tweeted: “In neighbourhoods with rising violence, tougher policing isn’t the answer,” contending that, “It’s backwards thinking to punish needs-based crimes instead of moving to meet the needs“.

Hunt’s candidness about her past is a breath of fresh air in American, and indeed Australian, politics. Her stance on crime and sex work oppose domineering conservative voices which seek to shame and preserve the power of the elite.