Game developer Brianna Wu is officially running for Congress

Brianna Wu, a game developer who stood up for women facing harassment in the game industry, has official declared that she will run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

In a blog post, Wu said she would run for the House of Representatives seat in Massachusetts’ District 8 to help create a “bolder Democratic Party.” Previously, Wu declared her intention to run but held back from an official announcement.

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She said that she was at Hillary Clinton’s headquarters on election night, where she expected a victory party.

“But then, our worst fears came true and Donald Trump was elected president,” Wu wrote. “If this were just another Republican president, someone like Mitt Romney or John McCain — I’d take the loss in stride. But we all know the truth, Donald Trump represents a unique threat to the American system. Not only is he temperamentally unfit to be president, but there are unanswered questions about his ties to Russia and business conflicts of interest.”

She added, “I have respect for so many of our leaders in our great Democratic Party. But, the contentious primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton revealed a deep divide that must be reconciled. There is a disconnect between those marginalized and our party leaders who vote too often as moderate Republicans. I personally supported Hillary Clinton in the primary, but today I see the vision of Bernie Sanders for America is one we must bring to pass.”

And she wrote, “I believe today’s Democratic Party is ill-equipped to fight the Trump administration’s assault on women, on people of color, on the poor, and on the LGBT community. We do have true progressives, but too often they don’t have the support of the party establishment.”

Wu lives in the Boston area and runs the Giant Spacekat indie game studio with Amanda Warner in Boston. She has been an active blogger and podcaster on topics such as sexual harassment, gender rights, and Black Lives Matter.

During the GamerGate controversy, Wu was an outspoken figure, challenging haters on the internet. Wu spoke at our GamesBeat 2015 conference about receiving 180 death threats during that time. She was also excited about virtual reality.

Wu started Giant Spacekat in 2010 with Warner, and they made Revolution 60, a game with an all-female cast. Wu said that Cory Doctorow, a science fiction author and co-editor of the blog Boing Boing, has agreed to be an adviser on her campaign. Wu said that if she decides to formally announce she is running, she would probably step back from her role at Giant Spacekat.

Wu said that she is not a politician and is a software engineer and an entrepreneur. She started her first company at age 19 with $250,000. She believes her experience in the tech industry is needed to bring perspective in government. Wu will run against Democrat Stephen Lynch.

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“This man has been on the wrong side of every fight for over a decade,” she wrote. “He voted for the Iraq War, and never really answered for it. He voted against the Affordable Care Act. He’s crusaded against women’s reproductive health care for his entire career. He once introduced an amendment that would give people that committed hate crimes against the LGBT community a ‘get out of jail free card.’ When I think about people that do not represent the Democratic Party, I think of Stephen Lynch.”

Wu said she wants to make Boston into the third great region in the U.S. to build tech and biotech jobs, behind Silicon Valley and Austin. She also wants the U.S. to step up its defenses against cyber attack and help create an omnibus privacy bill with bipartisan support.

“With Donald Trump in the White House, there’s no room in our party for people that don’t stand with the poor, the marginalized, and the unheard,” Wu wrote. “I look forward to earning your trust and proving that I will stand for you.”