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Tulsi Gabbard (born April 12, 1981) is an American politician and Hawaii Army National Guard major who serves as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. Elected in 2012, she is the first Hindu member of Congress and the first Samoan-American voting member of Congress. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election.

In 2002, Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives. Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as Army Military Police platoon leader. She was a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016, when she resigned to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Gabbard supports a Medicare for All health care plan she calls "Single Payer Plus" and strengthening Roe v. Wade by codifying it into federal law. She co-sponsored the Family Act for paid family and medical leave and endorsed universal basic income. Until 2004 she voted and lobbied against same-sex marriage in Hawaii. She publicly apologized for that position in 2012. She apologized again after launching her presidential campaign in 2019. She opposes military interventionism and has called herself a "hawk" on terrorism. Her decision to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and her skeptical approach to two claims that he had used chemical weapons were controversial.

Gabbard was the first female combat veteran to run for president after running in 2020.

Gabbard was born on April 12, 1981, in Leloaloa, Maoputasi County, on American Samoa's main island of Tutuila. She was the fourth of five children born to Mike Gabbard and his wife Carol (née Porter) Gabbard. In 1983, when Gabbard was two years old, her family moved to Hawaii, where her family had lived in the late 1970s.

Gabbard was raised in a multicultural household. Her mother was born in Indiana and grew up in Michigan. Her father was born in American Samoa and lived in Hawaii and Florida as a child; he is of Samoan and European ancestry.

Gabbard was raised in part according to the teachings of the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF) religious community and its spiritual leader, Chris Butler. She has said Butler's work still guides her. In 2015, Gabbard called Butler her guru dev (roughly, "spiritual teacher"). Gabbard's husband and ex-husband have also been part of the community. Gabbard has been reluctant to speak publicly about the SIF.

Gabbard embraced the Hindu faith as a teenager. Her first name comes from the Sanskrit word for Holy Basil, a plant sacred in Hinduism. Her siblings also have Hindu Sanskrit-origin names. She was home-schooled through high school except for two years at informal schools in the Philippines.

In 1998, Gabbard began working for the Alliance for Traditional Marriage and Values, an anti-gay political action committee her father founded, to pass an amendment giving the Hawaii state legislature the power to "reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples". She spoke on the organization's behalf as late as 2004 and called those seeking marriage equality "a small number of homosexual extremists."

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Gabbard worked for a nonprofit, Stand Up For America (SUFA), founded by her father.

In 2002, while working as a self-employed martial arts instructor, Gabbard was the youngest legislator ever elected to represent the 42nd House District of the Hawaii House of Representatives.

In 2004, Gabbard volunteered for Army National Guard service in Iraq and chose not to campaign for reelection. Before her deployment to Iraq in 2004, she also worked as an educator for the Healthy Hawai'i Coalition.

In April 2003, while serving in the Hawaii State Legislature, Gabbard enlisted in the Hawaii Army National Guard. In July 2004, she was deployed for a 12-month tour in Iraq, serving as a specialist with the Medical Company, 29th Support Battalion, 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. In Iraq, Gabbard served at Logistical Support Area Anaconda, completing her tour in 2005.

In March 2007, she graduated from the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy. She was commissioned as a second lieutenant and assigned to the 29th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Hawaii Army National Guard, this time to serve as an Army Military Police officer. She was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009.

Gabbard is a recipient of the Combat Medical Badge and the Meritorious Service Medal. On October 12, 2015, she was promoted from captain to major at a ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific She continues to serve as a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard.

On August 7, 2018, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the Hawaii Army National Guard had instructed Gabbard that a video of her in uniform on her VoteTulsi Facebook page did not comply with military ethics rules. Gabbard's campaign removed the video and added a disclaimer to the website's banner image of Gabbard in uniform in a veterans' cemetery that the image does not imply an endorsement from the military. A similar situation had happened during a previous Gabbard congressional campaign. A spokeswoman for Gabbard said the campaign would work closely with the Department of Defense to ensure compliance with all regulations.

In 2009, Gabbard graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business.

In 2002, after redistricting, Gabbard won the four-candidate Democratic primary with a plurality of 48% of the vote. Gabbard then defeated Republican Alfonso Jimenez in the general election, 65%–35%. At the age of 21, Gabbard became the youngest legislator ever elected in Hawaii's history and was at the time the youngest woman ever elected to a U.S. state legislature.

During her term of office, Gabbard successfully led opposition to, and protests of, a state bill that would have legalized same-sex civil unions and urged Hawaiians to support the Federal Marriage Amendment to prevent federal law from overriding state law with regard to same-sex marriage.

In 2004, Gabbard filed for reelection but then volunteered for Army National Guard service in Iraq. Rida Cabanilla, who filed to run against her, called on Gabbard to resign because she would not be able to represent her district from Iraq. Gabbard announced in August 2004 that she would not campaign for a second term, and Cabanilla won the Democratic primary, 64%–25%. State law prevented the removal of Gabbard's name from the ballot.

After returning home from her second deployment to the Middle East in 2009, Gabbard ran for a seat on the Honolulu City Council vacated by City Councilman Rod Tam, of the 6th district, who decided to retire in order to run for mayor of Honolulu. In the 10-candidate nonpartisan open primary in September 2010, Gabbard finished first with 33% of the vote. In the November 2 runoff election she defeated Sesnita Moepono, 58%–42%.

Gabbard introduced a measure to help food truck vendors by loosening parking restrictions. She also introduced Bill 54, a measure that authorized city workers to confiscate personal belongings stored on public property with 24 hours' notice to its owner. After overcoming opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Occupy Hawai'i, Bill 54 passed and became City Ordinance 1129.

2012 election and first term (113th Congress)

In early 2011, Mazie Hirono, the incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district, announced that she would run for the United States Senate. In May 2011, Gabbard announced her candidacy for Hirono's House seat. The Democratic Mayor of Honolulu, Mufi Hannemann, was the best-known candidate in the six-way primary, but Gabbard won with 62,882 votes (55%); the Honolulu Star-Advertiser called her win an "improbable rise from a distant underdog to victory." Gabbard resigned from the City Council on August 16 to focus on her congressional campaign and to prevent the cost of holding a special election.

As the Democratic nominee, Gabbard spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina at the invitation of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who called Gabbard "an emerging star." She won the November 6, 2012, general election, defeating Republican Kawika Crowley by 168,503 to 40,707 votes (80.6%–19.4%), becoming the first Samoan-American and first Hindu member of Congress.

In December 2012, Gabbard applied to be considered for appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Daniel Inouye, but despite support from prominent mainland Democrats, she was not among the three candidates the Democratic Party of Hawaii selected.

In March 2013, Gabbard introduced the Helping Heroes Fly Act, seeking to improve airport security screenings for severely wounded veterans. It passed Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama. She also introduced the house version of the Military Justice Improvement Act.

Second term (114th Congress)

Gabbard was reelected on November 8, 2014, defeating Crowley again, by 142,010 to 33,630 votes (78.7%–18.6%); Libertarian candidate Joe Kent garnered 4,693 votes (2.6%).

Along with Senator Hirono, Gabbard introduced a bill to award Filipino and Filipino American veterans who fought in World War II the Congressional Gold Medal. The bill passed Congress and was signed into law by Obama in December 2016.

Gabbard also introduced Talia's Law, to prevent child abuse and neglect on military bases. It was passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama in December 2016.

Third term (115th Congress)

Gabbard was reelected on November 8, 2016, defeating Republican nominee Angela Kaaihue by 170,848 to 39,668 votes (81.2%–18.8%).

In 2017, Gabbard introduced the "Off Fossil Fuels (OFF) Act", which set a target of 2035 for transitioning the United States to renewable energy.

In 2018, Gabbard introduced the "Securing America's Election Act", a bill to require all districts to use paper ballots, yielding an auditable paper trail in the event of a recount. Common Cause endorsed the bill.

Fourth term (116th Congress)

Gabbard was reelected in November 2018, defeating Republican nominee Brian Evans by 153,271 to 44,850 votes (77.4%–22.6%).

In March 2019, Attorney General William Barr asserted in his summary of the Mueller Report that the Special Counsel investigation had failed to find that members of Trump's 2016 campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government. In response, Gabbard commented that "finding the president of the United States not guilty of conspiring with a foreign power to interfere with our elections is a good thing for America." She subsequently reintroduced her election security bill, arguing that it would make foreign interference less likely in 2020.

In September 2018, Gabbard and Representative Walter Jones (R-NC) co-sponsored the No More Presidential Wars Act, an effort to "reclaim the responsibility Congress has to be the body that declares war, to end these presidential wars that are being fought without the authorization of Congress."

On October 25, 2019, Gabbard announced that she would not seek reelection to the House in 2020, citing her presidential campaign. Hawaii State Senator Kai Kahele had been challenging her for the Congressional seat. Kahele and the co-chair of his campaign, former Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie  criticized her for missing votes while campaigning for president, especially the vote on Syria; however, her absences were similar to other members of Congress running for president.

Democratic National Committee

On January 22, 2013, Gabbard was unanimously elected to a four-year term as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. In September 2015 she criticized chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's decision to hold only six debates during the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, compared with 26 in 2008 and 15 in 2004, and to exclude from all future DNC-sanctioned debates any candidate who participated in a non-DNC sanctioned debate. Gabbard released a statement about the debate controversy in a Facebook post in 2015:

Following her public criticisms of the debate process, Gabbard was reported to have been either "disinvited" or asked to "consider not coming" to the October 13, 2015 Democratic debate in Las Vegas. In an interview with The New York Times, she spoke of an unhealthy atmosphere, saying, "no one told me I would be relinquishing my freedom of speech and checking it at the door" in taking the job. Gabbard privately wrote to Wasserman Schultz, accusing her of violating the DNC's duty of neutrality by favoring Hillary Clinton. This letter later became public in leaked emails published by WikiLeaks.

Gabbard resigned as DNC vice chair on February 28, 2016, in order to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination for President of the United States. She was the first congresswoman to endorse Sanders and later gave the nominating speech putting his name forward at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

In July 2016, Gabbard launched a petition to end the Democratic Party's process of appointing superdelegates in the nomination process. She endorsed Keith Ellison for DNC chair in the 2017 chairmanship elections.

Gabbard was assigned as Bernie Sanders's running mate in California for any write-in votes for Sanders. Shortly after the election, she was mentioned as a possible presidential candidate for 2020.

2020 presidential campaign

On February 2, 2019, Gabbard officially launched her 2020 presidential campaign. CNN described her foreign policy platform as anti-interventionalist and her economic platform as populist.

Gabbard was the most frequently Googled candidate after the first, second, and fourth 2020 Democratic debates.

Gabbard did not meet the polling threshold for the third presidential debate in time for the August 28 deadline. The following day, she criticized DNC's qualification criteria, saying that the DNC process of developing those criteria lacked transparency. On September 24, Gabbard qualified for the fourth debate in Ohio in October 2019 after gaining her fourth qualifying poll. In October, Gabbard accused the media and the Democratic party of "rigging" the 2020 election, and briefly threatened to boycott the fourth debate. On October 14, she announced in a letter to supporters that she would attend the debate.

On October 18, 2019, former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was reported to have said that Russia was "grooming" a female Democrat to run as a third-party candidate who would help President Trump win reelection via a spoiler effect. The media understood Clinton to be referring to Gabbard, which Clinton spokesperson Nick Merril seemed to confirm to CNN, saying "If the nesting doll fits"; however, Gabbard has repeatedly said she will not run as a third-party candidate in 2020. Fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, John Delaney, Bernie Sanders, as well as President Trump and Nina Turner defended Gabbard and criticized Clinton's remarks. On January 22, 2020, Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton, seeking damages in excess of $50 million. On March 19, 2020, Gabbard dropped out of the 2020 election and endorsed Vice President Joe Biden.