This week host T.J. O’Hara is joined by the Centrist Project’s executive director, Nick Troiano. The two discuss Nick’s 2014 run for U.S. House of Representatives, the bipartisan policy campaign The Can Kicks Back, and the Centrist Project’s latest venture: #HackTheSenate. The campaign focuses on the fulcrum strategy to “hack” the senate, and works to create a network of supporters and potential candidates ready to run as independents.

Nick Troiano, earned a Master’s degree in American Government from Georgetown University, and is currently a civic entrepreneur based in San Francisco, CA. He is the Executive Director of the Centrist Project, which aims to elect independent candidates to office in order to bridge the growing partisan divide. Nick worked for Change.org on Change Politics – a non-partisan platform that empowers citizens to make informed decisions. In 2016, he was named to the “Forbes 30 Under 30" for Law & Policy.

Nick ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014 from Pennsylvania’s 10th District and drew national attention as both the youngest candidate and the most successful independent of the cycle, garnering over 22,000 votes. In 2012, Nick co-founded The Can Kicks Back campaign to advocate for bipartisan policies to reduce the national debt and was instrumental in the introduction of the INFORM Act to increase transparency in the federal budget.