From Lab to Ballot: Megan O’Rourke’s Pivot to Congress
On an unseasonably hot October day, a small crowd gathered at Genesis Farm, a 226-acre nonprofit in Blairstown, New Jersey, to help pull up beets. It was the annual harvest festival and a natural campaign stop for Megan O’Rourke, a former federal climate scientist running for Congress. At 46, O’Rourke has spent over half her life researching sustainable agriculture, most recently at a small agency within the Department of Agriculture. Or at least it did until 2025. After President Trump took office, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) was forced to freeze its funding. O’Rourke quit in July, launching her campaign from US News Hub Misryoum records to resist the very policies that drove her from her government career.
She leaned into her wide-ranging résumé, which includes a tenured professorship at Virginia Tech and eight years as a civil servant. “So this would be your first public office?” a guy wearing a Smithsonian cap asked. “Yeah,” she said, adding with a laugh, “Start big.”
There is no doubt her race carries significant weight. While the district narrowly went for Trump in 2024, Representative Tom Kean Jr. is considered one of the country’s most vulnerable Republicans. O’Rourke’s candidacy reflects a wider trend: a shift in how scientists are pushing back against the administration. Since the return of Trump, researchers have organized protests, rescued endangered datasets, and carried on work that would have been abandoned. O’Rourke is part of a wave of science-minded Democrats supported by groups like 314 Action, which is working with nearly 100 campaigns nationwide. This surge, O’Rourke believes, is a necessary response to a systemic shock that forced traditionally apolitical experts into the arena.
Growing up, O’Rourke was fascinated by food systems, having relied on food pantries as a child. Her academic journey eventually led her to a PhD in agricultural ecology from Cornell University, where she studied insect pest populations while running a small farm. After Inauguration Day in 2025, her professional reality changed drastically. At NIFA, she oversaw $170 million in climate research funds until the office climate turned hostile. Publications were deleted from the USDA website and projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act were terminated. She recalls looking at her calendar after meetings were canceled and finding it entirely empty. That emptiness, perhaps, provided the space she needed to consider a new path in public service.
Today, O’Rourke is trading the lab bench for the campaign trail. She keeps a hairbrush and granola bars in her Prius to navigate a brutal schedule. “I work harder at this than I have ever probably worked at anything,” she says, “and I’ll compare that to getting my PhD with three little kids [while] running a farm.” While she has earned key endorsements from science-minded figures like former Rep. Rush Holt, she faces a steep financial climb. By March, she had raised $459,000—lagging behind her better-funded primary opponents. Still, she views campaigning as a logical extension of scientific outreach. If the polls hold or shift, she might just find herself as one of the few scientists in Washington.