DN:FILM Running With Beto | Knock Down the House | Time for Ilhan

A trio of recent campaign documentaries provide an insider account of how several political upstarts—who now happen to be considered among the brightest stars of the Democratic Party—launched their political careers with an audacious plan: Challenge the seats of entrenched establishment politicians in an election with every intention of winning. Luckily the efforts of these three—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (now AOC), Beto O'Rourke and Ilhan Omar—were closely followed by documentarians recording their campaigns’ movements; accordingly, so too was their ascendency from political novices, barely able to fill seats at local establishments, to political celebrities.

The three lucid, lightning-in-a-bottle docs hit the up-to-the-minute notes you expect: The way campaigns are run has changed, with small, tech-enabled donations making it possible for new candidates to raise large sums of money and bypass the traditional sources of campaign funds typically locked up by establishment pols; social media has the power to connect a candidate’s message to the numbers of people that used to come only via mainstream media; changing demographics have opened up the voting process to new voters seeking new representation.

But what all three also make clear is that the traditional realities remain: Hard work and dedication—required of the candidates and their staff, yes, but perhaps most demandingly exacting a toll on candidate families—remains an absolute. Campaigning is all-consuming and yet not guaranteed to yield—spoiler alert re. some of the pols profiled here—all successful results.

Knowing how each of the races finishes doesn’t matter, as it turns out. The exhilarating insider access to behind-the-scenes campaigning and election-night drama more than make up for anything you wonks might know about what ended up transpiring during these campaigns. Watching the ascendency of these young pols during the “I-knew-them-when” phase of their careers provides not only insight into how the campaigns operated; it also offers a fascinating means of reflecting on just how fast political fortunes can be made and lost as we head into the third decade of this social/tech-driven millennium.

Many of headwinds these upstarts faced in the earliest days of the campaigns that these films document remain powerful today: Ihan is still required to answer questions about her faith and heritage; accusations of AOC of being too young, too socialist and too dedicated at dancing continue unabated; and Beto’s transparent let let-it-all-out-there approach has led to more than a few early hiccups during the run-up and early days of his campaign president.

The beginnings of these paths are all here in these docs; as the twists and turns of these intense, unpresented political times appear on the road ahead, it’s fascinating that we already have these documents in place. After all, it hasn’t even been a year since the now-ubiquitous AOC was elected; Beto has already cycled through to his next resurgence; and Ilhan continues her battles. All three docs captured yesterday; who knows what tomorrow will bring.