Lindy Li

Lindy Li (born December 14, 1990) is an American political commentator and campaign advisor who served as the Women's Co-Chair and Mid-Atlantic Regional Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Now a conservative, she served on the Asian American outreach team for the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign. Once a vocal defender of the Biden administration, Li became a critic of the Democratic Party after the 2024 United States presidential election.

Li serves as a political contributor for NBC News, Fox News, and MSNBC. In 2018, Li hosted a weekly television series, Listening with Lindy Li, which aired on cable television in the Philadelphia area.

Early life and education

Lindy Li was born in Chengdu, Sichuan, China on December 14, 1990. She moved to Sheffield, England, at age three, and immigrated with her family to the United States when she was five. Her father worked as a real estate executive and property owner and her mother became involved in the church. Li has a younger brother named Jeffrey. Her grandparents were illiterate farmers and her great-grandfather was killed by Chinese Communist Party adherents.

Li spent much of her childhood in Malvern, Pennsylvania and attended public school there, until she transferred to the Agnes Irwin School, a private college-preparatory day school for girls, under a scholarship, graduating in 2008. In high school, she was involved in crew and ran cross-country and track. She describes her upbringing as strict, telling The Washington Post, "I was forced to play piano hours a day; I was forced to study. I did everything I could, because I was terrified about getting into college." In high school, Li interned for then-Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak.

Li attended Princeton University and was elected class vice president at age 17. When the sitting class president left the school, another election was held and she was elected to president. Li retained the title of class president for the remainder of her tenure at Princeton. She became the first woman at Princeton to hold the position of class president for all four years. There, she started the "Do It In the Dark" campaign, which encouraged students across campus to reduce their carbon footprint. She wrote her senior thesis on the ethics of climate change legislation and graduated in 2012 with a philosophy degree. During her commencement speech, Li addressed Princeton's graduating Class of 2012 as their four-time Class President.

Career

Before entering politics, Li worked as a financial analyst for Merck and Morgan Stanley. In 2015, she told The Washington Post: "At Princeton, all of us go into Wall Street. We have so much to offer society, but we're enticed by these ephemeral and meaningless ups. It's sad that so many of us have lost touch with the ideals we brought into college."

In 2016, at the age of 25, Li became a candidate in the Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district Democratic primary, becoming the youngest female congressional candidate in U.S. history. Three months before the Democratic primary, she transferred her candidacy to the 6th congressional district, citing advice from party leaders. Li withdrew her candidacy in April 2016, after a court challenge that Li did not have enough signatures from registered Democrats in her own district.

In 2018, Li was one of ten candidates competing in the Democratic primary for Delaware County, Pennsylvania's 5th congressional district. She was endorsed by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and her husband Richard Blum. During this campaign, Li described herself as a "tree-hugging progressive" who supported the legalization of marijuana, a national jobs guarantee, and opposed foreign policy interventionism. She sought the endorsement of the Philadelphia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Li lost the Democratic primary to Mary Gay Scanlon, placing sixth out of ten candidates with 7.0% of the vote.

Li serves as a political contributor for NBC News and MSNBC. Li also hosted a weekly TV series, Listening with Lindy Li, which aired on cable television in the Philadelphia area. On her program, she interviewed various figures including members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Comcast's David L. Cohen. Li was featured in a 2020 Fox News documentary entitled My Socialism Nightmare.

Li previously served as the Treasurer for the Pennsylvania Young Democrats from 2017 to 2020. She resigned from the post after having conflicts with local leaders over her criticism of Bernie Sanders and his supporters on Twitter. Li had tweeted a two minute video of Sanders from 1988 praising the Moscow Metro: "#BernieSanders lavishes praise on Communist Russia, preferring the Soviet Union to the American way of life." Li alleged that her resignation was a real-life example of bullying by Bernie Bros.

After the 2020 Super Tuesday primary elections, Li appeared on Al Jazeera to debate Sanders supporter Linda Sarsour concerning which Democrat would be best to defeat Donald Trump. During the interview, Li stated that she would not vote for Sanders if he became the Democratic nominee.

Alongside Aftab Pureval, the Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, Li co-chairs the Justice Unites Us Super PAC, a multimillion dollar political action committee that focuses specifically on increasing Asian-American turnout across the country, particularly in battleground states. In 2022, she was named by City & State Pennsylvania as one of the rising stars of Philadelphia. In 2022, 2023, and 2024 she was named by City & State Pennsylvania as one of the 100 most powerful women in the state and was one of the youngest to make the list each year.

In March 2023, on a MSNBC panel, Li said, "Let's also not ignore the fact that CPAC has become a gathering of sexual predators. Let's be honest" and "Tonight, we have Trump, a serial rapist...So, this is the party that claims to be the party of Christian family values, and I have nothing to say or do but laugh at that!"

In 2024, Wired magazine named Li one of the top influencers shaping the presidential election. Li was credentialed by the 2024 Democratic National Convention as one of its official content creators. This marked the first time in history that top influencers were given exclusive access to the convention.

Following the 2024 United States presidential election, Li transitioned from being a supporter to a critic of the Democratic Party. Li described the campaign of Kamala Harris as a "$1 billion disaster," saying that Democratic donors were misled by the campaign to believe "that this is an eminently winnable race". In an interview on America's Newsroom, Li intensified her criticism, saying "I lost tens of thousands of followers because I dared to tell the truth. Because in a cult, you can't tell the truth," and ridiculed the notion of Harris running for Governor of California in 2026.

In January 2025, Li told The Bulwark that she "has been a conservative all my life". In an interview on Fox News, Li indicated she would no longer be supporting the Democratic Party stating that "leaving the Democratic Party or even questioning the Democratic Party is like leaving a cult. It's terrifying. I don't want to be a part of this craziness anymore." Li also expressed support for fellow Princeton alumnus Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, whom she had previously met. Li later announced she was raising money for Trump and Republicans, despite having previously criticized Trump.

Personal life

Li lives in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia.