SALT LAKE CITY — Shireen Ghorbani has no inhibition about starting conversations with strangers at a restaurant or fitness class, often walking away with new-found friends.
She'll nudge a friend like Georgi Rausch to introduce themselves to someone who she thinks looks fun when they're out having drinks. Mortified, Rausch will go along to satisfy's Ghorbani's curiosity about people and their stories.
"She's always been like that," said Rausch, a University of Utah business management professor.
It's a trait that has served the first-time political candidate well as she has knocked on thousands of doors in the 2nd Congressional District where she is running against GOP Rep. Chris Stewart and Libertarian Jeffrey Whipple. And sometimes it goes beyond just trying to earn someone's vote.
Ghorbani, a Democrat, came across a couple in Tooele living on Social Security and disability who couldn't afford to fix the storm-damaged roof of their house. She made calls to various local governments and community programs trying get them help without much luck.
"I need to go back and see if her roof is fixed," she said. "I don't think we should let them sit in the cold because we can't figure out the appropriate way to get federal funding into communities when we have people living on the edge."
Ghorbani said she isn't saying that government or community groups should fix everyone's roof, but that those on the margin sometimes need extra help. Repairing the couple's roof, she said, would prevent a host of other compounding problems.
The idea that "we all do better when we all do better" — a phrase former Democratic Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone uttered in a speech — stuck with Ghorbani and is what she called the "North Star" of her campaign.
Human dignity is one of her priorities. She favors raising the federal minimum wage and equal pay for equal work. She vows to fight against discrimination against LGBT people from schools to policing to those seeking mortgages or student loans.
Ghorbani, 37, grew up in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Bismarck, North Dakota. Her mother, Daphne Ghorbani, met her Iranian father when she taught English in Tehran. They married in the U.S. but he battled alcoholism and left the family by the time Ghorbani was 6. Ghorbani's mother raised her alone on $27,000 a year teaching high school English.
"She was the kind of person who knew where every dollar in her paycheck would go," Ghorbani said, adding financial responsibility and how money is spent were instilled in her at an early age.
After high school, including the "nightmare" of being in her mother's English class, Ghorbani moved on to St. Cloud State University in Minnesota where she earned a degree in theater and communications.
It was there that she came to admire Wellstone's advocacy for farmers, workers and everyday people and voting against the war in Iraq, solidifying her own political beliefs.
"He was a huge inspiration to me," she said.
In August 2003, Ghorbani married Nick Steffens and a month later they headed to Moldova with the Peace Corps for two years. She worked to stop human trafficking.
"I saw up close what happens when you have Russian influence in a fledgling democracy. I saw the apathy that takes hold. I saw the corruption that takes hold. I'm worried we have some of those strains happening here in our current society," she said.
Ghorbhani ran a nonprofit community theater in North Dakota after returning home and then earned a master's degree in organizational communication at the University of Nebraska. She moved to Utah about 10 years ago to study campus sexual assault policy at the University of Utah.
She and Steffens, an English teacher at Judge Memorial High School and big Beatles fan, have a 3 1/2-year-old son. Steffens wanted to name him Jude but Ghorbani wasn't keen on naming him after a song written to console a boy whose parents divorced. The couple settled on Desmond from "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."
Ghorbani now works as the associate director in organizational development and communication in the facilities management department at the U. Her job entails bringing people together to solve problems.
"That is her superpower," Rausch said.
Although her mother ran for the North Dakota House of Representatives in 2012, Ghorbani didn't consider running herself until her mother died of pancreatic cancer two years ago.
"I saw up close how families can lose absolutely everything over one health care incident," she said. "I couldn't stand to continue to watch my representatives vote to gut access to affordable health care without a solution."
Ghorbani supports working toward a form of universal health care and giving Medicare the ability to negotiate drugs prices at the federal level.
Health care and Donald Trump winning the White House were enough for Ghorbani to jump in the political arena.
Rausch recalled a Champagne toast at Ghorbani's house and how excited she and her friends and family were about running for Congress. Ghorbani, she said, is more about being positive and taking action than about being angry about what happened.
Ghorbani isn't one to sit around and gossip. She has a low tolerance for complaining and complacency, Rausch said. She likes to talk about ideas and the future and "what would be cool," she said.
Should Ghorbani win in November, she could be the only Democrat in Utah's congressional delegation, currently made up of six Republicans. She would make friends with all of them and their spouses, Rausch said.
"I've never seen Shireen intimidated by anyone," she said.
Where she stands ...
Public lands
Reducing the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments poses a threat to public lands across the country and must be contested.
Jobs and economy
Invest in infrastructure, raise the minimum wage, federal incentives to end job outsourcing, reward companies that invest in American workers.
Immigration
Secure the border, provide a path to citizenship for undocumented children, keep families together, support humane state and local laws that integrate immigrants into society.
Health care
Favors a form of universal health care and single-payer system. Medicare and Medicaid should be able to negotiate drug prices to lower costs for patients.
National security
Sees President Donald Trump's lack of diplomacy as biggest threat to the nation's security.