Simone Collins
Simone Collins (Republican Party) ran for election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to represent District 150. She lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Collins completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Simone Collins earned a bachelor's degree from The George Washington University in 2010 and a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge in 2016. Her career experience includes working as a business executive.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Pennsylvania House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
General election for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 150
Incumbent Joseph Webster defeated Simone Collins in the general election for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 150 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Joseph Webster (D) | 57.3 | 18,387 |
 | Simone Collins (R)  | 42.7 | 13,709 | |
| Total votes: 32,096 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 150
Incumbent Joseph Webster advanced from the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 150 on April 23, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Joseph Webster | 99.2 | 6,050 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.8 | 49 | ||
| Total votes: 6,099 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 150
Simone Collins advanced from the Republican primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 150 on April 23, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Simone Collins | 98.7 | 3,844 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 1.3 | 50 | ||
| Total votes: 3,894 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Collins in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released December 25, 2023 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Simone Collins completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Collins' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a proud wife and parent of three—soon four!—kids living in Audubon, PA. All our kids were born in PA and we could not imagine a better place to raise a family. We’re such huge fans of the state that we are encouraging every family we know to move here (here’s a document we made on that front: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tq9rY1TCs49XHckWtzOowYz_xHXFnRpOZq8r0lE5JSQ/edit?usp=sharing
For work, I run a travel management business with my husband Malcolm. Together, we also write books (so far we’ve written five bestselling books: The Pragmatist’s Guide series) and do nonprofit work, which includes education innovation (CollinsInstitute.org) and family advocacy (Pronatalist.org). We have become internationally known for our advocacy for a soft landing on demographic collapse.
Having grown up around San Francisco in California, I started my life as a staunch Democrat, but after watching their policies slowly destroy my childhood community, I am committed to do everything to prevent the same fate befaling my own children and my chosen community.
- There is a huge opportunity in PA to increase the quality and efficiency of government services while simultaneously lowering costs and inspiring investment and business growth in the state. How can this be achieved? By systematically automating (with the help of tech and AI) government services. Doing so can massively improve our experience as PA citizens while lowering our taxes and putting the state on the map for its innovation in governance (thereby drawing in investment).
- PA’s school system can be made the best in the United States if we empower local schools and educators to innovate and thrive. We can do this by enabling maximum school choice—meaning a student’s tax-supported education dollars should follow them wherever they go, whether they attend public school, private school, or a home-based education. Doing so will make all education better by fostering competition and encouraging educators and schools to learn from those models that produce the best outcomes.
- I see family and local community as playing a core role in people’s mental, financial, and social flourishing. I therefore believe strongly in all policies that support families—not just kids and not just parents, but also extended family members, family elders, and neighbors. Rather than support policy that atomizes family and community members into isolation, I advocate for policy that defends and reinforces family ties such as tax credits for family member caregivers, caregiver training programs, development of community programs like babysitting co-ops, and more.
I am uniquely passionate about:
1. Leveraging tech and AI to improve and expand government services while increasing transparency and eliminating redundant bureaucracy (and therefore reducing expenses and citizens’ tax burdens).
2. Supporting school choice (I believe tax dollars allocated for education should follow the student, whether they choose public school, private school, or homeschool).
3. Supporting policy that empowers and supports families and communities.
My ultimate hero is my husband, Malcolm Collins. He takes personal responsibility for the wellbeing of not only his friends, family, and community, but also for humanity on the whole, which is something quite rare in this modern age of personal victimhood and name-calling.
Malcolm demonstrates inhuman amounts of honor, dedication, enthusiasm, and drive.
On a daily basis I try to match his virtue, and while I typically fail, he inspires me as well as our kids (not to mention those who read our books and follow Malcolm online) to do better.
Policy Paradox by Deborah Stone was a cornerstone book in shaping my perspectives on policy, however anyone who wants to understand my husband’s and my life and political philosophies should read our books, The Pragmatist’s Guide series, or check out our podcast, Based Camp. We are very clear and transparent about our beliefs.
Transparency, initiative, and results orientation.
I am driven, persistent, transparent, and willing to figure things out as I go along. I am also not in this to get re-elected over and over, meaning my time and resources will actually go toward serving local residents rather than playing political games and working to stay in office.
Elected officials first and foremost must serve their communities by actually making things happen—and “investigations,” “committees,” commissions, proclamations, and other wheel-spinning activities don’t count.
I want to be known for encouraging human flourishing—in particular by fostering and protecting community, pluralism, and cultural sovereignty.
The first nontrivial historical event that I remember was the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm, which killed 25 and destroyed 3469 homes and apartments. I remember the smoke from the fires and the local friends who stayed at our house after evacuating from homes in harm’s way. This was my first time learning how crucial local community support networks can be.
My first full-time job was as a social media manager at HubPages, an online content platform that helped people make money from content they wrote and published online. In this role, I worked my way up to a position which had me overseeing a community of over 20,000 freelance writers, helping them not just reach their online goals, but find a supplementary home within our network of content creators (as many who joined felt socially, economically, and geographically isolated). By the time I left three years and one month later to start a business of my own, I had been promoted to Director of Marketing.
While I’m technically a co-author (more like an editor, really), The Pragmatist’s Guide series, by my husband (who is the impetus behind the books and the source of all their big ideas) are my favorite books by far. They present first-principles and intellectually novel approaches to some of mankind’s biggest themes—ranging from relationships to religion and governance.
On the fiction front, I love Iain Banks’ Culture series, but high-minded sci-fi aside, I’m a sucker for the cozy mystery genre, such as the Hannah Swensen Mysteries book series.
If I could be a fictional character, I’d be Indiana Jones. I love his principled bravery and willingness to get his hands dirty—plus put his reputation and life on the line—to fight for the things he believes in.
A song that’s constantly stuck in my head (I walked down the aisle to my wedding to this song) is “Baba Yetu” by Christopher Tin. It’s the theme song to Sid Meier's Civilization IV (a video game oriented around literally building civilizations). The song features a choir singing the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili and is meant to show how wondrous mankind’s accomplishments have been.
When “Baba Yetu” isn’t in my head, it’s “Buy Dirt” by Jordan Davis and Luke Bryan.
I constantly struggle with and bump up against bureaucracy and bureaucratic bloat—not because I can’t make it work for me (my track record clearly demonstrates that I can), but because I see the waste and corruption it generates, not to mention the people it hurts.
A governor and state legislature should work in consort to make life better for those in the state.
Posturing and virtue signaling should play no role in this. Blocking measures from an opposing party just because it was their idea or pet issue—or moving forward measures and initiatives an opposing party would never let pass just to make a show of things—should play no role in this.
The greatest challenge we face as a state over the next decade: Evading stagnation and obsolescence.
Pennsylvania has the potential to be a hot spot for new industry and a top destination for families to raise their kids. If the state fails to realize this potential, it may enter a vicious cycle of decline from which it will never recover given industry trends and demographic collapse (which geographically consolidate wealth and flourishing).
I strongly believe that term limits should be per appointed office (meaning someone should only be able to hold a specific position for a limited number of terms). The longer someone holds a specific position, the more likely they are to become stagnant, complacent, and hyperfocused on holding their position (rather than shaking things up and solving serious problems).
Legislators benefit significantly from having relationships with each other, especially if they are pragmatic relationships oriented around problem solving and built on transparency.
I am a fan of Winston Churchill and Otto Von Bismarck, however both were a little too moody and dramatic for my taste. I would like to be equally bold, but perhaps, uh, a little more stable.
While I am interested in running for a different political office in the future, mostly because I want to serve my country and I believe that elected officials become less effective after holding the same role for too long, I am far more interested in helping my husband run for office when he is ready.
I won’t recount any personal story that was shared with me in confidence in an attempt to score political points. Personal stories are for individuals to choose to share, not me, thus them being “personal”. However, if you want to know what I think about people in general, there’s something special about residents in our neighborhood and the surrounding area that is singular and something we constantly remark upon. Every time my husband and I are out with our kids, we see people out, about, and working or relaxing together in a way that I joke feels right out from a cozy mystery genre book. People here care about and interact with their neighbors and wider community in a way you just don’t see in other parts of the USA and we are dead set on protecting and kindling the awesome friend, family, church, professional, and recreational communities here.
How can you tell when something is “a dad joke”?
It’s a parent.
I am generally against the legislature overseeing and granting emergency powers as I believe emergencies are best dealt with at a local level, with local stakeholders deciding what’s best for them.
While compromise is neither necessary nor desirable for policymaking, I do believe that transparency, collaboration, and exchange are important when it comes to making progress in governmental and political systems. I have values and policy stances on which I refuse to budge, however there’s a broad range of issues that aren’t core to my values, and I am happy to collaborate with others in ways that help them with those issues assuming they will not impede me in serving my values and top issues.
If elected one of my top priorities will be to support and reinforce existing school choice efforts championed by other hardworking legislators.
We have not sought endorsement from organizations or individuals.
In general I am highly suspicious of committees as they tend to be used as a signaling method rather than a means by which anything meaningful gets done.
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Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 150 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on December 26, 2023.
