Running for Office As A Young Person Isn't Easy — Here’s Why You Should Anyway

By Lily Herman


By age 22, Cheniqua Johnson had plenty of experience with political organizing, and contained policy internships at the governor’s office and on Capitol Hill, nevertheless she’d never taken the step of running for office herself. Her time working in politics, although, abandoned her with a feeling she just couldn’t shake: Several elected officials didn’t adequately define the populations they served. Even worse, she realized, they often did not think about the most pressing needs of the communities they served.


So in 2018, she filed to run for state representative in Minnesota’s District 22B, located in a rural southwestern segment of the state, for one very big reason: “I ran to create it possible for more people immediately after me to come in and do the same thing,” she tells MTV News of her choice to enter the race against a 15-year incumbent.


In doing so, she became the opening woman of color in her State Home district and the youngest woman in the state’s history to receive an endorsement from the Democratic–Farmer–Labor (DFL) Party, a major political party in Minnesota. She lost to the incumbent Republican Rod Hamilton in the general election, although she’s nowhere near done being involved in her district, and attempting to prepare change for people who live there.


“I’m in an area of rural Minnesota, and even in rural areas, some people think it’s a very homogenous area [without] demographic changes. That’s not the case,” she says. “Our government doesn’t look like that or mirror that change.”


If you’re looking for change, you’d be well-served to turn to teenagers and 20-somethings, who historically have contained older generations accountable to the messes they’ve been forced to inherit. In recent years, some young activists have led some of the hugest political protests, for issues like gun violence prevention and climate change; others have also focused efforts on elections and the polls. While in the 2018 midterms, voter participation For people in America ages 18-29 reached 36%, a increase of 79% from 2014. And EMILY’s List, a longtime Democratic political action committee supporting pro-choice female candidates, and Run For Something, which assists the young progressives run for office, are just two of the plethora of corporations that have saw a massive explosion of interest from young people who wish to enter races.


Eighteen-year-old Hadiya Afzal determined to run throughout the midterm elections once she spent the summer canvassing for the Democratic Party in DuPage, Illinois. Immediately after talking to hundreds of voters, she saw some glaring problems with the DuPage County Board: Though most of them of the county voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, Republicans contained 17 out of the 18 board seats at the time, there were only three girls on the board, and not an individual representative was a person of color. At the time, girls comprised over half of the county’s population; people of color also comprised one-third of the community. It’s unsurprising that Afzal concluded that the board didn’t accurately symbolize the town. Though she lost, it was in a close race: All four candidates vying for the two open spots were only separated by seven percentage points overall.


Afzal and Johnson aren’t the only young people who found the gross political underrepresentation of several communities. How stark is the problem? Before the 2018 midterms, only five congresspeople were millennials, making up far less than 1% of all members; the oversight was particularly egregious considering that there really are over 73 million millennials In America today, and Generation Z isn’t far in back of, comprising of over 61 million Americans. Far less than 20% of all congresspeople were women and people of color, and fewer than a dozen openly LGBTQ+ people had served in Congress in the nation’s entire history. Luckily, these numbers have began to shift: In 2019, 32 millennials were sworn in for the current session of Congress. On the local level, a record collection of people under 40 were running for and getting elected to offices like city council seats and mayoral positions. There has also been a broad uptick in the number of girls, people of color, and LGBTQ+ Americans who have sought election on the local, statewide, and national levels alike.


certainly, even with all the motivation in the world, running for office isn’t as glamorous or easy as it can sound. In a country where the average age of a U.S. Representative is 57.8 years old and that of a U.S. Senator is 61.8 years old, attempting to get elected as a teenager or 20-something presents its own set of unique obstacles, no matter the office they’re aiming for.


For 20-year-old Kat Kerwin, one of the most tough parts of the race was finding monetary support, especially for an election local because the City Council in Providence, Rhode Island. In 2018, she decided to challenge incumbent Terrence Hassett, who served since the year Kerwin was place on Earth. Kerwin ran on a progressive platform championing affordable housing, strong public schools, and support for small companies. She wanted to create ensure her community felt like their representative cared about the big issues and also because the small ones — like reporting potholes and looking into trash dump sites.


“I thought Providence deserved better,” Kerwin tells MTV News. “I was inspired by the national political world being so hostile as well as the feeling that [Hassett] had ownership over this seat that really belongs to everyone.” Right after her opponent didn’t turn in the needed numbers of signatures required to officially appear on the ballot, she won her primary — and her seat.


Although candidates can’t afford to campaign on dreams alone. “If you don’t have a job that permits you some group kind of flexibility so you don’t have people who are essentially doing free labor for you, you can’t run,” she says. It’s however another reason why millennials and Gen Zers often have a hard time entering these races, especially compared to older opponents who may have traditional careers, a cooperative networks to fall back on, and savings they can dive into. Considering that the average millennial or Gen Zer is struggling with $27,900 and $14,700 in debt respectively, running a viable campaign on top of simply attempting to pay the expenses is a tall order.


Another challenge every young person seemed to face on the campaign trail? The notion that they didn’t have a long enough résumé to run. Afzal mentioned that while in her first campaign, she ran into people who saw her age and lack of time in the political arena as reasons to count her out. Yet she wholeheartedly believes that being a young person would actually be an asset to the county board and would distribute a new perspective and direction. Flipping the narrative on its head worked: “The older people I discussed to at their doors or at events were far more likely to help us and the ‘new blood’ we represented in the local electoral process,” she says.


Kerwin seen a similar problem for young candidates in terms of professional and extracurricular experiences that voters deemed “acceptable.” She ran for office while also working full-time for the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence however had worked as a waitress while attending college in the months before her candidacy. While a service job is just as respectable as any other, she has a feeling she would have been treated differently if she was still waiting tables while running for office. “I think it would’ve lacked credibility for some voters, which is unfortunate,” she explains. “I was lucky that I got this paid organizing job that people saw as politically relevant. I think it’s hard for people to be seen as legitimate because of their age if they don’t have a super customary job.”


Just because their races were challenging, nevertheless, doesn’t mean Johnson, Afzal, or Kerwin regret their runs. Case in point, they want to pave the way for more of their fellow Gen Zers and young millennials to do so.


While Johnson isn’t wading back inside running for office for the time being, she says the experience gave her valuable connections; her race helped her land seats on two different boards in her area and she’s actively working on other campaigns to get other people elected, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. One of her top priorities as she looks to the future is supporting other young people who aspire to get involved.


“I genuinely want increasingly young people to begin seeing their value,” she explains. “We are literally the pulse of [campaigns]. Campaign organizers for president average under the age of 40. We run state campaigns. We run city campaigns. We’re on the ground doing this work all of the time. If we can do that, why can’t we run?”


And there really are also plenty of seats to run for, several of which are hyper-local and often don’t require such a high level of finances, campaigning, or commitment. While some Residents of the United States don’t get into politics up until later in life, that doesn’t mean it’s a status quo that younger generations need to accept. Nor does losing one race mean that person will be down and out forever.

Right after taking time off from the campaign trail following her 2018 loss, Afzal didn’t give up her dream of getting elected to a county board seat — and she’s running for a second time in 2020. “I began getting calls from former supporters and local allies about running again. I knew that the movement we started in 2017 needed to be carried through with,” she says. “In moments of history like these, we need elected officials who will campaign and work on issues, are guided by progressive principles, and understand the significance of intersectionality in all they do — and that’s what I'll do.”


And all the problems in the world — including the climate crisis, corporate greed, rising inequality — are the ideal fuel to get involved. Moreover to joining protests and rallies, attending local community meetings, and voting in each election, running for office is an impactful way to create a difference.


“Young people should run for office because young people need to be the ones making the decisions that affect our lives, period,” Afzal says. “Identify a unaddressed offer, know your shit, get righteously upset, and run for a position where you could get stuff done.... The most crucial thing, yet, is to create ensure you’re unafraid of going to the mat for your principles. The willingness to prepare the argument for a tough policy is really essential in ultimately convincing people.”


As for Kerwin, she’s right now working on a couple of issues for her ward, including getting a bank to open in her neighborhood to offset payday lenders and creating a night-time economy in the area. Campaigning was hard, she says, however nowhere near as hard as actually being in office. Even so, she can’t wait to be able to see other young people join her.


“I’ve felt intimidated before and I’ve felt harassed before by plenty of people who hold power over me,” she concludes. “But this isn’t going to change up until we run and force the establishment to change.”