David Hogg: What I see this as is a second step for our generation and the people in power that we're not just voting. We're also running. As a generation, we grew up hearing that to survive a school shooting, we had to run, hide and fight. I think, as a generation, we need to reinterpret what that means at a broader scale and that we need to run for office. We need to stop hiding from the responsibility that previous generations often did to protect young people and the future of this country and the future of this planet. And we need to fight for a better future where that never happens and a better system.
He is launching Leaders We Deserve, a hybrid political action committee backing candidates under 35 years old running for federal office and under 30 years old running for state office.
Personally, I think it would be better if he included more millennials and didn't have such a low cut-off.
I partially agree, but I think this would be excllent at accelerating the name of younger political rising stars (where others may be hesitant or prefer experienced candidates), which by the time they reach the cutoff, would (in theory) have enough pull on their own to not require this particular PAC to fund them.
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The group — which plans to primarily focus on state-level races and a smaller number of congressional matchups — will target open, Democratic-held seats in the upcoming 2024 primary season.
The move signals a widening political focus for Hogg, who has remained a prominent voice in the youth-led, grassroots movement to curb gun violence since he and his classmates survived a mass shooting at their high school in Parkland, Fla., more than five years ago.
Some members of his activist cohort have already entered electoral politics, including first-term Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., who came to Congress after a background in organizing at March For Our Lives.
The first Gen Z member of Congress, Frost is on the advisory board for Leaders We Deserve, and his former campaign manager, Kevin Lata, serves as the group's executive director.
To look for them now that they're starting to graduate college or the first class of those activists are starting to graduate college or becoming eligible to run for office and trying to pick them and say, you know, we would like to help you run for office, we'll supply you with all of the resources that you need and help basically coach you and hold your hand to get there, which is kind of the gap that's in the space right now, for at least young people at the state legislative level.
But what our plan here is to do is help elect those young people in those open blue seat primaries, where for a very small investment, we can make a major amount of change in terms of the branding of that state Democratic Party, for example, to show a new face, a new generation.