{"id":66672,"date":"2018-02-09T00:22:45","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T06:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=66672"},"modified":"2018-02-20T13:37:19","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T19:37:19","slug":"millennials-running-for-office-by-the-thousands-in-2018-u-s-midterm-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/millennials-running-for-office-by-the-thousands-in-2018-u-s-midterm-races\/","title":{"rendered":"Record number of millennials sign up to run for local office in 2018 midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"<link href='https:\/\/cdn.knightlab.com\/libs\/soundcite\/latest\/css\/player.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text\/css'><script type='text\/javascript' src='https:\/\/cdn.knightlab.com\/libs\/soundcite\/latest\/js\/soundcite.min.js'><\/script><br \/>\n<strong>By Elizabeth Beyer<br \/>\n<em>Medill Reports<\/em><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Grassroots organizations launched since the last national election to train young first-time candidates received thousands of requests for assistance.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First time candidates under the age of 35 are taking on\u00a0entrenched incumbents in midterm races across the country. Many of them cited the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and lack of representation in local politics as their motivation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One such organization, Run For Something, launched in January of 2017 with mostly\u00a0small-donor contributions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe thought it\u2019d be really small, we\u2019d get maybe 100 people who would want to run in the first year. Instead we have 15,000 millennials signed up with us to say they want to run for office,\u201d said Amanda Litman, founder of Run for Something. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"soundcite\" data-id=\"396398889\" data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"19280\" data-plays=\"1\">Amanda Litman on the lack of supporting organizations for first-time, millennial candidates<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Litman, Hillary Clinton\u2019s email director during the 2016 presidential election, received numerous requests for advice from millennials before she created Run for Something. Helping potential candidates who lacked the wherewithal to make it onto the ballot was her motivation for starting the organization. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Run For Something focuses on recruiting and supporting progressive candidates, 35-years-old and under, in local elections and provides those candidates with resources to build their campaign.\u00a0 Training, mentoring, access to social media networks and other support help propel the new campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>2018&#8217;s potential blue wave<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere\u2019s a real chance 2018 will be what we call a wave election\u201d which will act as mass opposition to the political party currently in power, said David Karpf, an associate professor at George Washington University and author of The MoveOn Effect &#8211; The Unexpected Transformation of Political Advocacy. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Groups such as Run For Something and MoveOn become important in wave elections because the question will become &#8220;did you find a viable candidate for these seats that often are uncontested,&#8221; Karpf said, and these groups are helping to find, support and train those candidates. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Meet some of the candidates running in Illinois:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shavon Francis, a 24-year-old accountant for Archer Daniels Midland,\u00a0is leveraging her profession into a\u00a0run for Macon County Treasurer.\u00a0 Five years ago,\u00a0 she didn\u2019t think she would ever run for public office. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"soundcite\" data-id=\"396434862\" data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"43236\" data-plays=\"1\">Shavon Francis shares her motivation for entering the race for Macon County Treasurer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daniel Foster, 30, candidate for Cook County Commissioner for Skokie and Evanston\u00a0(13th District), attributes his motivation to run for office to the election of President Donald Trump. He is running in the democratic primary against incumbent Larry Suffredin and another Run for Something candidate, Bushra Amiwala.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"soundcite\" data-id=\"396488496\" data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"64370\" data-plays=\"1\">Daniel Foster discusses his motivation for running for Cook County Commissioner in the 13th District<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peter Gariepy is running for Cook County Treasurer and wants to create a fully transparent and accountable office to take the guesswork out of where county tax dollars go, he said. He is running against incumbent treasurer\u00a0 Maria Pappas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"soundcite\" data-id=\"396494625\" data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"42426\" data-plays=\"1\">Peter Gariepy shares his motivation for running for Cook County Treasurer<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Zahra Suratwala, a candidate for DuPage County Board District 1, representing suburbs such Elmhurst and Addison, said she considered herself to be apolitical until a few months before she signed up to run as a Democrat.<\/p>\n<p>Bob Morgan, a lawyer and candidate for state representative in the 58th district, found his motivation while fighting President Donald Trump&#8217;s controversial Travel Ban.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Zahra and Bob\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/254982946?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Voter turnout may still be a challenge\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While grassroots organizations such as MoveOn and Run For Something are igniting a large base of\u00a0 new candidates,\u00a0 the push to support them may not affect voter turnout, said Robert Bruhl, associate professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois Chicago. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite numerous get out the vote efforts since the Voters Rights Act of 1965 passed, there has been no statistical effect in increasing voter turnout and registration, Bruhl said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"soundcite\" data-id=\"396498012\" data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"23329\" data-plays=\"1\">Robert Bruhl on the lack of voter engagement<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Bruhl, millennials have the lowest voter turnout of any age group. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Elizabeth Beyer Medill Reports Grassroots organizations launched since the last national election to train young first-time candidates received thousands of requests for assistance. First time candidates under the age of 35 are taking on\u00a0entrenched incumbents in midterm races across the country. Many of them cited the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and lack [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":447,"featured_media":66770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4014,2952,2951,30,3987],"tags":[4003,4045,4004,2110,677,4044],"class_list":["post-66672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-election-2018","category-politics","category-politicsnational-security","category-public-affairs","category-winter-2018","tag-2018-elections","tag-candidate","tag-midterm-elections","tag-millennial","tag-politics","tag-run-for-something"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Record number of millennials sign up to run for local office in 2018 midterms - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/millennials-running-for-office-by-the-thousands-in-2018-u-s-midterm-races\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Record number of millennials sign up to run for local office in 2018 midterms - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Elizabeth Beyer Medill Reports Grassroots organizations launched since the last national election to train young first-time candidates received thousands of requests for assistance. 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