At 20 years old, Connor White is the youngest elected member of Baltimore County’s Democratic Central Committee. He’s a Quaker and grew up attending Friends meetings where participants, he said, “were always involved in politics.”
“You know, write your congressman about this thing or the other thing,” White said. So, naturally, he kept it up. He said he wants to “help make change” and to “have the central committee be the beating heart of the Democratic party” in the county where he lives.
Kira Bender, 24, grew up with a father who was heavily involved in Republican politics in Carroll County. That drew her to student government at South Carroll High School; to an internship with State Sen. Justin Ready, the minority whip in the Maryland Senate; and jobs with an Annapolis-based marketing firm that counts several national GOP figures among its clients.
She has always loved politics and community service. It makes her feel good “when something gets done.” But she worries that “so many people are apathetic.”
“When people complain about the way things are going, I say, ‘Do you vote? If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.’”
White and Bender are among a growing number of Gen Z young adults — defined as those ages 18 to 25 — getting involved in politics, many of them on the local level where their impact can be quickly felt.
These younger activists have come of age during a time of school shootings, climate crises, gender and sexuality issues, and the Trump era. They often don’t like the system, but are nonetheless starting to work inside it. According to Tufts University, 41 million additional Gen Z members will be eligible to vote in 2024, and the decisions this group makes could shape the future politics of the nation.
Melissa Deckman, the CEO of the Washington, D.C. think tank Public Religion Institute, writes in a recent study that Gen Z is the “most racially and ethnically diverse generation in our nation’s history” and are “coming into their own politically, socially, and culturally, bringing their values and viewpoints to their communities and workplaces, and to our nation’s political system.”
That report, based on a national survey as well as an analysis of 10 focus groups, found that nearly half (43%) of Gen Z adults don’t identify with either major political party, while those that do, lean toward the Democrats rather than Republicans—36% to 21%.
“In the data we’ve compiled, the more conservative GenZers, the Republicans, are not as engaged as the liberals,” Deckman said in an interview. “It’s hard to get younger people involved. They don’t want to hang out with a lot of older people who are heavily MAGAfied and a lot of young people are turned off by that. There’s a lot of GenZers who think the problems won’t get better until there are more young people in office, that they get the old people out of the way,” she said. “They feel that older people don’t understand their problems, their issues.”
White, who identifies himself as “a queer man,” says he is “very worried” about the direction the U.S. is headed. “Will I ever be able to buy a house, retire? Will I be able to marry the person I love? For me and for young people, the Democratic party will help that.”
The issue of getting older people out of the way bubbled to the surface in Maryland last November when a coalition of Gen Z Democrats from Baltimore and Howard counties tried to block the election of former Howard County Executive Ken Ulman as state party chairman In a sharply worded letter, they said the policies Ulman supported as member of the county council and the executive “greatly contributed to the current housing unaffordability, income and wealth inequality, food insecurity, decline in school quality, and various other serious crises that are currently plaguing Howard County.”
Strongly backed by Gov. Wes Moore, Ulman won the post. (Ulman is a part-owner of Baltimore Fishbowl.) But Ed Crizer, the Gen Z Democrat who ran against him, is still in the fight. He represents the Essex, Dundalk, Middle River area on the Baltimore County Democratic Central Committee and he’s running for chair of the state central committee.
“There seems to be a disproportionate number of older people in politics, and they may have more moderate views on the direction of the party,” argues the 22-year-old. “Young people see the need for more change.”
But Ruben Amaya, who is also 22 and third vice-chair of the state Democratic central committee, doesn’t see it in such stark terms. “Young people have a lot to learn,” he says. But at the same time, they “have a lot to offer.”
Amaya came in fourth in a race for three spots on the Democratic ballot for the House of Delegates in 2022 in the same district as House Speaker Adrienne Jones.
“I wanted to show folks that young people can be involved, can have a seat at the table,” he says. “And coming fourth for my first time running, that showed I was able to move people.”
Like many in his generation, Amaya says he’s more interested in state and local politics than national politics because the issues involved transcend national politics.
“And when I look at the dysfunction in Washington, I think I can do more in local politics,” he added. “People forget there are important positions on the board of education and other local offices. My goal is I would like to see more young people hold positions on those local boards.”
Deckman says that while Gen Z concerns—reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ issues—tend to be more national, “state and local politics are getting more nationalized in our more polarized world, more ideologically consistent.”
At the same time, Deckman says her study shows there is “a definite correlation between gender and sexuality and how that relates to engagement in politics.”
“During the Trump years, we saw more young women getting involved than young men. Now, that’s changed and we’re seeing more men getting involved and more LGBTQ people. And GenZ is part of that.”
She says the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which held there is no constitutional right to abortion, and the rise of the religious right moved many younger voters to action and to the Democrats.
“Whenever there is a feeling that rights are being threatened, we see an increase in involvement of young people,” she explained. “Whether it’s LGBTQ issues, the Black Lives Matter movement, at least among younger adults.”
But Cross Ritchey, a 22-year-old member of the Garrett County Republican Central Committee, says he sees GenZ Democrats as “one issue” people.
He says they “hitch their wagon” to one social issue, whether it be reproductive rights or LGBT issues, “and that’s their end-all and be all.”
“And when you stick to one issue, you don’t see the whole picture; you don’t see the big picture.”
Ritchie, who graduated from Frostburg State with a political science degree and is pursuing a master’s in national security, says he grew up in a very conservative area of the state in a deeply conservative and religious family and was excited he was old enough to vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
He and Bender, both officers in Maryland Young Republicans, say people get more conservative as they “get older, more mature.”
On the other hand, White, who says his dream is to turn his northern Baltimore County councilmanic district blue, acknowledges there are some active conservative Gen Z types, but he says they are fewer in numbers and more influenced by money.
“There’s a plethora of money involved in Republican politics and most young people don’t go for that,” he says.
One thing they seem to agree on is the need to listen to those on the other side.
“All my friends at school were Democrats, were more liberal than I was,” says Bender. “My roommates were Democrats and were pretty liberal. It was interesting to see their different perspectives.”
Amaya, who is turned off by the dysfunction in Washington, says he has conversations with young, conservative friends about their beliefs.
“I think what’s missing in our political culture is dialogue,” he argues “I don’t know where they’re coming from if I don’t talk to them. To bridge the gaps is to have conversation.”
