I was in kindergarten when my mom, who was running for our local Board of Education in Lambertville, took me with her door to door to drum up votes. I held her hand while she talked about budgets and policies, again and again, every weeknight and weekend from August through to election day in November. I remember talking to all those strangers made me nervous but it quickly became my normal.
So maybe it’s not surprising that I decided to run my own campaign for elected office the same year I graduated from South Hunterdon Regional High School in 2016. I didn’t really know what I was doing, just had the tools mom drilled into me, and yet, I won.
I chose to run not just because it felt right. I wasn’t just following my mom’s path, as a student I had recently seen first hand the policy and educational gaps in our district. I felt like I had the perspective I needed and I thought I had the power to do something.
While I was campaigning I spent every moment not at Mercer pounding the pavement, having meet and greets, and attending community events to get my message out to people and ask for their votes. The exhaustion is hard to describe because at the same time as I was taking classes, I was not only running my campaign, but I was still coordinating my mother’s city council run, and then I got invited to help campaign for then Democratic-candidate for Governor, Phil Murphy.
When I was out working on the campaigns, everyone treated me like I was older than my 18 years. Because I had an unusual level of experience, well established politicians looked to me for advice. Plenty of people had no idea I was a community college student. After Governor Murphy was elected, I got a spot working on Reed Gusciora’s Trenton mayoral campaign which went on to a run off. He won, but our rag-tag team of misfits had to work flat out to get people to vote for Trenton’s first openly gay mayor.
Then I got another big offer. I was on a special trip with a group of students to Israel when I got a phone call at two in the morning asking me if I wanted to work for the congressional campaign of Tom Malinowski. I took the interview in the bathroom of a Tel Aviv nightclub, pretending for most of the conversation I could understand what the Field Director was saying to me over the sound of the pulsating music. I poured all my passion for organizing into the conversation and somehow it was convincing enough for me to get the job.
I burned out right after election night. Malinowski won, but I was totally fried from overextending myself. I was so busy soaking in the glow of winning political campaigns that I failed a class at Mercer. There was no way that any of my actions on the campaign trail positively affected my GPA, or my mental health, but opportunities kept popping up all the time, and it’s my nature to jump in and say “yes!” Learning how to set limits is my biggest challenge.
I have people from all walks of my life tell me how mature I am, what a good head I have on my shoulders –but the truth is I still stay up until 3am looking at memes on Instagram, knowing full well I have World Literature with Professor Hamilton the next day. I think maybe if they knew how much of a kid I still am, they’d see me exactly how I see myself: completely unprepared for the task at hand.
But I’m working to change how I see myself, and learning to set the priorities without giving up the work that I love and that I know is my future. I have hit my highest highs and my lowest lows on campaigns, working on the Board of Education, running the College Democrats of New Jersey – but my the battle scars bind me to fellow campaign workers who know all about the long hours, the thankless tasks, and then the genuine reward of knowing you’ve put the best possible policy-maker into office. There are a lot of us young people who are taking politics seriously. I can call my friend in Wisconsin who worked for their Democratic State Committee, and between her and I, we can share our war stories about these experiences that will stick with us for a lifetime.
While doing campaign work as a college student has been humbling, and I’m still finding my way, spending time fighting for Democracy should be on the top five check list of important things for every college student. The decisions our government–at every level–makes affects us and our futures in ways we can’t even imagine, and that’s why it’s worth the fight.
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