For months, Rob Moore felt President Joe Biden might drop out of the race – a scenario that motivated the 26-year-old Los Gatos city councilor to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week as a delegate.
On July 21, Moore returned home from an hour-long bike ride and checked his phone. His jaw dropped. Three weeks after his disastrous debate performance, Biden announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. The surprise last-minute reversal followed weeks of calls for him to step down and make way for the subsequent generation of Democratic leaders.
Moore was beside himself.
“I thought the DNC would feel like going to a funeral, but now it feels more like a wedding with a bunch of your best friends,” he said. “The feeling couldn't be more different.”
Moore is considered one of 496 delegates from California heading to the convention on Monday – and considered one of only a handful of young delegates from the Bay Area – who will now forged their ballots for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Harris's rapid rise to the highest of the ballot has re-energized many Democrats and their donors – Harris broke the record for 24-hour presidential fundraising on the primary day of her campaign. Raise $36 million.
This dramatic turn of events is a far cry from the prospect that the nearly 4,000 delegates from across the country initially had after they endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket because the Democratic candidates to face Republicans Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance on Election Day, November 5.
Now, energized by the modified energy, many young voters and delegates are preparing for a really different sort of election campaign.
Alex Melendrez, 31, a DNC delegate from San Bruno, is amongst those feeling a “renewed sense of energy.”
When Biden initially dropped out of the race, Melendrez said he desired to wait 24 hours for his delegate vote before making a call. But just 4 hours later, he threw his weight behind Harris after seeing his Democratic colleagues rally behind her.
“It's the same kind of energy and mobilization that you saw in Obama's 2008 campaign, when people were more enthusiastic about investing their limited time and energy in droves than I've ever seen before,” he said.
Melendrez works as an organizer for the nonprofit housing organization YIMBY Action. He has been energetic within the Democratic Party for about six years and sits on the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee, a gaggle that makes party endorsements in local elections.
He said a lot of his own experiences as a teenager in politics were reflected within the transition from Biden to Harris.
“There has long been a trend in the Democratic Party that we should be the party of young people, but we do not allow young voices into positions of power,” Melendrez said.
Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party since 2019, said he has worked hard to secure a spot for young Democrats within the party leadership because they’ve at all times contributed to the party's success.
“This is a moment for everyone, but young Democrats and young Californians are the future of our party, the future of our state and the future of our country,” Hicks said.
South San Francisco Mayor James Coleman is used to being the youngest Democrat within the room. In 2020, he was elected to the City Council at age 21, defeating an 18-year incumbent. Now 25, Coleman just isn’t only a DNC delegate, but in addition a state delegate and a member of the San Mateo County Central Committee.
It is critical that young people have a spot in bodies just like the DNC and may also help shape policy on issues that particularly affect younger generations, including climate change, rising rents and the fee of education and child care, he said.
“I am a firm believer in the importance of having many different voices at the table. Often we talk about diversity when it comes to race, ethnicity and gender, but diversity also refers to age,” Coleman said. “It's healthy to have people of different ages at the decision-making table to make sure we don't leave anyone behind in the community.”
Jo Nguyen, 22, says it's “unrealistic” that she'll give you the option to represent San Jose, the world where she grew up, on the convention. Like a lot of her fellow young delegates, Nguyen decided to lift funds to cover her expenses for the four-day convention on the United Center in Chicago. The California Democratic Party doesn’t cover the fee of its delegates and estimates the fee could possibly be between $2,395 and $2,795.
“Especially as an Asian American and nonbinary person, you don't see many of us represented in national politics,” Nguyen said. “I'm glad to have a place on the national stage.”
They said they felt the Democratic Party was finally beginning to hearken to young individuals who felt marginalized by issues reminiscent of student loan debt and the war in Gaza.
“Young people are more disillusioned with the Democratic Party than ever before, and I think the fact that there is finally a new candidate is revitalizing young people,” they said.
In May, Jason Park, 24, of San Jose, became the primary Gen Z from California to be elected to the Democratic National Committee. This will likely be his second yr as a delegate, but it would be his first visit to an in-person convention after COVID-19 prevented the gathering in 2020.
Park and his family immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 2001. From a young age, he said he desired to “make the biggest change in the world” and that he believed the most effective method to try this was through public service.
“This country has given me so much, and I see how our freedom, our democracy, our future are not only being pushed back,” Park said, “but are even further threatened by the prospect of a Trump presidency.”
Ahead of the convention, Moore believes the so-called “coconut tree” meme perfectly embodies why young voters are enthusiastic about Harris, whose social media profile has grown in recent weeks.
Moore said Republicans' attempts to “bring up” Harris backfired and the clip became a viral sensation when she was named the presumptive nominee. The clip was remixed on TikTok, using every part from British pop star Charli XCX's song “365” to the Coconut Mall theme song for MarioKart.
It's silly, Moore admits, but he also talked to his own mother about it.
“Sometimes I feel a little silly being such a fangirl for a presidential candidate,” he said, “but I really think she's relatable.”
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