With primary season underway and the midterm elections upcoming, Democrats are looking to gain ground. Manik Elahi, president of the Albany County Young Democrats, says the party needs to address the affordability crisis to engage young voters who have become disillusioned with the political system. He spoke with WAMC's Maryam Ahmad.
Maryam Ahmad: What are the major goals for the Albany County Young Democrats this year?
Manik Elahi: The context in which that we operate specifically in this year is that Joe Biden won the last presidential election with about 25% points of advantage with young people. Kamala Harris won that with 4%. That's about a 21% swing in the confidence that young people have. It's not that they don't want to be engaged in the system, it's that they are losing confidence in the system, and frankly, the values of the Democratic Party, and that's what we really want to focus on - the economic issues, of economic dignity, of economic survival, frankly, for most young people - not only in this county, but across the state.
But also [we don’t want to] just complain about it, but do something about it. Frankly, the only way to do something about it is to either convince the people who have the power to do something about it or become one of them.
You talked about the gap between Kamala Harris's numbers in young people and Biden's numbers. You've talked a bit about economic concerns. Why is there specifically such a disillusionment in the Democratic Party from young people?
I think when I talk to my peers, the primary reason is Democrats acting powerless, and not only in terms of the politics of it, but how we govern. The question that I have for our national leadership is, where's our plan? Where's our version of Project 2025, where we can give back dignity, economic dignity, to not only just young, working-class people, but people across this county, people across the state, people across this country who are good, hard-working people who just want to be able to afford their meals, afford a place that they can call home, and just have dignity in their lives.
I think that's really where the disconnect is, where I think young people truly feel that this Democratic Party is not fighting as hard, and that's a catch 22 because the other side is, in my opinion, not helpful as well. They've got their own problems, which I don't want to get into right now, but I think the ultimate act of love for my Democratic Party is for me to have that tough conversation within our own family and talk about the fact that maybe we need to take a different direction in the issues that we fight on.
What do you think will work in terms of appealing to young voters?
A lot of our work for the last couple years, since I took on the helm, along with my amazing colleagues in the leadership of our organization, has been focused on mobilizing a team of young people who are involved in government. That's not just people who are running for races, which, by the way, we're winning - we have a pretty good track record of our endorsed candidates winning in races. But it's also about having campaign staff, having organizers, having people in their communities who are on the ward committees or the town committees of their Democratic party, so that we can build the party that we deserve, the party that fights for young, working-class people.
So really, the effort is focused on building a political movement. Oftentimes, you know, I think not only just Young Democrats, but young people are blamed a lot for ‘Hey, you guys are serial complainers,’ and might be partly true, but it's based on a lot of lived experience. And now what we're trying to do on the other side of it, is turn that, frankly, anger and frustration into action in the political arena. So that's been a lot of our focus, in addition to, expanding the organization in terms of membership and our programming that we offer, it really is about building a coalition of young, working class people and our allies who might be from a different generation but also understand our issues.
Moving on to primaries and midterms coming up, the Albany County Young Democrats, as you said, has a pretty good track record of endorsed candidates. Who are you paying attention to the most? What are races you're really invested in?
For this cycle in Albany County, at least, the major race that we're tracking in terms of a competitive primary election is for Albany County Court Judge. Our membership has, through a vote at our annual meeting, endorsed Joe Meany, but that is the major county wide race that we're focused on this year. Another thing which is not just specific to Albany County that we're really focused on is, even if it's not for this year, how can we utilize an infrastructure of young people who, by the way, you know, do this on top of all the economic hardship that I just told you about, they are working overtime. They are underpaid.
They are under-delivered in terms of not only just economic dignity, but despite that, they're willing to come between the hours of five to 10pm and come help this organization to build a coalition of young, working-class people who want to build the party that we deserve. I'm just incredibly proud that we have this group of people who want to do this thing willingly, voluntarily, and that's where we’re focused on is just building the political power that's necessary. Because again, all of the problems that we face are built on a mountain of terrible choices. These are not just, ‘we just got unlucky’.
How do you think local leaders in particular should engage not just your peers in the Albany County Young Democrats, but just overall young voters in the area?
The message that I would have is including young people into the Democratic Party's process is not a binary choice. You can do both. You can have people again who are older than us, more experienced have seen more and in many cases, may know politics better than us, at the same table where we have young, energetic, passionate voices who live with the problems that we're looking out to solve.
In many cases, young people are bearing the brunt of these issues, whether it's housing, whether it's affordability, of being able to get a higher education, whether it is the potential even to start a family, they are on the receiving end of a lot of these problems, and the simple message that I have to the national leadership of the Democratic Party is just talk to young people.
