Youth Turned Out In Droves To Turn The Tide In The 2020 Election
Until a few months ago, Ella Chenai Tunduwani saw themselves as the quiet, back-of-the-classroom type, one to offer thoughts privately on the way out the door.
Tunduwani, a 14-year-old from Seattle, was already stepping out of their comfort zone by volunteering with Kirsten Harris-Talley’s campaign. Harris-Talley was running for an open seat in Washington’s legislature, and Tuduwani’s leftist politics aligned well with the candidate’s. Tunduwani couldn’t have guessed, but would shortly learn, that they excelled at asking strangers for money.
For young volunteers like Tunduwani, campaigning usually means stints phone banking, text messaging, and knocking on doors—the grunt work, basically, that powers politicians of all political shades. Tunduwani did that, and much more.
Within weeks of...