By Joyce Vance Civil Discourse David Hogg survived the tragic 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He went on to become one of a generation of student activists who had enough and decided to fight for gun reform instead of just waiting for the next shooting. Hogg was one of the main organizers of the March for Our Lives, the largest single day of protest against gun violence in our country. He has turned his sights to the importance of voting and focused on registering new voters in truly impressive numbers. I thought we’d check in with David tonight, to learn about the work he is continuing to do, focused on young voters and their impact on the political process. What makes young people take
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by Joyce Vance
Civil Discourse
David Hogg survived the tragic 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He went on to become one of a generation of student activists who had enough and decided to fight for gun reform instead of just waiting for the next shooting.
Hogg was one of the main organizers of the March for Our Lives, the largest single day of protest against gun violence in our country. He has turned his sights to the importance of voting and focused on registering new voters in truly impressive numbers.
I thought we’d check in with David tonight, to learn about the work he is continuing to do, focused on young voters and their impact on the political process. What makes young people take an interest in government? How do we get more of them there? David’s answers are both enlightening and encouraging as we get closer to the 2024 election.
“Five Questions” is a feature for paid subscribers of Civil Discourse, my way of thanking people who are able to support this work financially so I can devote the necessary time and resources to it. I value having all of you here—free subscriptions will always be available. I’m grateful to everyone who reads the newsletter and engages in the hard but essential work of civil discourse.
Joyce: After your work on March for Our Lives, you’ve formed a new group, Leaders We Deserve. You focus on investing in candidates who reflect the younger generation and its values, and on making sure they have the resources to run and win campaigns. Why did you think it was important to start Leaders We Deserve, and what are your goals?
David: A big reason why we felt the need to do this is because there are so many barriers for young progressives to run for office. There’s automatically a bias against them because of their age, and that bias is amplified by the fact that Democratic primary voters are often over the age of 50. Young people often don’t have strong political networks they can tap into, nor are they a part of wealthy donor networks full of rich people who can raise them the money they need to build a solid staff and reach out to voters on a massive scale.
From the work we did at March for Our Lives, I know the power of young people and how important it is to have them in office. Seeing the incredible impact of people like Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, Zooey Zephyr, and so many other incredible young leaders was further validation that an organization like Leaders We Deserve could make a huge impact and help elect generational leaders to Congress and state legislatures across the country.
Here’s how we got there: Back in 2021, the Organizing Director of March for Our Lives, Maxwell Frost, called me and said that he was going to quit and run for Congress in Orlando, Florida. He was critical to so much of the success we had at March for Our Lives. I wasn’t too happy at first to hear that he was leaving.
The day after the shooting at my high school, Maxwell contacted one of the survivors to see how he could help us. He knew we were ready to mount a response to what was, at the time, the deadliest school shooting ever. He drove down to Parkland that night and worked with us to plan out next steps for how we would fight to change gun laws in our country. Helped with the tour we did, the march, all the events we planned, the lobbying of elected officials, the legislation we helped pass, and the organizing of it all. He did this all as a volunteer until we eventually hired him full-time.
For all of those reasons, he was the exact type of person I knew we needed in Congress. He started organizing to end gun violence at 15 years old, after the Sandy Hook shooting, and never stopped.
I wanted to do everything I could to try to help Maxwell win. But this wasn’t going to be an easy race. He was going up against almost every major Orlando political leader including two former members of Congress. At the time, he was only 24 years old. Very few people thought he had more than a prayer.
Within the first six months of his campaign, I helped raise nearly $400k for him. One of the things I saw on that campaign was that a lot of organizations talk a big game about how they help their endorsed candidates. But most of the time, after an organization endorses, you’ll get an endorsement graphic you can post and a $500 to $1000 check, if you’re lucky. Of course, candidates are grateful for it; it’s a tool to build more support. But it’s not going to make a tangible impact on the race.
Maxwell would campaign from 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. most days, and then five days or so a week, he drove for Uber until 1 or 2 a.m. after a full day of campaigning so that he could pay his bills. At one point, he got priced out of his apartment and had to sleep on friends’ couches for a month. He essentially didn’t take a day off for a full year. He gave everything he had, and when it was all said and done, he raised a total of $3.3 million dollars, earned the support of almost every union in Florida, all the major national and local environmental, gun safety, and progressive groups, along with the most important organizations dedicated to electing more Latinos. In a massive underdog victory, he won by 10 points.
A few months after the election I called his Campaign Manager, Kevin Lata, who I had gotten to know from working on Maxwell’s race. I told him that we should start a PAC to try to elect more great young progressives like Maxwell all across the country. Kevin did such an incredible job on Maxwell’s race that he won an award for Campaign Manager of the year for Democrats. I knew he would be the perfect person to work on Leaders We Deserve with. We got to work that same day.
Joyce: Leaders We Deserve has been up and running since 2023. How is it going so far, and what do you think your most important accomplishments to date have been?
David: We’ve helped elect five incredible leaders who have the opportunity to be movement leaders in their states and incredible forces for good in their state legislatures. Right now, we’re one of the top political committees on ActBlue, having raised $7.5 million so far. We are poised to make a sizeable impact in key state legislative races in swing states that could have downstream effects in helping Vice President Harris and the top of the ticket in all of these states.
Joyce: Let’s talk about younger voters for a moment. We’ve all seen the statistics; we know lots of them stay home on election day. What do you think that is about, when they are the people most affected by elections? Why is it so difficult to get younger people out to vote? What are we doing wrong?
David: Young people are voting at higher rates than we’ve ever seen in American history, and they were an indispensable part of the coalition of voters that won a massive house majority in 2018, elected Biden in 2020, and held off the red wave in 2022. They never get enough credit. These wins were fueled in large part by fear though. Fear of Trump. Fear of the Republican agenda. And the goal of stopping both of them. But there are real limits on how long this messaging can work. And we’re seeing it now. Many people have softened to Trump and become normalized to him—become desensitized to his attacks on women, Black people, Latinos, the LGBT community, and Democracy.
It is incredibly important that we continue to make the case against Trump. But that can’t be all we do. Young people need something to vote for, and now we have it with Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz. But it is incumbent on both of them to go out every day and make the case for how they’re going to fix the problems in our country and make life better for all of us. And there needs to be a specific pitch made to young voters. That is going to be the key to turnout of young voters. Everything else follows from that.
The tactics, engaging influencers, the organizing, the rallies, the voter registration, the canvassing, the phone banking. None of these things will work at the level they need to without a clear vision for our future. Everyday Vice President Harris is laying out new planks of her policy agenda, which is exactly what it will take to maintain the incredible energy and excitement she has around her campaign. And for the next several months, I’m going to be doing everything in my power to help turnout young people across the country and help give them incredible young people to vote for.
Joyce: In 2018, when you were 17 years old, you survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that left 17 people dead. I think the whole country were watching with incredible respect. Occurring as you and other young leaders insisted that gun violence be taken seriously. Your work has been instrumental in forcing people to confront gun violence. What are some of the lessons you learned about organizing and success?
David: Someone asked me in an interview recently if I smile. The answer is yes—but it took me a long time after the shooting to feel OK being happy. Many people made memes of us smiling in photos (as one instinctually does even if not happy) saying “this is the face you make when you’re standing on the bodies of your dead classmates.” In some ways that was one of the most sinister things the right wing did to those who had the courage to speak out after the shooting. The message it instilled in me, and others I know, for a long time, was that we were not allowed to be happy ever again for any reason because of what happened. I’m still upset and furious that gun violence continues, but I have come to realize that joy is essential to making change, not antithetical to it.
Joyce: What advice do you have for readers of Civil Discourse? How can we encourage and support young candidates and younger voters? And as a part of that, how can we have conversations that encourage people to vote and help them become committed, lifelong voters?
David: Leaders We Deserve is helping to elect the next generation of young progressive leaders in America who are going to fight to protect abortion access, fight to end gun violence, fight corruption/Citizens United and protect our planet from climate change. Winning these races is expensive, and we don’t accept any corporate contributions. We’d be grateful to have your support. You can find us at leaderswedeserve.com.
In terms of how folks can play an individual role with the young people in their lives, encouraging them to vote: don’t shame them and don’t lecture them. It will not work. Listen to what they have to say. Hear them out. Ask probing questions and genuinely show interest in their answers. There are a lot of things we can point to on how great the economy is doing—things that Joe Biden deserves an incredible amount of credit.
The fact is, prices are still very high. College tuition is through the roof. Housing costs are breaking the bank. Our healthcare system is broken. Too many have crushing debt. This is all coupled with being 18, a whole new world opens up to you. There’s a freedom you’ve never had before. It’s a time of excitement, it’s a time of firsts, and there are so many things competing for our attention, especially in a world where many of us have to work multiple jobs, in addition to going to school. Organizing works best when we organize in the communities we’re part of and members of. Start with your family members and with the other young people in your life.
Seeing the world through David’s eyes gives me a lot of hope and inspiration. His path to political engagement breaks my heart, but his advice is solid: “I’m still upset and furious that gun violence continues, but I have come to realize that joy is essential to making change, not antithetical to it.”
It’s all about the joy. That’s what keeps us going.