Ashanti Martinez (he/him) is a gay Afro-Latino millennial representative in Maryland’s House of Delegates. Active in politics from his early teenage years, Ashanti comes from a working-class family in Prince George’s County, a majority-Black county outside of Washington, DC. Ashanti attended Howard University, and is passionate about LGBTQ rights, universal healthcare, gun control, and the environment.
Read MoreToday we are profiling a Rhode Island Senator who has been championing progressive laws since her election in 2020. Meghan Kallman (she/her), is a triple-sociology major who after college went to work for Amnesty International. Five years before entering state government, she co-founded Conceivable Future, a nonprofit organization that advocates for climate and reproductive justice. This millennial community organizer is also a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and is an avid trumpeter (see photo below). She is most passionate about social, environmental, and economic justice.
Read MoreA hot issue in politics these days is the question of how Democrats will win elections again in rural areas. There are different answers: run on economic issues only, run blue-collar candidates, run someone deeply-embedded and well-known in the area. Today we are profiling a candidate who checks all three boxes. Riley Rodriquez (he/him), is a millennial who has held a number of jobs in his native West Texas: cowboy, oilfield hand, and small business owner. Riley’s platform focuses on healthcare and education as a human right, free school meals, and empowering the working class to take power back from the ruling elite.
Read MoreKaren Alzate (she/her/ella), grew up in the United States under that shadow, so this issue is not new, it has just been dialed up. While in high school, Karen’s Colombian father was detained for eight months before being released. Then six years later, he was deported. Today, as a Rhode Island Representative, Karen stands up for the rights of immigrants to ensure they are treated humanely and with dignity. In the State House, she was a lead sponsor of the Millionaires Tax, and she has led legislation on women’s health, particularly menopause, going so far as to appear on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island to discuss menopause legislation.
Read MoreThe control of the Pennsylvania state legislature is split between a Republican majority in the Senate and a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. But the majority in the House is extremely slim - currently 102 to 100, with one vacancy. In order to maintain their majority, strong Democratic candidates need to run across the state to capture more seats. One such strong candidate is Jennifer O’Mara (she/her), is a millennial representative who is the first Democrat to hold her seat. Jenn is passionate about protecting the environment, the LGBTQIA community, a woman’s right to choose, the right to vote, and the strength of unions and working people in Pennsylvania.
Read MoreIn rural Texas, Andie Ho (she/her) is running to unseat a first-term incumbent, in a district long held by the GOP. Andie, a Xennial French to English translator and a Director of the American Translators Association, is a second-generation American running to ensure that all Texans, regardless of national origin, have the same rights and freedoms under the law and rights like health care, which is a cornerstone of her campaign.
Read MoreMaryland House District 29A, has been represented by the same Republican legislator since the 2014 election. This year, candidate Jennifer Clancy (she/her) is trying to become the first Democrat to hold the seat in 12 years. A millennial therapist, she raises her five children on her homestead in rural St. Mary’s County. Jennifer’s campaign is centered on a triad of issues: more readily available education, a stronger health care system (including the Maryland Children’s Health Program) and greater community resources.
Read MoreDistrict 58 is one of the swingiest districts in Michigan. Currently running is Katrina Manetta (she/her), a working class organizer. Katrina has a history of activism, from going to Washington DC to lobby for anti-human trafficking bills, to co-founding her county’s Indivisible chapter, Macomb Defenders Rising, to attending Public Service Commission hearings to push back on corporate data center deals that benefit the corporation over residents. Katrina’s campaign focuses on three areas: affordability of utilities, affordability of health care, and keeping corporate money out of political campaigns.
Read MoreJuliana Bennett (she/her), is running for Wisconsin State assembly. A Black pansexual Gen-Z woman, Juliana is heavily keyed in to her hometown of Madison, the capital city, as a former member of the city council, with experience in expanding housing. She is passionate about defending protesters, getting ICE out of Wisconsin, and sustaining immigrant communities across the state.
Read MoreIn Arizona, Brendan Trachsel (he/him/his) is running on the Green Party ticket for one of two seats that makes up the Arizona House of Representatives’ 6th District. This young activist and Quaker is running to be the first Gen Z elected official at the state level in Arizona. Brendan is passionate about securing abortion access in the state, fighting against Flock cameras, and increasing Arizona’s access to higher education.
Read MoreOne of Topeka’s state representatives, Alexis Simmons (she/her), is an agnostic, bisexual Democrat. Born at the end of the millennial generation, she identifies as a “childless cat lady” and is a government professor at Washburn University. What drove Alexis to teach government was a belief that people should feel empowered to engage with government, and not be intimidated by the complexity of it. Alexis is passionate about defending the US Constitution from attacks on freedom of speech, freedom to worship freely (or to not worship not at all), and basic privacy.
Read MoreKentucky is known as a very conservative state, but we discovered two years ago that even progressives represent constituencies in so-called “red” states! Most conservative states have cities that are heavily progressive, particularly the largest city in each state. In Kentucky, that city is Louisville. Sarah Stalker (she/her), is a representative from Louisville to the Kentucky House of Representatives. First elected in 2022, she won re-election in 2024 and is running again in 2026. Sarah believes in putting the environment and the working class over profits and capital gains, to the point that she encourages mutual aid, trading and bartering, and thrifting as much as possible for environmental reasons, cost effectiveness and to avoid participating in capitalism. She is also a huge proponent of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
Read MoreLuckily, a crop of progressive women are challenging the status quo in Texas. One such candidate is Diana Loya (she/her), a Latina millennial educator and mother in the rural Texas Panhandle. As a public school teacher, education is one of the foundations of her campaign, along with a level economic playing field, where government supports the needs of the working class, and not the 1%, and where taxpayer dollars go towards building infrastructure that benefits the people, and not right back into billionaires’ pockets.
Read MoreNew Mexico is a state of wide open spaces, but most people in the state live in and around the largest city, Albuquerque. In the small section of city that encompasses La Mesa, Trumbull Village, and the International District, Janelle Anyanonu (she/her) has been the state representative for the past three and a half years. A former member of the New Mexico Black Central Organizing Committee, Janelle is descended from Nigerian immigrants and has spent her whole life in the state. During her first term in the House, this millennial Burqueña was one of five sponsors of legislation to protect abortion rights and gender-affirming care in New Mexico; the law passed and became the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Freedom Act, ensuring access to healthcare denied to millions of others in many of the surrounding states. Janelle sings in the choir of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Albuquerque and is an avid embroiderer of blackwork and cross-stitch projects.
Read MoreAmanda Gonzalez (she/her), is running for Colorado Secretary of State this year. A bisexual millennial attorney, she is currently the Clerk and Recorder for Jefferson County, Colorado. Amanda is a member of the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association, Colorado Women's Bar Association, and Colorado LGBTQ+ Bar Association. She is running to protect every Coloradan’s vote from interference, expand voting rights, and keep Colorado’s election system secure.
Read MoreThe group Justice Democrats is a progressive campaign finance reform organization that endorses candidates who refuse to accept donations from corporate PACs and lobbyists. This year, they are primarily running in states like New York, California, and Illinois, but one endorsed candidate is running in Colorado: Melat Kiros (she/her), a Gen Z former attorney. Melat was born in Ethiopia and immigrated with her family to the United States at the start of the Ethiopian-Eritrean War. In the middle of this campaign for US Congress, she is also working on a PhD in Public Affairs. A one-time barista who worried about making rent, Melat has first-hand experience as a working-class woman and brings that experience to her campaign, which is centered on Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, getting big money out of politics, housing as a human right, and holding AI companies accountable before they eliminate entire workforces without a safety net.
Read MoreStanford Fraser (he/him), a Black millennial public defender. A graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC and Harvard Law School, Stanford is a die-hard Game of Thrones fan and Pokemon card collector. He has testified to the state government regarding legislation to ban no-knock warrants, require body cameras for police, and decriminalize drug possession. A former Amnesty International volunteer, he organized area college students and led protests to abolish Maryland’s death penalty, which Maryland did that same year. Today, Stanford’s platform rests on the pillars of criminal justice reform, overhauling healthcare, and lowering utility bills for Prince George’s residents.
Read MoreRaaheela Ahmed (she/her) is a millennial South Asian woman who is the former president of the Prince George’s County Board of Education. Raaheela formerly served as the Student Regent on the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, representing more than 150,000 students across 12 public universities. Raaheela is a badass: she got her motorcycle license while in high school and played rugby for three years during college. Yet she also loves being near bodies of water and aims to visit every US National Park in her lifetime. A democratic socialist, this lover of cheesecake is basing her campaign around strengthening public schools, expanding access to affordable healthcare and housing, and protecting working families.
Read MoreNew York’s progressives are not all concentrated in the city. They exist all over the state, particularly in upstate New York cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Ithaca, and Binghamton. Dan Livingston (he/him), a millennial former city councilmember, dropped out of college during the Iraq War in the early 2000s and hitchhiked across America and Canada for two years. Dan’s despair over the war turned to resolve, and he returned to college and became politically active. He founded a Habitat for Humanity chapter, organized relief trips to hurricane-hit Louisiana and Mississippi, and worked for several organizations which provided meals to the hungry. In later years he protested at the Occupy Wall Street and Standing Rock protests.
On the Binghamton city council, Dan advocated for collective bargaining rights, creating apprenticeship programs in public schools to encourage young people to go into the trades, and he successfully fought back against a privatization scheme at a wastewater treatment plant, keeping the workers there unionized. Today, his platform is fourfold: taxing the rich, providing clean water for all, ensuring affordable housing, and protecting immigrants from ICE. Dan is running on the Working Families Party ticket, and he has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders.
Read MoreEvan Smith (he/him) is a Gen Z democratic socialist candidate running from southern Maryland running for Delegate. He is the communications director of the Young Democrats of Southern Maryland. A former D2 track athlete, Evan is primarily focusing on public transit and the affordability crisis in his campaign. Should he be elected, he will be the youngest delegate and the only one born in the 21st Century.
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