David Hogg, who survived the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, is running to be a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Hogg, now 24, says he is aiming to be part of national Democratic leadership to reach younger voters who moved toward Donald Trump and the right in the last election.
Hogg said concerns about reaching out to young voters during the last election were dismissed by leading Democrats.
"I multiple times brought up during the campaign my concerns about young voters publicly and privately," he said. "I was even part of the National Finance Committee with the Harris campaign where I stood up in front of all the largest donors of the campaign and I said I'm deeply concerned about the polling that I'm seeing with young men. And the response that I got was this is ridiculous. This is not what we need to be focused on. This is not a problem."
Hogg also said Democrats needed to listen to voters rather than consultants.
"We listen to the consulting class instead of the working class because increasingly, our party has surrounded itself simply with people who just constantly agree with it consistently rather than talking to actual people on the ground," Hogg said. "Even as we are delivering things for them, even as we are fighting for the working class and passing good legislation, if we tell people when there is a rise in inflation that they don't understand, that they need to just look at this chart, at these statistics, that they should not believe their bills going up or their credit card statements going up, that their feelings are invalid, we're going to lose."
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Hogg has spent years as an anti-violence activist, co-founding the group March For Our Lives with fellow student survivors of the Parkland shooting. He also founded Leaders We Deserve, an activist group that focuses on getting younger people elected to local and national government.
Other candidates seeking vice-chair seats include Joe Barbuto, chair of the Wyoming Democratic party; Shasti Conrad, chair of the Washington state Democrats; and James Zogby, a pro-Palestinian advocate and an existing member of the DNC.
Hogg and other candidates for DNC chair positions will participate in party forums in January before chair elections on Feb. 1, 2025.
