Young Bay Area delegates get seats on national stage at DNC in Chicago

For months, Rob Moore felt an inkling President Joe Biden might drop out of the race — a scenario that motivated the 26-year-old Los Gatos councilmember to become a delegate at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

On July 21, Moore returned home from an hour-long bike ride and checked his phone. His jaw dropped. Three weeks after a catastrophic debate performance, Biden announced he would not seek reelection. The stunning last-minute reversal followed a weekslong clamor for him to step aside and create room for the next generation of Democratic leaders.

Moore felt a weight lift.

“I had thought that the DNC was going to feel like walking into a funeral and now it feels more like a wedding with a bunch of your best friends,” he said. “The feeling couldn’t be more different.”

Moore is among 496 delegates from California heading to the convention that starts Monday — and one of only a handful of young delegates from the Bay Area — who are now set to cast their votes for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Harris’ rapid ascension to the top of the ticket has reenergized many Democrats and their donors — Harris smashed the 24-hour presidential fundraising record on her first day of the campaign, raising $36 million.

The dramatic turn of events is a far cry from the prospect the nearly 4,000 delegates from across the country initially faced — rubber stamping the Biden-Harris ticket as the Democratic nominees to face Republicans Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance on Election Day on Nov. 5.

Now, many young voters and delegates, galvanized by a shift in energy, are preparing for a very different kind of race.

Alex Melendrez, 31, a DNC delegate from San Bruno, is among those feeling a “renewed sense of energy.”

When Biden first dropped out of the race, Melendrez said he wanted to sit on his delegate vote for 24 hours before making a decision. But just four hours later, he threw his support behind Harris after watching his fellow Democrats unite behind her.

“It is the same kind of energy and mobilization that you saw with the Obama campaign in 2008 where people were excited to spend their limited time and energy in droves that I haven’t seen before,” he said.

Melendrez, who works as an organizer for the housing nonprofit YIMBY Action, has been involved with the Democratic Party for about six years and sits on the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee — a group that makes party endorsements in local elections.

He said a lot of his own experience as a young person in politics has been reflected in the transition from Biden to Harris.

“There’s been a trend in the Democratic Party for a long time that we’re supposed to be the party of young people, but we don’t allow young voices into spaces of power,” Melendrez said.

Rusty Hicks, who has served as the chair of the California Democratic Party since 2019, said he’s worked hard to make sure young Democrats have a seat at the leadership table, since they’ve always contributed to the party’s success.

“It’s a moment for everyone, but young Democrats and young Californians are the future of our party, the future of our state and the future of our country,” Hicks said.

South San Francisco Mayor James Coleman is used to being the youngest Democrat in the room. In 2020, he was elected to the City Council at the age of 21, beating out an 18-year incumbent in the process. Aside from being a DNC delegate, Coleman, now 25, is also a state delegate and a member of the San Mateo County Central Committee.

It’s critical that young people have a place in spaces like the DNC and in shaping policy on issues that largely affect younger generations, including climate change, rising rents and the cost of education and child care, he said.

“I believe firmly that it’s important to have a diverse set of voices at the table and oftentimes we talk about diversity when it comes to race and ethnicity and gender, but diversity also applies to age,” Coleman said. “It’s healthy if you have people at the decision-making table who are of a variety of ages to make sure that we’re not leaving anyone in the community behind.”

At 22, Jo Nguyen said it feels “unreal” that they’re able to represent San Jose, the area they grew up in, at the convention. Like many of their fellow young delegates, Nguyen opted to fundraise for their expenses to the four-day convention at the United Center in Chicago. The California Democratic Party doesn’t cover costs for its delegates and estimates it could cost anywhere from $2,395 to $2,795.

“Especially as someone who’s Asian-American and non-binary, you don’t see a lot of us represented in national politics,” Nguyen said. “I’m glad to be able to have a seat in the national stage.”

They said they feel like the Democratic Party is finally starting to listen to young people who have felt ostracized over issues like student loan debt and the war in Gaza.

“Young people are feeling more disillusioned from the Democratic Party than ever and to finally have a new candidate, I think it really reignites young people,” they said.

In May, 24-year-old Jason Park of San Jose became the first Gen Z person from California to be elected to the Democratic National Committee. This will be his second year as a delegate, but his first time attending an in-person convention after COVID-19 thwarted the gathering in 2020.

Park and his family immigrated to the United States in 2001 from South Korea. From a young age he said he wanted to “make the greatest change in the world as possible” and the best way he thought to do that was through public service.

“This country has given me so much and I am seeing our freedom, our democracy, our future not only being rolled back,” Park said, “but even being further threatened by the prospect of a Trump presidency.”

Heading into the convention, Moore believes what has been dubbed “the coconut tree” meme perfectly embodies why young voters are excited about Harris, whose social media star power has grown in recent weeks.