When Roxy Ndebumadu, a Black conservative woman, ran for city council in Bowie, Maryland, at age 26, it was hard to find mentorship from elected officials of similar backgrounds.
“My, I guess you would say, makeup is very unique,” Ndebumadu told CNN.
“There are just not a lot of young women who are elected. There are not a lot of Black women who are elected, and there are not a lot of conservative young Black women who are elected or seeking to run for office,” she said.
Now Ndebumadu, who was first elected to the city council in 2019, is trying to change that reality.
She, along with a number of other young conservatives, are working with Run GenZ, an organization co-founded in 2020 by Iowa state Rep. Joe Mitchell to recruit, mentor and train young conservatives running for office in down-ballot races.
Ahead of 2022, Mitchell says, Run GenZ will focus heavily on candidates for state legislature races in Texas, Florida and Iowa. So far, the group has received 283 applications across 48 states.
Mitchell, a Republican first elected to the state legislature in 2018 at age 21, said he aims to recruit a bench of young conservative leaders who are more reflective of the areas they are looking to represent.
“We understand (that) if we don’t reach out, if we don’t have a variety of candidates running, we’re not going to be able to fare well in the future as we’re trying to compete with an ever growing diverse population here in the US,” he said.
In 2021, Run GenZ supported 15 candidates for down-ballot offices, 12 of whom won their races.
While the organization recruits candidates through different ways, its most fruitful recruitment effort has been speaking to chapters of youth groups such as College Republicans, Young Republicans and Turning Point USA – the right-wing organization closely tied to former President Donald Trump.
Yet, Run GenZ says it is not beholden to any wing of the Republican Party and is willing to work with any candidate who believes in the conservative values of “limited government, free market capitalism, individual responsibility and fiscal restraint.”
To boost its recruitment, Run GenZ recently partnered with Snapchat, the social media app popular among young Americans, as part of the app’s “Run For Office” feature – an in-app civic tool to help young people run for office up and down the ballot. According to Run GenZ, 2,925 people have expressed interest in the organization through Snapchat’s tool.
