Young Candidates and Organizers Pave the Way for Rural Civic Engagement

In 2023, Arturo Alonso-Sandoval, a Democrat who represents Oklahoma House District 89 in south Oklahoma City, joined this list as the youngest person serving in the legislature. Alonso-Sandoval, 23, tells Barn Raiser he hoped to “empower young people from all backgrounds to really show them that they belong in politics,” arguing that young people “have more stakes in it because we are fighting for our future.”

He builds on Oklahoma’s history of electing young people. In 1948, Eugene Edward “Gene” Stipe was elected to the Oklahoma House at 21, holding the record for the youngest-elected representative in Oklahoma history. In 1950, Democrat George Nigh was elected to the state legislature at just 23 years old. Eight years later, Nigh was elected lieutenant governor, becoming the youngest person in the nation to serve the office at the time (he would later serve as Oklahoma’s governor).

The challenge facing young rural candidates

Galilea Martinez, 29, a member of the Oklahoma City (OKC) Public Schools Board of Education for District 7, says running for local office reinforced for her that some of the most meaningful conversations happen at the front door.

“Running in south OKC, you keep a few things in mind including immigration policies and community safety,” she tells Barn Raiser.

“I lead with those real conversations at the doors due to my own experience growing up in a mixed status household and navigating the realities of what deportation of family members could mean,” she says. “I know we are in a state of kindness and respect because I experienced it on the doors. I also recognize there is a lot of work to do but the only way to move forward is one door and conversation at a time.”

Another young candidate, Natalie Roman, 22, also ran for the District 7 school board seat. As a young woman living in a small town, I was intrigued by these two women. I wondered why more young people don’t run for local office in rural areas

According to the Congressional Research Service, the median age of Congress has increased slowly since 1945, along with the general age of the U.S. population. Joe Biden and Donald Trump both made history for being the oldest people to become president. Six members of the current 119th Congress (including five members of the House and one senator) have died in office, each between the ages of 65 and 80.

At the same time, younger generations are making their way into office. In 2024, 48 of the 61 first-time members of the U.S. House were below its median age of 57.5, with 30 of those first-time members in their 30s or 40s.

Unlike in urban areas, younger generations tend to be absent from the ballot in rural Oklahoma. This could in part be explained by the fact that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, compared with urban counties, rural counties have a lower share of the working-age population and a higher share of people older than 60.

This combination means that rural communities likely have a relatively smaller labor force in their prime working age and a higher need for caregivers of both younger and older people. It also makes running for office much harder, especially when local government positions in small communities are more likely to be unpaid or have a modest stipend.

Defining “rural” and “urban” is difficult in places like Oklahoma. According to the United States Census Bureau urban areas are those that “encompass at least 2,000 housing units or have a population of at least 5,000.” Rural areas are everywhere else.

Other agencies like the USDA use the terms “metro” and “nonmetro” to describe urban and rural areas. The 2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes identified 59 out of Oklahoma’s 77 counties as nonmetro. While the terms rural and nonmetro are not completely interchangeable, nonmetro counties are commonly used to depict rural and small town trends.

Understanding these definitions is important to understanding the age demographics of the Oklahoma State Legislature. 

The legislature is made up of the 101 members of the House of Representatives and 48 members of the Senate. The age requirement to run for the House is 21 and for the Senate, 25. Despite these low age requirements, there has been a lack of Gen Z candidates running for office in rural areas.

Patrick Snell, 23, is one Gen Z elected official who was motivated to run for office to help improve his community and change the economic conditions he grew up in. Snell serves as a city councilman in Stonewall, Oklahoma, population 445. Snell was nominated to the City Council in February of this year.

“During my time on the City Council, we have made significant progress on long-needed infrastructure and community improvements,” he says. noting upgrades to Stonewall’s sewer system and improved water-supply capabilities.

Snell’s reason for running for office? He says he believed that his town deserved leadership that is active, accessible and focused on getting things done. Younger generations see the need for fresh leadership, not only in state and federal elections, but in local government too.

Running for office may be an uphill battle for rural candidates, but organizations like Dirtroad Organizing (DO) provide invaluable training for individuals who take on this challenge.

Hannah Cole, 34, is an alum of the Dirtroad Organizing Candidate Cohort program running as a Democrat to be District 86’s next representative in November. According to the organization, the cohort program provides 4 months of one-on-one and group training tailored to rural down ballot candidates.

Cole was born and raised in rural Oklahoma and says that running a campaign in her district has been a challenge. The district of less than 40,000 spans 1,155 square miles in northeastern Oklahoma on the border with Arkansas.

“Door knocking takes longer due to the district being so large and spread out. The lack of up-to-date data from the state party is pitiful,” says Cole. She faces three-term Republican incumbent David Hardin.

When political parties don’t campaign regularly in rural areas, the data quickly become obsolete, making outreach even more difficult.

Cole and her campaign manager went to rural Westville, Oklahoma.

“We planned to knock on 74 doors. We drove to 74 addresses. Twenty of those addresses no longer existed,” she says. “They were homes that had been demolished with new structures built or, they simply ceased to exist, leaving only a vacant lot.”

For candidates like Jasmine Thomas, meeting voters face-to-face is the number one priority, especially in rural Oklahoma. Thomas, 31, is running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate. She hails from Ardmore, population 24,956, in southern Oklahoma.

Thomas won 45% of the vote in the June Democratic primary. She is now in a runoff election against Jim Priest, 70 that will be decided August 25, putting the party’s age divide on full display.

Like Cole, Thomas says that door knocking in rural spaces is challenging. Oklahoma has roughly 85,000 farms and ranches. An estimated 73% of the state’s 45 million acres is used for farming and ranching.

“You have to go through their gates and tread through, sometimes muddy, mile-long driveways in order to speak to your voters,” Thomas says. She adds that boots on the ground grassroots organizing is vital in rural spaces where the internet is less consistent and the distance to campaign events is much farther. As a public servant, she would much rather spend her donations on community organizing to meet her voters where they are, Thomas says.

As a grassroots candidate, Thomas is “expected to fundraise, travel, organize volunteers, navigate filing and compliance, build name recognition and compete against established political and donor networks, often simultaneously,” she says.

“Being young, working class and outside of the traditional political pipeline makes that even more challenging.”

Dirtroad democracy

Leaders like Delaney Fitch, 27, from Lindsay, Oklahoma, are paving the way for more youth civic action in rural Oklahoma through local county parties. Fitch currently serves as the vice chair of the Garvin County Democratic Party. Garvin County has a population of 27,755 and includes 10 small cities within its county boundaries.

Fitch has been an active voter since she turned 18 but had never touched any kind of political organizing until early 2025.

“It’s lonely in rural Oklahoma,” she says. “You feel like your voice is constantly getting drowned out as a Democrat (‘tree-hugging liberal’ as my parents so eloquently put it).” Fitch has learned that “most people, regardless of their party status and whether they vote or not, are on the same page as us—they want affordable housing, accessible health care, and for their neighbors to be safe and taken care of.”

Similar to Fitch, Parker McClary, 21, understands how important it is to show up and be vocal in Oklahoma politics. McClary served as the chair of the Haskell County Democrats for two-and-a-half years, and was the youngest serving chairman of a county party in Oklahoma.

“At first, the title was daunting and a little intimidating to me,” he says. “But being a voice of reason, a voice of opposition, in such a supermajority-controlled part of the state was important for people who felt they did not have a voice.”

McClary says one of the primary motivations came from his experience as a student growing up in Oklahoma.

“As a student in a rural public school, I watched firsthand as teachers worked in deteriorating school buildings under state leadership that disrespected their practice daily,” he says. “All of this while local political interests stood in the way of passing a bond that would help innovate in our community and strengthen our school system to deliver better outcomes for students and the community.”

McClary says his work today as the Campaign and Communications Director for the Oklahoma House Democratic Campaign Committee benefits from his first-hand experience growing up in rural Oklahoma.

“Public advocacy gives people a voice, challenges the status quo, and reminds leaders that the government should work for everyone,” he says.

Alberto Alonso-Sandoval, 27, who serves as treasurer for the Oklahoma Democratic Party, also experienced the impact of politics on his small town life.

“Through canvassing, registering voters, attending local meetings, or simply having conversations with people about upcoming elections, we create opportunities for people to see how much of an impact civic engagement can have,” he says. “I’ve especially seen the value of this in rural communities, where local politics can feel much more personal and where the relationships you build at someone’s front door can have a lasting impact.”

Alonso-Sandoval says that giving young people the confidence and experience to engage with their communities and have conversations with people who may think differently than they do is one of the most important parts of organizing.

“The more opportunities we create for young people to participate in, the more we can build a culture where civic engagement becomes something people actively participate in,” he says.

Civic participation can be seen in local county parties, but also on city committees, such as with Diego Cifuentes, 28, who currently serves as chair of the City of Ada Multiculturalism Committee. Cifuentes first ran for office when he lived in Santa Barbara, California.

“That experience taught me how personal local politics can be and it prepared me for the relationship-based nature of civic engagement in rural Oklahoma,” he says.

As a young person involved in public service, Cifuentes learned that you often have to prove that being young does not equate to inexperience or a lack of commitment. Just like rural voters, he says, “young people want to feel heard before they hear your platform.”

Carly Heitland, 28, is also based in Ada, a small town in Pontotoc County and the home of the Chickasaw Nation. She is the Organizing Manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, running the organization’s Next Gen program. This program provides a space for people ages 14-25 to have the tools needed to take action on the issues they care about.

When she was 16, Heitland says, she wanted nothing more than to have an impact in the Oklahoma political process, but like many of us that grow up in rural areas, the opportunities are often limited.

Much of her advocacy highlights the need for more funding and resources for rural schools and communities. Last April, Heitland led a training in Ada to help community members become better local advocates.

Young rural activists across the state are fighting to have a voice at a table not built for many, but especially not for young people. The work is never-ending, but the outcomes make every event planned, door knocked, speech spoken, and flyer created worth it.

As Hannah Cole puts it, “Folks in rural America are experiencing the same issues as folks in the city, such as affordability, quality education for our children and access to health care.”

Says Heitland: “The systemic difficulty that rural Oklahoma faces is exactly why we need to involve our young people in the democratic process.”

Delanie SealsMore by this author →

Delanie Seals is from Oklahoma and is a proud member of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Sac and Fox Nations. She received her Bachelor’s in Legal Studies and Master’s in Water Resource Policy Management from East Central University. She has served on the City of Ada Multiculturalism Committee and is part of the Harvard Future Leaders in Law Program and the Dirtroad Organizing Candidate Cohort. She was awarded the Oklahoma Native Students in Higher Education 2026 Rising Alumnus Award. Delanie has interned for Oklahoma Representative Mauree Turner, USAID, the Chickasaw Nation District Court, the Chickasaw Nation Office of Natural Resources, Oklahoma Indian Legal Services, the Udall National Center, for U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury, and as a Paralegal for the Chickasaw Nation Public Defender’s Office. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at Oklahoma City Community College, Chair of the Young Democrats of America Indigenous Caucus, and a student at Arizona State University Law. In her small amount of free time, she likes to study languages, read books, and make beaded jewelry.