Related Articles
The second Trump administration’s opening blitz — of reactionary executive orders, extravagant corruption, mass firings of federal workers, and a plan to slash social services to pay for another tax cut for the wealthiest — is generating a progressive backlash, and creating boom times for those who recruit young people to seek elective office.
Run For Something is a progressive advocacy group, launched at the beginning of Donald Trump’s first administration, that encourages Americans under 40 to launch careers in public service. Through its recruiting and endorsements, Run for Something is geared to help progressives win their first office — think: school board, city council, or state legislature.
The organization seeks to change the local politics where its candidates run, but also to develop a pipeline of young talent that will influence national politics for years to come. Already, some RFS alumni are making a mark nationally on Capitol Hill — including rising Democratic stars like Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first trans member of Congress.
Rolling Stone spoke to Amanda Litman, the president and co-founder of Run for Something, about the group’s surge in potential candidates, the opportunity to recruit laid-off federal workers, and the need to challenge not only the Trump administration, but also old-line Democrats who are unwilling or unable to rise to the demands of this dangerous moment.
The transcript that follows has been edited for length and clarity.
Last we talked — a few weeks before Trump took office — your recruitment numbers were taking off. Has that trend continued?
Yes! As of this morning, we are at over 27,000 people who signed up since Election Day. To add some context: Between the election and inauguration, we had about 13,000 people raise their hands. It’s more than doubled in the seven weeks since. We are imminently going to be exceeding the numbers of people we had sign up in all of 2017 and 2018, combined.
Do you have breakdowns for what level of office, and where?
Most of these people are coming to us for local office. We have people in every state. We’re seeing people from urban, rural, suburban, exurban areas — everywhere. It’s about 70 percent people under the age of 40. It’s been a little more women than men.
I just saw that Run For Something posted a training for federal workers who’ve been ousted in this Trump/DOGE purge. Tell me about that opportunity.
We have seen organic interest from laid-off federal employees. We know this based on where the web traffic is coming from — Reddit or social media conversations about federal employees getting laid off and wanting to run for office. Basically every time there’s been another agency that has cut workers, we’ve seen more people signing up.
We wanted to put together programming specifically for them. So the next candidate intro call we’re hosting will have a track specifically for laid-off federal employees. And that will be March 25, in a couple weeks.
What about this population makes a good fit?
They’re people who are interested in public service. And we think they have a compelling campaign message: ‘Donald Trump fired me for trying to fight for the American people. I’m not going to let that stop me.’ They can speak to the impact that these cuts will have on the community, because they know the impact of their work. And a lot of them have been subject to restrictions previously. They’d tell us: ‘I would love to run, but my employer does not allow it for conflict of interest.’ So this is your time. We’re really glad we can serve in this moment.
Run for Something also had a big surge in 2017 and 2018. What has that original pipeline developed that makes you excited for what’s happening now?
We already have five alum who are serving in Congress: Jasmine Crockett, Emily Randall, Yasmin Ansari, Sarah McBride, and Suhas Subramanyam. We already have two alum who are running for statewide office in Colorado, Brianna Titone and Amanda Gonzalez, who are, respectively, running for treasurer and secretary of state.
My expectation is that we will have many, many more of our alum running for either Congress or statewide office in 2026, as these races start kicking off. I have also personally — outside of Run for Something’s work — heard from at least a half dozen twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings who are going to be challenging older members of Congress, in part inspired by the work Run for Something does and the discourse that we’ve been having.
We’ve already seen many of our elected officials do really good shit when they get elected. The work is working. That is the best part of this. It’s taken us eight years to get to this point. Thank God that Run for Something has made it through some of the harder times over the last couple years. Because imagine if we didn’t exist this past November, December, January. What would folks do? Where would this energy go? It would be lost. That’s why it is so important to build infrastructure for moments like this — when you need it.
What does the local focus of Run for Something enable in a time when the national tides are so challenging?
Local offices are the only places where you are seeing meaningful progress. In the last couple of months, we’ve seen a bunch of Run for Something alum across the country push forward meaningful gun safety legislation. Cambridge, outside Boston, just passed huge zoning reform that’s going to make housing more affordable in the area, which will have downstream effects across the greater Boston area. These are the only kinds of places we’re going to get good governance in the next four years.
More broadly: We have already seen local leaders push back on Trump: The sheriff in Washtenaw County in Michigan, the mayor of Alexandria, Virginia, and others say, ’We’re not going to let our local law enforcement work with ICE. We’re not going to cooperate.’ We’ve seen the New Mexico State legislature push forward legislation around not allowing them to enter schools or places of worship. That really matters in terms of fighting back.
I also think over the next 18 months, every local election, is a chance to show the Republican Party that their bullshit has electoral consequences. Democrats flipped an Iowa state Senate seat where Trump won by 21 points. That’s big. That’s the kind of thing that can help build momentum for winning bigger next year.
There’s a debate about how to message against what Trump and Elon Musk are doing. Some top Democratic leaders these days sound like they trained on a large language model of John Kerry speeches or something — robotic and very inorganic. The couple times that we’ve spoken I’ve been impressed with your willingness to literally call ‘bullshit,’ when appropriate. How does Run for Something approach the challenge of how to communicate in this era.
One of the things I love about working with younger candidates is they don’t have to be taught this. They’re comfortable and fluent with using online social media channels to communicate, because that’s how we live. It’s not like teaching grandma how to use Instagram.
We encourage people to tap into what they’re genuinely thinking and feeling. If you are mad about something that the government is doing, or something that Trump is doing, say it. If you have a concrete solution, propose it. Speak genuinely, communicate authentically. Our candidates and our elected officials, the alumni we’ve helped elect over the years, they are not being shy about acknowledging that this modern Republican Party is not on the level. They’re not good-faith partners in governance. We should not treat them as such. And that calling them out, holding them accountable, creating a little spectacle when possible, serves our larger goals of ultimately winning elections, which helps us win power and then do good things with that power.
You mentioned people running against older members of Congress. Does that include primarying Jurassic Democrats?
Sure does. We’re going to see some really fun, interesting candidates and compelling campaigns. Again — this is all in my personal capacity. Run for Something doesn’t work on congressional races. But since I run my mouth about this stuff online a lot, I hear from people. It’s something I’m really excited about, too — to force some generational turnover and a generational shift in power. That will be a net good for the Democratic Party. Primaries are good. Primaries are how we decide who we are and what we believe. And if the incumbents are doing a good job, they should have nothing to worry about.
So Run for Something doesn’t shy away from challenging incumbent Democrats either?
No, we have had a number of our candidates take on incumbent Democrats in red states, blue states, purple states. When they win, it is almost always because the incumbent was not fully reflecting or serving the community. If the incumbent was doing a good job, they wouldn’t lose the primary.
Are there other pathways or other pipelines that you’re trying to develop?
One of our bigger priorities is Gen Z, writ large — 18- to 28-year-olds — making sure we’re bringing them in. We’re also thinking about how we get more renters to run for office, as we think about how we can tackle the housing crisis. I’m really excited about that.
But mission-wise, your focus is under 40?
We exclusively target — especially with our endorsement program — folks 40 and under. Once you’ve signed up with us and you’re in the pipeline, we have a lot of research resources that are available to folks of all ages and all backgrounds, but we do focus our endorsement work on millennials and Gen Z.
Explain the process for someone getting started.
When you sign up with Run for Something — go to our website to say, I’m thinking about running for office — you’ll get invited to an introduction conference call, which we host every month. We talk about the same questions that every first time candidate has: How do I know what office to run for? How much money do I need to raise? What if I win? What if I lose?
Then you might have a one-on-one with one of our volunteers, where we help you figure out how to navigate Run for Something’s resources. You’ll start getting emails and text messages from our team, which will include trainings that either we or our partners are hosting; stories about alumni that we’ve worked with who are running or serving; new guides that we put together, that kind of thing.
And how does a candidate earn an endorsement?
Once you have filed to get on the ballot — and we have materials to help you do that — you can apply for our endorsement. And that’s where we do a rigorous deep-dive screen. Our endorsement application is public, so anyone can access it. We want to know your campaign plan, your budget, your win number, how you’re going to get from A to Z, the vision that you’re advocating for your community.
We have a set of value statements we want you to align with and tell us how they show up in your campaign. That’s where we really look at background checks. We want to make sure that you’re being honest with us about what we’re going to find. We’re looking for the best of the best. And we endorse about half of the people who apply.
And then endorsements are when our campaigns team will work closely with your team as a candidate. That might look like helping you get access to the voter file. It might look like prepping you for a forum or a debate. We’ll review plans. We’ll make vendor recommendations.
Endorsed candidates are who we recommend to press for interviews, who we promote on social media. We connect them to people we’ve endorsed in previous cycles, who’ve run in similar races to help build some community. And then endorsed candidates are the people who we track through to election day. So when we talk about the nearly 1,500 people we’ve helped elect, that’s of our endorsed candidates.
We know that many, many more have come through the Run for Something pipeline and ultimately run for office. We just focus our staff time and resources on those endorsed folks.
How long does it take for someone to go from signing up to getting on the ballot?
The median person spends about 310 days in our pipeline — between signing up and actually filing for an endorsement, which is the next point at which we can really know that they’re running. So people signing up this year, they’re going to be the people running in 2026, for the most part. And I think that is good, because I think we’re gonna be able to win really big next year if we cultivate good talent and help give them the resources to succeed.
Can you tell me a bit more about how you resource people, what the team that you connect them to looks like?
It’s really, what does the candidate need? And how can we help find it or provide it ourselves? So over the years, that’s looked like things like guides on how to file to get on the ballot in every state. One of the big things we put together is candidate safety support — so working with experts on how to help candidates set up their campaigns so that their home address is not on the internet. Put together stuff for parents of young kids running for office. We wanted to make sure we could support people in that stage of life, with materials and support services.
Anything else that you want readers to know about Run for Something right now?
One of the best things that people can do to support our work is to make a donation. The candidate demand is so high, and we are trying to make sure we can meet it. Every dollar goes to that kind of work, and monthly money goes a long way for us right now.
