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By Alex J. Rouhandeh
National Political Correspondent
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The Democratic National Committee (DNC) unveiled a new effort to improve its standing among America’s youth that it believes will translate to electoral success in the 2026 midterm elections.
In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, New York State Senator James Skoufis announced creation of the DNC’s National Youth Coordinated Table (NYCT), which he will chair. The group consists of the Young Democrats of America, the College Democrats of America, the High School Democrats of America and an array of left-leaning organizing groups.
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Skoufis said the NYCT was formed at the request of DNC Chair Ken Martin to combat GOP gains in the 2024 election. During that cycle, President Donald Trump won 47 percent of the 18- to 29-year-old vote, an 11 percent increase from his 2020 total, according to the Tufts University Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). This happened, Skoufis said, because Trump promised young Americans a better future and made it clear he’d fight for that vision, even if it meant disrupting the status quo.
By creating this group, Skoufis believes the DNC will better align its priorities with the desires of young voters and improve its approach to communicating with them. The effort represents the first time the DNC has brought these organizations together under one committee. Together, they will draft a formal strategy that the DNC plans to endow with future resources.
“This is an effort to break down silos,” Skoufis told Newsweek. “All of these various youth organizing groups aligned with the Democratic Party have often sort of done their own thing, but this is the first time that we're looking to bring everyone under one umbrella to maximize efficiencies, make sure we're not wasting resources, we're not being redundant, and that we're all rowing in the same direction with best practices.”
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Skoufis, 38, was first elected to public office as a 25-year-old when he became the youngest member of the New York State Assembly by winning a previously Republican-held seat. Though he joked he’s now an “old Democrat” (the Young Democrat cutoff age is 36), Skoufis said his desire to get involved with Democratic youth organizing came after witnessing Trump’s 2024 electoral gains.
While campaigning for what he acknowledges was a “long-shot” bid for DNC chair earlier this year, Skoufis built relationships with young DNC members and became acquainted with their feelings toward the party. He ultimately ended his candidacy and endorsed Martin, who he found held similar passion for the issue of youth engagement. As a young man, Martin founded two Young Democrats of America state chapters in Kansas and Minnesota, and as chair, he's emphasized the strengthening of state Democratic Party chapters.
I published a three-part series for Newsweek in August that examined Gen Z’s shift to the right and how education and gender played a role in that divide as more men and non-college-educated voters backed Trump. The final piece in that series focused on Gen Z Democrats who insisted the DNC must prioritize its grassroots organizing to understand and win back young voters.
Creation of the NYCT appears to be a push to do just that.
Despite Democratic enthusiasm, however, the former chair of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council was unimpressed. Eighteen-year-old Brilyn Hollyhand, who maintains a vocal presence online and on college campuses since concluding his term as chair, sees the effort as a bandage being placed over the Democratic Party's broken platform that remains encumbered by uninspiring leadership.
“The Democrats are desperate,” he told Newsweek. “After we broke their monopoly on our generation, they’ve lit tens of millions of dollars on fire to study my peers and I like we’re aliens. I’ll save them all the time and money and answer their golden question for free: They lost us because they labeled our masculinity toxic, called us Hitler Jr., and their closing pitch the week of the election was to label us all garbage. They had four years to make life easier for my generation and somehow managed to make it even worse. There’re not enough influencers or talking point memos in the world that can win them back Gen Z.”
According to the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School Fall 2025 Youth Poll, congressional Democrats remain less popular than Trump among voters ages 18-29. Trump, though, only holds a 29 percent approval rating compared to the 27 percent of congressional Democrats. However, Trump’s rating has dropped 2 points since the last poll while the Democrats saw a 4-point increase. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans hold a 26 percent approval rating, which sat 3 points higher in the spring.
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The left will need to bank on that momentum continuing heading into the next cycle because at the moment, political observers on both sides acknowledge that the right’s primary youth organizing force remains unparalleled in American politics.
Republicans and Democrats alike acknowledge that the left has no comparable organization to Turning Point USA, the conservative advocacy group founded by the late activist Charlie Kirk, which Trump administration officials acknowledged played a pivotal role in mobilizing young voters around their cause. Since Kirk’s assassination, that organization has seen a historic wave of donations, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
Skoufis said the NYCT is not being created in response to Turning Point but that its efforts may be able to replicate some of the civic opportunities that organization provides. One of the core pillars of the effort will include a fellowship program aimed at preparing “hundreds if not more” young Americans to engage in Democratic campaigning and activist efforts. The fellowship will launch in a few months and be characterized by paid training from the DNC and organizations that sit at the Youth Table.
Along with the three aforementioned Democratic youth wings, those organizations include Swing Left, NextGen America, Voters of Tomorrow, the NAACP Youth & College Division, Student Turnout Project, Rise Free, Blue Future and Grassroots Democrats HQ.
These organizations joined together to initiate these efforts for the first time over the weekend at the DNC’s winter meeting in Los Angeles, where the DNC also launched a job bank to connect young people to campaign positions across the country. Skoufis said the NYCT will continue meeting monthly, both virtually and likely in-person at the spring DNC meeting.
“I think the really great thing about this is that when you bring folks together in this way, you very quickly start exposing gaps that exist in the ecosystem,” DNC National Political Director Shelby Wiltz, 33, told Newsweek. “While each of these organizations has to go out and execute on their own missions, their own priorities and strategies, what we are attempting to do is figure out where we can collectively have the most impact and implement that plan.”
One gap that Wiltz said the DNC has already identified is its lack of a Democratic auxiliary group dedicated to reaching college-age Americans who are not enrolled in school. As college-educated voters have increasingly moved toward the Democratic Party, non-college-educated voters have moved away. College Democrats of America President Sunjay Muralitharan, 21, told Newsweek that Gen Z Americans in and out of college struggle to find “third spaces” to supplement the communities they have at home and work/school.
He believes if the NYCT can find a way to provide that, it could bring Americans who’ve become distrustful and disillusioned with the Democratic Party into its fold. In my experience covering young voters, I’ve found distrust in institutions, like political parties, as among the overwhelming factors swinging persuadable voters one way or the other, or ultimately pushing them to stay home come Election Day.
Trump’s candidacy demonstrated a willingness to disrupt institutions while the campaigns of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris positioned the Democratic Party as the defender of institutions. As young people face economic uncertainties in a media environment that rewards authenticity, the NYCT will need to show an awareness of these realities and that its engagement opportunities do not just reward Democratic politicians but also the young people they're seeking to court.
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