Meet the 20-year-old Democrat running a multimillion-dollar PAC aimed at Gen Z – NBC New York

From his “war room” decorated with political paraphernalia and “great memes” at his mother’s South Jersey home, 20-year-old David Austin collected almost $18 million for his super PAC trying to reach Gen Z voters like him by arguing that it takes a young person to connect with young people.

“You need real young people,” said Austin, founder ForwardBlue. “And that’s part of what a lot of these larger organizations are missing. Their employees are significantly older than the generations they are trying to reach, and they rely on historical best practices that may not apply to the way this generation communicates.”

Austin first became involved in politics as a teenager in high school, spurred by former President Donald Trump’s first reelection campaign nearly a decade ago. He says he has since devoted as much time as possible to politics, putting off college and giving up typical teenage activities.

“After school, I spent every free minute volunteering for my state party, creating websites for Democrats, doing whatever I could,” he said. “My friends were playing sports, playing in band, playing video games for hours after school, and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m volunteering for the Democrats.’

After school, Austin worked on the re-election campaign of Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, and last year founded ForwardBlue, which received an influx of donations around the time Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the party’s nominee. Austin says the group currently has about 500,000 donors and has reached 3.5 million voters.

The group has so far spent $6 million targeting voters ages 18 to 24 in Maryland, Montana, Ohio, where the three most important Senate races will be held this year, and presidential battlegrounds Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. and the Senate.

What sets the group apart from other pro-democracy groups trying to reach young people is not just its message, but how it delivers it, Austin said. Using “everything but TV,” they send text messages and digital ads in nontraditional places such as video games and the gay-friendly dating app Grindr, as well as public places in and around college campuses, such as bus stops and dorm hallways.

While the themes are similar to those used in advertising for the general population (cost of living, abortion, and fentanyl addiction in some places), the tone is different. Austin said the key is to avoid the “cringe factor” that often occurs when older people try to speak the language of youth, and to tailor the message to the life experiences of young people.

For example, he said that while abortion is a major motivator for young people, he believes that “dark abortion content”—advertising that highlights, sometimes graphically, the personal harm caused by abortion bans—can turn off young people who not used to abortions. see unpleasant content in their feeds and are unlikely to have personal experience with pregnancy or family planning.

However, their best test is the unaffordability of housing.

“The rent is too damn high,” Austin said, meaning political moment that went viral when he was in first grade. “Young people want to move out of their parents’ home, which may seem unattainable right now.”

But Austin, who can’t even officially drink yet, is keeping his war room at his mom’s house, at least for now.

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