CHRISTY MATTHEWS considers herself the Leslie Knope of Bristol.
And she says she loves her hometown just as much as Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat from Pawnee, Indiana, on NBC’s Parks and Recreation. That’s why the 21-year-old wanted to run for state representative in the 77th District.
“I’m sorry, I’m so nervous, this is the most excited I’ve ever been in my entire life,” Matthews told the city’s Democratic town committee when she announced her candidacy in February.
Matthews is among the youngest of a handful of twentysomethings running for seats in the state House and Senate this fall. She sees her campaign as a bellwether of a generation of millennials prepared to get more involved in the political process.
According to a January Rock the Vote/USA Today poll, 60 percent of millennials (18 to 35 years old) said they would vote in the upcoming presidential election. If that holds true, it will surpass the roughly 50-percent turnout in the 2008 and 2012 elections.
But millennials are getting involved in their communities and the political process in other ways. Polls show that generation to be more likely to volunteer or join a civic organization. It’s how Matthews got her start, working with the city’s West End Association.
“People are taking their activism and their involvement and they’re…finding ways to make that real and lasting legislative difference,” she said.
At 32, Rep. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, is among the old guard of the millennials in Hartford. He was first elected in 2008.
“When I ran, I was the youngest elected official in Hartford, and there was a relatively small class of young people elected that year,” he said.