It’s hot election summer — at least according to young Democrats who are organizing behind youthful and progressive candidates in a series of off-year, summertime primaries.
First was Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old state legislator who won New York’s Democratic mayoral primary over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Now, a special election for a vacant congressional seat in southern Arizona is grabbing attention in part because of a young Democrat’s campaign.
After Rep. Raúl Grijalva died in March at 77, Deja Foxx, 25, is gaining ground in the special Democratic primary in Arizona’s 7th District, running on a message of generational change and hoping to leverage support from her almost 400,000 TikTok followers and 240,000 Instagram followers to win. But she doesn’t have a clear path against former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, the late congressman’s daughter, and former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez.
Grijalva, in particular, with her endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., doesn’t give Foxx the same ideological opening that Mamdani exploited in New York. Not only did Grijalva’s father serve the district in Congress for over 20 years, but Hernandez also has siblings who serve in the state House.
Still, the race has become part of a broader nationwide conversation among Democrats about the ages of their party’s elected leaders and the desire for generational change.
‘We need to give young people real leadership’
In an interview last week, Foxx acknowledged that her age has played a role in her campaign messaging and the support she has drawn from young people across the country.
“We have lost ground with young people as a party for the first time in decades ... and it’s not enough to just put our members of Congress on TikTok, right, or brief them on the trends or put mini-mics in their face. We need to give young people real leadership,” Foxx said.
“It’s the thing that people in this party say in every stump speech. They say we need newer and younger leaders, a new generation of leadership — and yet, when an open seat comes up and newer and younger comes around with a decade of advocacy experience and progressive policies, we’ve seen people put their thumb on the scale and pick the more predictable option,” she added.
Age has been a selling point for Foxx with little daylight between her and Grijalva on the issues. Both identify as progressive, and Arizona’s 7th District is heavily Democratic. Whoever wins the Democratic primary Tuesday is likely to win September’s general special election to represent a stretch from Tucson south to the U.S.-Mexico border.
But Grijalva emphasized in an interview this month that experience should matter more than age, dismissing suggestions that she is too old for the job at 54 — which makes her younger than more than half the voting members in the House, according to analysis by the Pew Research Center.
“Respectfully, I’m not old,” she said.
“It’s frustrating to me how experience is being seen as a negative,” she said later in the interview, going on to add: “I’m a little surprised that in a Democratic primary, in a party that really should be working to inform people and not spread misinformation — that was not something that I was prepared for.”
Grijalva’s experience has paid off in the form of connections local and national. In addition to Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, she has also racked up support from Arizona’s Democratic senators, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly; former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her pro-gun control group, Giffords PAC; and EMILY’s List and the League of Conservation Voters.
“This race, the people that have decided to be supportive and endorse — those are endorsements that I have earned,” Grijalva said.
Foxx has won support from former Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg and his group pushing generational change in Democratic primaries, Leaders We Deserve. She didn’t directly address the national figures who have endorsed Grijalva, but she pointed to Grijalva’s late father’s longtime presence in Washington as a reason for the support.
“The 7th Congressional District is one of the youngest districts in Arizona. It’s also largely working-class,” Foxx said. “It’s fair to say that there’s people in this race who have advantages that people like us would never have.”
“I don’t think it’s unfair or even antagonistic to point out the advantages that one candidate might have over another in this race, especially inherited advantages,” she added.
Grijalva pushed back against Foxx’s criticisms, saying her position “is making it appear as if I’m part of some establishment, when the national Democratic Party has not helped me in this race.”
