The national youth engagement director for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign discussed youth engagement in elections and political campaigns at the Elliott School of International Affairs on Thursday.

Eve Levenson — the head of the Students for Biden initiative, who graduated from GW with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2022 and a master’s in public administration in 2023 —  said the campaign is working to mobilize young voters ahead of this year’s elections. Levenson’s keynote was part of the Blue Wave Forum, a networking event hosted by the GW College Democrats to connect students with professionals in the political space. 

Levenson said she began her work in politics in high school interning with Jewish World Watch, a nonprofit dedicated to helping survivors of genocide and mass atrocities, which taught her about how lobbying organizations operate. She said did not realize the power of young people to create political change until she successfully lobbied Representative Ted Lieu (CA-36) for legislation to address mass atrocities.

“The impact that we can have is really significant. It also showed me that value of like intergenerational work,” Levenson said.  

After the Parkland school shooting in 2018, Levenson joined the gun violence prevention organization, March For Our Lives, and rose up the ranks to be its policy and government affairs manager. She said the Parkland shooting illustrated both the tragedy of gun violence and the positive response from elected officials to youth organizing to prevent future shootings.

“We saw people respond to young people speaking out and really like listening to them and giving them that platform,” Levenson said.

Levenson said she continued gun violence prevention advocacy once she began studying at GW in 2018 and training members to lobby elected officials and connect them with political campaigns for the March For Our Lives chapters in the Mid-Atlantic region. She said she took her fall 2020 semester off during the COVID-19 pandemic to devote her time to working on political campaigns, which prepared her to work for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign.

“A lot of my work has really focused on how we build coalitions and partnerships within the youth space and really like bridging some of those gaps and that is a lot of what I think led me to my current job,” Levenson said. 

She said the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign is working to create more opportunities for youth to continue to get involved in the campaign, including contacting voters.

Levenson said in an interview with NPR earlier this month that the Students for Biden initiative is creating volunteer chapters in high schools and colleges across the United States to engage in “relational organizing,” as well as informing young voters about the strides made by the Biden-Harris administration.   

She said she makes sure the campaign is doing intentional voter outreach to young people — who hold immense power in this upcoming presidential election — with campaign materials and messaging.

“This is obviously an extremely important election, we also know that young people are going to be very decisive this election,” Levenson said.