Two Young Democrats Who Ran for Central Committee Talk Youth Turnout on Election Night

Milan van Dam, national chair of the High School Democrats of America and a member of the Democratic National Committee’s executive committee, and Samir Ahmed, chairman of the Maryland High School Democrats, according to their Instagram profiles, talked with Moderately MOCO on election night about young people in politics. Ahmed also worked on Will Jawando’s campaign for County Executive. Both ran for the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee in this year’s primary.

The interview is also on Facebook and Instagram. Interview by Jason Makstein for Moderately MOCO.

Who they are

Milan van Dam ran for the central committee’s District 15 seats. In his Moderately MOCO candidate introduction in May, he said he was serving “on the Executive Board of the Montgomery County Young Democrats and on the DNC’s Youth Council.”

Samir Ahmed ran for an at-large seat on the committee. His candidate introduction in April pointed to his role “as the Vice Chair of the Maryland High School Democrats.”

‘A seat at the table’

Asked how it felt to run, the two talked about young people’s role in this year’s campaigns. One of them said “so many of these campaigns were run by young people, were powered by young people.”

“We ran for office because we are young people,” one of them said. “We believe that we want a seat at the table, right? Like young people deserve to have a say in the future of this country.”

Early voting by young people

Talking about early voting in Montgomery County, one of them put the increase among 18-to-24-year-olds at “something like 153 percent.” “We were at 2,000 just four years ago, and we’re at 5,000 now,” he said. Moderately MOCO has not verified those figures.

‘Definitely get involved’

Van Dam closed with a message for young viewers. “If you’re a young person watching this, I know a lot of your viewers are probably on the younger side. Definitely get involved,” he said. “It’s never too late, never too early.”

“Whether or not you want to be involved in politics, politics wants to be involved in your life,” he said.

The primary results

In the Democratic Central Committee race for District 15, where voters could choose up to two candidates, van Dam finished fifth of five with 2,191 votes (10.55%), according to the State Board of Elections’ official primary results for Montgomery County.

In the at-large race, where voters could choose up to eight candidates, Ahmed finished 11th of 14 with 38,665 votes (6.39%) and did not win a seat, according to the same page.

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