CHICAGO – Josefine Jaynes, at age 18 took a gap year after high school to run for the state Assembly and try to flip a southwestern GOP seat once held by Democrat Pat Lucey.
That didn’t work out. But now she’s a UW-Madison student from southwestern Wisconsin’s Readstown and part of the Wisconsin delegation to the Democratic National Convention – being inspired by Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
“In 2020 I took a gap year between high school and college, and I actually ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly. I won my primary. We believe that I’m the youngest person to ever win a contested primary in the state of Wisconsin. Lost the general but I mean, it’s a purple seat, but it hasn’t been flipped since Governor Lucey last held it in 1948,” Jaynes said in a WisPolitics-WisconsinEye interview at the DNC.
She remembers 2016.
“Actually, I’ve been reflecting on this a lot being here, especially (Monday) night, seeing Hillary Clinton speaking, because I was always really interested in politics. And then in 2016 I was 14 years old, and I remember watching on TV when Hillary Clinton accepted the nomination, and they had Alicia Keys playing ‘Girl on Fire,’ and they had this fake glass ceiling shatter, and I was certain that I was seeing the first female president speaking. And then that didn’t turn out to be true, and I was absolutely devastated in November. And then (Monday) night, seeing her speak, it finally hit me that I never credited her with why I ran, but the wave of women who got involved after November, 2016 – that’s the wave that I rode to get to where I am today.”
She says 2024 presents a moment for young voters.
“I think for a lot of young people, we came of age politically in 2016, right?… And there was a little bit of excitement about the first female president. And then it was absolute devastation. And since then, it was just consistently – this is the most important election of your lifetime. It’s democracy versus fascism. …And it was really scary,” she said. “But we were doing it out of fear, and we’re still scared about what a second Trump presidency could bring and what it could mean for our future. But now I feel mainly motivated by excitement right now.”
Watch the video at WisconsinEye.
