Hey guys, it's Rachel Jambaza here at The Bullwork, welcoming you to another episode of the Focus Group podcast.

Sarah Longwell is on the road this week with the Bullwork Live shows, but she'll be back next week.

A couple weeks ago, when Ed Ellison was on this show, he noted with a bit of outrage that the young men we listened to in our focus groups were complaining about the state of the country, but many of them hadn't voted in 2024.

But that didn't mean they didn't care about the political issues of the day. They did care, in fact, a lot.

We're going to talk about why so many of these young people have chosen to sit out of electoral politics and the nut that both political parties still have to crack to turn out more of them.

My guest today is like me, Jen Z, and she is hyper-political.

In fact, she's one of the most buzzed about political operatives in America today.

Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. Anderson, thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks for having us, Rachel. We're excited about it. And thank you for the kind introduction,

much too kind, to be honest. No, not too kind. It's true. And before we hear from the young men and

women that we spoke to, I actually want to start with you because your background is quite interesting,

and we've also known each other for a while. And so I'd love to get a chance for you to tell

everyone a bit more about yourself. There's this awfully outdated trope that young people

don't care about politics, that they're not engaged in politics, and even if some of them

aren't voting, they do care and they care a lot, and you're a prime example of that. So can you walk

us through your background and why you decided to get involved in

this role in particular as chair of the North Carolina and Democratic Party? I was on a college

campus this last week actually, so I got to go and speak with UNCG and NC State. And so both of the two

political science classes there that I've talked with. And so both of them are two of our UNC system schools in North Carolina, which means that we have a university system. And

honestly, how I got involved with politics for the first time was by going to college. And I

know that people hear that trope often, but I'm from a rural part of North Carolina. And so

Roxborough is where I grew up. It's a little tiny town

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