Young Democrats Are Putting the Party Back in Politics. It’s Working. For decades, young people have been one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal blocs.

That allegiance has crumbled. Eight years ago, 41 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 identified as Democrats. Today, just 28 percent do. Even if Democrats eke out victories in November and in 2028 without large numbers of young people, it won’t be enough to marginalize MAGA or enact ambitious change.

A blue youth wave is possible. It starts by dusting off an old political tool, one that the party has neglected for decades: collective fun. This isn’t the vibes-based joy from Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. It’s a participatory, populist joy that older political machines used to build power, and that some younger politicians, including Michelle Wu and Zohran Mamdani, have begun reviving.

A blue youth wave is possible. It starts by dusting off an old political tool, one that the party has neglected for decades: collective fun. This isn’t the vibes-based joy from Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. It’s a participatory, populist joy that older political machines used to build power, and that some younger politicians, including Michelle Wu and Zohran Mamdani, have begun reviving.

Sweeping the midterms is not enough. To defeat President Trump’s movement and win back young voters, Democrats need a credible vision for how to make everyday life joyful again. Politicians used to understand the power of a good time. A century ago, attracting volunteers and voters often meant hosting a dance with cheap drinks at the neighborhood hall or drawing whole families to a clambake in the park. Tammany Hall was more than a machine; it was a building in Manhattan that had an oyster bar, a ladies’ lounge and a theater, whose performances helped launch vaudeville. One Tammany leader, George Washington Plunkitt, explained how he won over new voters: “Young feller gains a reputation as a baseball player in a vacant lot. I bring him into our baseball club. That fixes him. You’ll find him workin’ for my ticket at the polls next Election Day.” The old political machines could reach into a dense web of communal life. Consider the “sewer socialists” who governed Milwaukee for most years between 1910 and 1960. Before sweeping into City Hall, socialists took the helm of the city’s labor movement and rooted their party in Milwaukee’s choirs, gymnastics clubs and mutual-aid societies. Milwaukee’s first socialist mayor, Emil Seidel, recalled that in their party’s parades, every band in the city marched, and “everybody who had a horn played.” The socialists held carnivals regularly, often drawing over 10,000 people.