Tufts has a centuries-old history of political organizing and activism. Fromour campus' ties to abolitionist John Brown in the 19th century tothe Sunrise Movement today, many members of the Tufts community have worked diligently to better our communities and country. For this Election Guide, I talked to three Tufts students about their political organizing, the 2020 election and what brought them to their respective campaigns.
Hannah Kahn (LA'20), sophomore Amanda Westlake and junior Jennifer Best were on the executive board of Tufts for Warren during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. Kahn told me she had no intention of studying politics or getting involved in campaigning when first coming to campus. This all changed when Donald Trump got elected in the fall of her first year at Tufts.
“I fell in love with Elizabeth Warren," Kahn said. "She’s so good at explaining those [progressive policies] and making them accessible to people like me who did not hop from campaign to campaign.”
Kahn started at Tufts as an English major with hopes of working as a political journalist, but her time leading Tufts for Warren brought her to take on the role of press secretary on Dave Cavell’s congressional campaign and eventually do some communications work for Rep. Max Rose.
During her senior year, Kahn led the Tufts for Warren group with then-first-year Amanda Westlake.After Warren dropped out of the presidential race, Westlake got involved with Sen. Ed Markey’s re-election campaign and helped lead the online, student-led digital effort to support him. Westlake is also involved in other forms of organizing, including Tufts’ chapter of the Sunrise Movement.
When asked about how the 2020 campaigns affected her, Westlake explained the importance of making connections in campaigning.
“The way I’ve come to think about organizing is not just as [being] about winning … but also things I think are so important are the stories that we tell and the people we connect with,” she said.
This passion shines through in Westlake’s deeply personalessay about her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis as a cause for her support for Markey, which his campaign paired witha moving digital ad.
Jennifer Best was also involved in the Warren and Markey campaigns. She worked as the communications director for Tufts for Warrenbefore eventually working for Markey’s campaign this past summer. She is currently working on a coordinated Democratic campaign to get Democrats elected across the country.
“[The Markey campaign] taught us how to bring more people into campaigning, which I think is very, very important,” she said. “The Markey campaign did a really, really good job at bringing young people into the picture, and young people were the people who won him the campaign.”
These stories reflect Tufts’ deep-rooted history of civic engagement. From abolitionism to supporting political campaigns to fighting for Earth’s survival, the Tufts community has made impactful change. As thisyear’s campaigns have shown, Gen Z voters have been and will continue to be instrumental in determining the outcome of elections. Kahn, Westlake and Best are living proof that Tufts’ spirit of engagement and activism lives on, unimpeded.
