As President Joe Biden faces calls from within his own party to end his reelection campaign following a stumbling debate performance, some of Illinois’ youngest delegates say they’re still sticking with the oldest U.S. president ever elected.
For 23-year-old Christopher Espinoza, the time for critiques can come after Biden’s reelection is assured.
“The President doesn’t have to be your best friend and is never going to be your best friend. He’s never going to make everyone happy,” Espinoza said. “Once he’s elected to a second term, then we can have conversations about what he can do better to improve and that’s room for constructive criticism.”
With the specter of another Donald Trump presidency, some of Illinois’ young delegates argue the stakes are simply too high to question Biden’s qualifications and sow fractions within the Democratic Party.
If Biden were to step aside, the prospect of an open convention to pick a new Democratic nominee, “would just be a lot of opportunity for a little bit of chaos, which is just something we don’t really need right now,” said Alex Zapien, a 26-year-old Lockport Township delegate.
“I view everything as big decisions on a chess board. So the way I see it is we’re not just voting, again, on one person to become president,” Zapien said. “We’re looking at all the decisions that they’re going to make, and the platform they’re running.”
A third delegate, Claire Satkiewicz, a 19-year-old college sophomore from Northbrook, declined to comment this week on Biden’s debate performance and calls for him to step aside, saying delegates had been instructed “to avoid press right now.”
Democratic Illinois U.S. Reps. Mike Quigley, Brad Schneider and Eric Sorensen have now called on Biden to step aside.
Even as top Illinois Democrats like Gov. JB Pritzker have publicly stood firm by Biden – Pritzker, who is on many short lists as a possible Biden replacement, was caught on a hot mic Wednesday appearing to express his private worries about Biden’s campaign.
Recent polls show young voters are especially concerned about Biden’s age – even before Biden’s halting debate performance kicked off a firestorm of scrutiny. The University of Chicago’s latest GenForward survey conducted in May showed among the 18 to 26 year olds surveyed, roughly 76% said they were somewhat or very concerned that Biden’s age will affect his ability to serve a second term. In the same age group, about 49% of 18 to 26 year olds were very or somewhat concerned about Trump’s age.
But for Satkiewicz, her support of the Democratic Party comes down to feeling like it will do the best job of protecting her rights.
“Although I am voting Democratic, my values don’t match the Democratic Party perfectly,” Satkiewicz said in an interview last month. “I don’t think anyone aligns perfectly with any party, but I would definitely feel the most safe with a Democratic president.”
Fights at the local school board
Despite their support for Biden, the young delegates interviewed by WBEZ said they still want to see the party move in new directions.
While campaigning for the District 99 Board of Education in Downers Grove, Espinoza was eager to talk to voters about how the school district could better support students, like himself. At the time he announced his candidacy in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Espinoza was just 20 years old, working full-time while attending University of Illinois Chicago and wanted to be a voice for low-income students who were the first in their family to navigate college.
Instead, he was often met with distrust – sometimes by parents of the kids he had grown up going to school with.
“All anybody wanted to talk about was, ‘Do you support masks in school? Are you a liberal plant? Do you support the insurrection?’ And it became heavily politicized when I wasn’t really prepared for that,” Espinoza said.
The nationalization of politics was showing up in force in Downers Grove, even in a typically quiet, nonpartisan school board race. It escalated after Espinoza was elected. The school board faced heated votes on whether to rescind the district’s mask mandate and calls to ban the graphic novel “Gender Queer” – which has topped the American Library Association’s challenged books for three years straight – that even drew the Proud Boys to protest it.
Protests became personal, with school board members facing threats and even followed home.
“Can I stand waking up every day to messages that I should kill myself? That’s hard to deal with, even if you’re aware that it’s nonsense,” Espinoza said. “We’re the closest punching bag, if you will.”
The experience has left Espinoza with a greater appreciation for the weight of the decisions local officials are entrusted with. But it’s also left a distaste for the 24-hours news cycle and vitriol and dysfunction of national politics. He hopes the Democratic Party will hear at the convention from local elected officials how tired voters are of the chaos, which he credits Republicans as largely fueling.
“The things that Republicans do well is they address the fear that those people have,” Espinoza said. “They address the fact that even though the economy is doing well, the little guys at the bottom here are still suffering. And I think the Democrats need to better address the fact that we might be doing well but not all of us are doing well. And how can we then bring all of us up together?”
The economy and issues of housing security are some of young voters’ top concerns heading into the November election. Espinoza praised Biden’s efforts to reduce student loan debt, and said focusing on economic issues in a more tangible way for everyday voters will transcend party lines.
Reinstating abortion rights at the federal level
While each presidential election is often described as the most important of a voter’s lifetime, Zapien said it’s a cliche that rings true for him.
“I’d argue that every single presidential election is the most important one of our lifetimes,” Zapien said. “Whether we see it as just one more person being in office for four more years, the decisions that will come, especially from that Supreme Court, will take place and have effects for generations to come.”
It’s in part why Zapien staunchly supports Biden, in order to shape the U.S. Supreme Court to one day reinstate Roe v. Wade and pass protections in Congress that would codify a right to abortion at a federal level. Illinois has emerged as a safe haven for abortion rights, with nearby states’ abortion bans fueling a rise in high-risk patients traveling to Illinois hospitals. At last month’s debate, Biden faltered when asked about abortion.
“A strong response to make sure that the Democratic Party is undoubtedly standing behind abortion is very important,” Zapien said. “I feel like actions speak louder than words. I know President Biden has supported abortion, which is a little bit different than what he did in the debate. We would expect a bit of a stronger response, but the actions he’s taken certainly align with the Democratic Party.”
As a fourth-grader, Zapien would spend nights quizzing his father on U.S. history and civics to help his dad prepare for his upcoming exam to become a U.S. citizen. Zapien, who immigrated from Mexico when he was one-and-half years old, became a citizen himself in high school and went on to volunteer as a civics instructor for others.
“But after a couple of years… there almost became a sort of stigma to it, that I was helping people who didn’t deserve to become citizens,” Zapien said.
It was through his volunteering and political work that Zapien saw he could have the most immediate impact on his community, like starting a free mental health service for township residents. Zapien was 25 when he was appointed Lockport Township’s supervisor, which he said made him the youngest to hold the position in Illinois. It also means Zapien, now 26, is often working with people older than himself.
“I don’t see that as two opposing forces, I see those as two different sides of the same coin, where we team up youth and ambition, and we team that up with wisdom and guidance,” Zapien said.
“So whereas I would tell young people to be open and receptive to say, ‘Hey, I know we feel like our voice isn’t being heard. But there are still people, public servants who are open to speak with you.’ And for that, I’d also push to some of our more veteran public servants to say, ‘Hey look, at least just sit down and have a conversation with us. I know that at times, it may seem like we have a lot of energy, but we can channel that energy in the correct way.’”
Concerns over book bans
Growing up with parents whose political views lean more conservative than hers, Satkiewicz would put her high school debate team skills to use around the dinner table during family discussions on political issues.
“It’s definitely easy to get mad. I would definitely be lying if I said I haven’t stormed off to my room a few times, and just like put my fingers in my ears,” Satkiewicz recalled.
Now a rising sophomore at Northeastern University in Boston majoring in politics, philosophy and economics, it’s those discussions that helped shape her to think independently and value skepticism and research when it comes to her politics.
“I think that freedom to think for yourself and to express the values that align with your morals, that’s what makes America special,” Satkiewicz said. “Our ability to be able to be critical of our politicians and to demand certain things that we want to see in our country.”
It’s what motivated her to get involved in the local school board races as a high school sophomore and campaign against candidates that were pushing forward book bans and anti-LGBTQ policies.
“Those threats were very scary to me,” Satkiewicz said. “It was a way to see how politics would have very directly and concretely impacted my experience as a student.”
Education is an area where she hopes to see Biden implement more protections at a federal level to push back on red states’ restrictions, like Florida’s attempt to limit instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation last year.
“When we see a restriction on certain types of content, like banning books or free expression, etc., you’re limiting the scope of knowledge that people can have,” Satkiewicz said. “And it’s really important for high schoolers, especially when they start to develop their own beliefs and morals and values, to have all of the resources that they need at their disposal.”
It will be Satkiewicz, Zapien and Espinoza’s first convention, and all three said the weight of the moment isn’t lost on them.
“Regardless, it’ll be a historic event. You’re nominating the oldest sitting president, the oldest candidate for president that we’ve had,” Espinoza said. “And it’ll be at least something to tell the grandkids about.”
Tessa Weinberg covers Chicago government and politics for WBEZ.
