Last month, the College Democrats of America held their largest convention in over a decade in Washington, D.C. Like their College Republican counterparts, College Democrats are often thought of as Democratic Party mouthpieces, mere conduits used to pass down Democratic National Committee messaging to college students.
But the College Dems’ reputation as wannabe apparatchiks vying for lanyard-wielding roles in Washington has faded. The CDA once hosted party moderates like Hillary Clinton and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who firmly stated nearly a decade ago that “the Democratic Party is not a socialist party.” But new student leaders convened in a strikingly different environment this summer.
As the country closes in on early voting and the November elections, there’s a major shift under way in the Democratic Party from New York to Michigan to Colorado. Many voters have moved away from Democrats who take money from AIPAC, corporations, or data centers in favor of progressives and democratic socialists prioritizing universal health care, affordability, and an end to military support for Israel. And that shift is also happening in the CDA.
The story of the new look College Democrats of America begins with Gaza. The organization took a firm stance in support of the 2024 college encampment protests, releasing a statement calling Israel’s assault on Gaza “destructive, genocidal, and unjust.” “We tapped into a lot of energy,” CDA President Sohali Vaddula, a rising senior at Brown University, said. “The statement resonated with how our members felt about the Biden administration, how the party’s not going in the right direction, and genuinely how young people are being silenced, quite literally and figuratively.”
Students gave headliners, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, the Palestinian American who was denied a slot to speak at the 2024 DNC convention, uproarious standing ovations with every mention of AIPAC and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Three of the four House members invited to the convention—Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) Jason Crow (D-CO), and John Mannion (D-NY)—voted yes on outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) recent amendment to cut off aid to Israel. Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) did not, but told the Prospect that he supports cutting military aid and that “there are better ways of conditioning support for Israel, which I believe we should do.”
The party’s rising leaders didn’t mince words on Israel’s influence in American politics. Melat Kiros came to town fresh off her upset primary victory over Rep. Diana DeGette, a 30-year incumbent and staunch supporter of Israel in Colorado’s First Congressional District. Kiros, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, was initially inspired after she experienced the student encampments. “It’s frankly the thing that brought me back into the political sphere,” she said.
Kiros’s candidacy prompted the highest youth turnout since 2020. The New York Democratic primary this spring had a high youth turnout—even though it did not match the historic surge seen in New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s stunning Democratic mayoral primary victory in 2025. Elsewhere, turnout among young people continued to improve. In Michigan counties with more than 30 percent of young adults, aged 18 to 34, Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary over Haley Stevens by 24 percentage points, according to a Washington Post postmortem.
Gun control activist David Hogg, founder of Leaders We Deserve, a progressive youth-oriented PAC, delivered a scathing rebuke of Democratic Party elites to the packed convention hall. “We need to make AIPAC just like the NRA: not relevant anymore,” he said. Hogg, a survivor of the horrific mass shooting in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, also deplored corporate influence in politics, the aging members of Congress, and moderate Democrats.
“Our party should not be one that says, ‘Well, you know, it’s really bad when all these kids are dying from gun violence,’” Hogg roared, “but acts like they can’t tell what side of the 50-yard line they’re on, when there’s active genocide being committed with arms from the United States. I believe for much of our lives our party—especially in the last decade—has become one that rewards cowardice and punishes courage.”
Hasan Piker, a controversial streamer and democratic socialist, also delivered a keynote address. Moderate Democrats have criticized him for his positions on Israel, while progressives like Michigan’s El-Sayed, New York’s Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, Philadelphia’s Chris Rabb, and others all saw historic victories with Piker campaigning alongside them.
Piker told the Prospect that he had not been aware of the CDA’s existence until he was invited to the convention. “If they’re asking me to deliver a speech at their convention, that means they’re taking a hard stance on the issue of Palestine, on the issue of American militarism, on health care,” he said. “This is maybe a little bit of a rebellion for them to show the Democratic Party where they stand on these issues.”
Students echoed their frustration with money in politics throughout the weekend. Dallas Mesec, 21, a student at St. Lawrence University, said seeking a “divorce between business and politics” was his top priority. “The United States has lost its identity. It is not a national federation anymore. It is a corporatocracy, a kleptocracy, an oligarchy. An idiocracy, if you would.”
The old College Democrats might have shied away from these positions. The group had traditionally mirrored DNC policy preferences and, until 2008, the group had a DNC liaison. Vaddula, a former High School Democrats member, remembered students telling her not to bother with the College Dems when she entered college in 2023.
But that started to change after 2024. “College Democrats shouldn’t just be this entity that takes the party message and tells it to people on the floor, preaching to them,” Sunjay Muralitharan, the former CDA president who helped guide that shift, told the Prospect. “You should be the ones who are on the ground, listening, and then taking that up.” Since early 2025, the CDA has added over 120 chapters and now has more than 500 on campuses around the country.
The group gained credibility by partnering directly with organizations like Students Rise Up, to challenge the Trump administration’s authoritarian attacks on higher education. They joined forces with Sunrise Movement, which, Vaddula says, “brought in a lot of the lefty crowd,” and helped the CDA shake its reputation for “only support[ing] machine Democrats and not endorsing [challengers] in the primaries.”
Where college students congregate, age inevitably emerges as a prime topic of debate, with students railing against a moribund gerontocracy, and strongly encouraging one another to run for higher office. “The thing about running as a young candidate is that a lot of the traditional routes aren’t available to us,” said Kiros, the Colorado Democratic primary winner. “When you’re older, you’re more likely to know rich people. You’re more likely to have savings and be able to fund your campaign,” she said, noting that youth-led organizations like the College Dems were necessary not just to help new candidates raise money but to organize neighbors and peers to provide volunteer support.
I conducted an unofficial straw poll, asking 52 delegates who they’d like to see as the 2028 Democratic nominee for president. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) led the pack, followed by Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), “Undecided,” and former Biden transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran for president in 2020. The top candidates, with the exception of former Vice President Kamala Harris, were under 50 years old.
Eleven years ago, the CDA hosted former New York Rep. Joe Crowley—the machine Democrat whom AOC unseated in the 2018 midterm earthquake that gave the Democrats control of the House. “Well, I want Zohran, but obviously that’s not applicable,” said one delegate, who chose Chris Murphy (D-CT). “AOC isn’t as charismatic as Zohran, and I align with Chris Murphy’s values better,” they added. Another AOC-supporting student said they were still worried about electability. “It’s a sad thing about our state of affairs, but I’m just worried she [wouldn’t] win,” they said.
As weary Democratic voters, many of them young and new to electoral politics, continue to take down longtime incumbents, the College Democrats of America’s sharp turn toward progressive politics could signal what’s to come in November and in 2028. CDA members “don’t just want to become the next staffer,” said Vaddula, the CDA president. “They want to be the next David Hogg, the next Mamdani.”
