She’s 16 and Wants to Be President: Meet the Teenagers Planning Their Campaigns

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Abby Cumming-Vukovic is going to be a state representative. You can quote her on that.

She is 16, yes. She is a high school sophomore, yes. But she already has more than a decade of political engagement behind her, if you start with the 2008 canvassing trip she took in a wagon pulled by her mother.

“President is the ultimate goal,” she said. “Of course.”

If this is an unusual proclamation for a teenager, you would not have known it last month at the Young Women Run Columbus conference, hosted by Ignite, a group dedicated to getting young women involved in politics. The attendees, from high schools and colleges across Ohio, want to be City Council members, county commissioners, state senators and congresswomen. And if they don’t want to be the first woman to lead the country, it’s only because they would rather be the third.

“I remember being in second grade and looking at a poster of all the U.S. presidents and wondering why there wasn’t a woman,” said Haley Zaker, 17, a high school senior in Lancaster. “I would joke about being the first female president. But I hope it doesn’t come to that, because I’m not eligible to run for president until 2040.”

Source: The New York Times

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Columbus, Ohio • Nemanja Vuković • State legislature (United States) • Ohio • City council • Member of Congress • Louisiana State Senate • Lancaster, Pennsylvania •