Running for public office at age 24 wasn’t the plan.
Cody York figured he’d settle down, build a career and start a family before putting his name on a ballot. Instead, the newly elected state representative is living at his childhood home in Canterbury and finishing a graduate degree.
But in this political moment — where young people are disillusioned by government and divisiveness runs rampant — York felt he couldn’t wait.
“I just thought that the moment demanded new, young leadership,” he said, and he felt he’d reached a point in his life where he could step up to serve his neighbors. He spent months courting voters in Canterbury and Loudon, running his campaign out of his family’s living room.
Overwhelmingly, voters supported him. York, a Democrat, was the top vote-getter in his typically conservative district. He unseated a three-term Republican incumbent.
He’s one of Merrimack County’s four newly elected Gen-Z state representatives, all Democrats. Lucas Coriaty, 24, won in Hooksett and Dunbarton. Jason Quinno, 23, and Nate Giffard, 27, will join the ranks representing Concord.
They add to a growing contingent of Gen-Z legislators in the second-oldest state in the country.
“We have this cohort … who can really give a voice to younger Granite Staters where otherwise they have not had one,” said Quinno, an NHTI student who will represent Concord Wards 5-8. “I think it’s going to be really valuable to have a caucus and a perspective of younger folks in the state.”
Fueled by affordability
Each of the four said they ran because they want life to be more affordable in New Hampshire. They’re focused on issues like housing, education and childcare — to address them, the young representatives-elect say, calls for new blood at the State House.
The average age of the New Hampshire House of Representatives is 61 years old, according to the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University. Just 25 out of the 400 House members were aged 35 or under when they were elected in 2024.
“We have this sort of gerontocracy in the State House of older legislators who just don’t understand the challenges young people are facing in this state,” said Quinno, who’s watched his high-school friends leave for college because tuition at UNH is so high.
Giffard, a data scientist who will represent Ward 6, said he and his partner both work full time but feel the “American dream” is out of reach.
“Even on two salaries, we have no prospect of buying a home in Concord on our salaries alone,” Giffard said. “It’s simply too expensive.”
Coriaty, who graduated from the University of New Hampshire last year, said his peers feel forced into making life and family-planning choices based on income.
“It’s either own a house or have a kid, and that’s not a choice that any other generation before us, I think, dealt with on the level that we are,” Coriaty said. “I think that requires sometimes a sense of hope against odds and against, really, the reality of the situation.”
Barriers to entry
Affordability, in a way, also presents one of the biggest barriers to young people who want to hold public office.
Getting elected as a state representative is relatively easy: All 400 seats are open every two years, and districts are heavily local, allowing people with scant political experience and resources to represent their neighbors.
Critics, however, say the system keeps young and working people out. Members get paid just $100 each year, plus mileage reimbursements, and are expected to report to Concord for voting sessions and committee meetings almost weekly, from January to June — a schedule that’s typically easier for retired people and those who don’t work full-time to accommodate.
That was a consideration for young candidates, who said they’re only able to serve because of family support, work flexibility or their geographic proximity to the State House.
York, a graduate student who lives at home with his family, said he can knock out the last few classes for his degree online. He’s worked on other local campaigns before, but now that his is over, he hopes to find another job.
GEOFF FORESTER / For the Monitor
“The campaign was pretty much my job, but I’m looking forward to nailing down some kind of job where I’ll make money on top of this,” York said. “I fortunately have a family that was willing to help keep a roof over my head because they understood how important this was for the community.”
Quinno, who works for a local nonprofit and hopes to commute to study at UNH in the future, doesn’t currently have a car. He said he’ll only be able to serve at the State House because he lives and works within walking distance.
Giffard, too, said his flexible work hours and eight-minute walk to the Capitol lower his barrier to entry.
“I feel a responsibility to show up and represent the folks in our district who do work those long hours and who are raising families and who don’t have the same resources or the time to spend their days at the State House,” he said.
‘Give him a shot’
Quinno remembers the morning in eighth grade when he woke up to find out Donald Trump had been elected.
It sparked an interest in politics that grew over the past decade, and he considered running for office but regarded it as a “silly thing that I totally could not do.”
“I think it was just, ’20-year-olds don’t run for office,’ which is sort of this conception I had in my head,” Quinno said. “I felt like I didn’t fit the bill.”
It’s a sentiment he felt often while going door-to-door in Concord or holding his campaign signs at the polls.
“I knock on the door and they say, ‘What candidate are you supporting?'” he said. “I said, ‘I’m the candidate.'”
Others felt their age wasn’t as much of an issue on the campaign trail.
“They give you a lot of grace at the doors,” Coriaty said. “I think generational change is a very nonpartisan issue for many people.”
York said he encountered fewer skeptics than expected. On the contrary, he convinced longtime conservatives to vote for him.
Marlene Friedrich, for example, filled in the bubbles on her ballot for Republican candidates all the way down — except for York, to whom she’d promised her vote.
Sitting at a picnic table outside her Loudon polling place on Election Day, Friedrich said she’s unsure how he’ll fare in the “craziness” of the New Hampshire House, but she liked what she saw: a willingness to represent the people’s agenda instead of his own.
“If he wants to give it a shot, I’m willing to give him a shot,” she said.
