Isaiah Martin, a young democrat from Texas, is running to represent Texas’ 18th district in Congress. If elected, Martin will be the second member of Gen Z in Congress, joining Maxwell Frost.
Background
Isaiah Martin formed a group called For the Students at his college campus where he co-founded the Full Support partnership with the Harris County District Attorney’s office. This partnership went on to provide free rape kits and sexual assault services to UH students and several other colleges in the area. Through this he also partnered with the Harris County Clerk and UH athletics to use the university’s on-campus stadium as a polling location.
Source: Voters of Tomorrow
Backlash
After announcing his campaign, he quickly saw support from a prominent youth organization, Voters of Tomorrow, as well as activist Olivia Julianna. Martin recently spoke at Leaders of Tomorrow, a youth political summit hosted by Voters of Tomorrow, founded by Santiago Mayer. The two powerhouses endorsed Martins campaign and helped fundraise over $100,000 in the first 24 hours of the campaign being announced.
Despite a strong generational solidarity, many young democrats question Martins platform citing his more conservative policies compared to his opponent, Sheila Jackson Lee, whom he spent two years under. After Martins announcement on Wednesday, young democrats promptly took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to voice their concerns over his primary issues, later deleted from his campaign’s website. X user, @seanschuerman, was among the first to call out the young hopeful, mentioning how Isaiah Martins campaign website had no mention of climate change or M4A (Medicare for all), two popular issues among young people.
He’s running in a D+23 district and doesn’t support M4A, says literally nothing about climate change on his website, and says one of his most urgent priorities is to pass pro-Israel bills. These are the Gen Z members of congress we’re getting? https://t.co/BxPdefrCQL
— Sean (@seanschuerman) September 6, 2023
The tweet was liked by Elise Joshi, a young climate activist known for her to-the-point communication style and work as Executive Director of Gen Z For Change. Gen Z For Change is a youth political organization previously known as TikTok for Biden and is largely responsible for President Joe Biden’s online campaign in 2020. Joshi responded to Martin’s announcement on twitter.
gen-z candidate with no climate section😂
— Elise Joshi (@EliseJoshi) September 6, 2023
It was noted that Martin had no mention of LGBTQ+ rights on his website.
Martin was called out for being pictured with prominent republican Greg Abbott at an Angelica Garcia campaign party, a Texas republican, in 2020, as well as Ted Cruz. These old pictures prompted conversation about Martin’s centrist policies and his contribution to activism.
X user, @mike10010100, tweeted a thread defending Isaiah Martin and his past posts. In this thread he calls out young democrats, and labels Martin as a “progressive powerhouse.”
Having read the thread detailing Isaiah Martin's past posts and not…actually finding much that's outrageous…I decided to go down the rabbit hole of understanding this post, where Martin is taking a photo at what looks to be a Republican campaign event.
— Michael Paulauski (@mike10010100) September 7, 2023
The full post follows: https://t.co/TGbp1m8Xcq pic.twitter.com/OehoXYcFvd
Young democrats are not the only party in this conversation. Republican, and Ted Cruz Communications Advisor, Macarena Martinez de Aldecoa added to the conversation in the comments of a post supporting Martins campaign originating from Olivia Julianna.
Love to see you supporting someone who supports our great Senator!! pic.twitter.com/fcwWVtzevq
— Macarena Martinez de Aldecoa (@macamrtz) September 7, 2023
We expect Isaiah Martin to continue being part of the youth political conversation.
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