Democracy Summer

The Democracy Summer project trains and deploys the next generation of Democratic organizers and leaders to win elections all over America. Founded by Congressman Jamie Raskin, backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and buoyed by thousands of supportive alumni across the country, Democracy Summer engages high school and college-aged young people in state-of-the-art tactics in voter registration, canvassing and digital political organizing. Moreover, through on-line seminars with leading historians, law professors, political organizers and union and elected leaders, it provides an intensive education in the historical struggle for democratic freedom and essential lessons for effective political leadership today. Democracy Summer expanded nationally for the first time in 2021 in an historic partnership with the DCCC and multiple campaigns of Democratic Members. Democracy Summer expanded nationally for the first time in 2021 in an historic partnership with the DCCC and campaigns of Democratic Members—and in 2024, more than 110 House Democratic campaigns across America joined Democracy Summer to recruit a new generation of political activists and leaders. Our virtual curriculum has featured lectures on the struggle for democracy and voting rights from academic luminaries like Harvard Professor Alex Keyssar, who speaks on his books The Right to Vote: The History of a Contested Right and Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?; expert voting rights lawyers like Marc Elias, who speaks about how to understand and combat rampant voter suppression; elected officials like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the late John Lewis, a stalwart supporter of Democracy Summer until his death; and labor leaders like the Executive Director of the Labor Heritage Foundation, Elise Bryant, who gives our Fellows insight into the major contributions of the labor movement to political, economic and cultural democracy.