Meet the Gen-Z candidates running for the Georgia Legislature 

A new generation of leaders is stepping up in Georgia, determined to bring progressive change to the state. 

At least four Gen Zers have officially qualified for legislative races on the general primary ballot on May 21 – all with a plan to address concerns they’re hearing in their communities, including education reform, affordable housing, and gun safety. 

These state house and senate candidates, Joshua Anthony, Bryce Berry, Ashwin Ramaswami, and Madeline Ryan Smith, are all Democrats under age 27 (the Gen Z cutoff) and most are challenging entrenched incumbents. (In Georgia, candidates for the state House of Representatives must be at least 21, while Senate candidates must be at least 25.) 

“Our current leadership has actively pushed people aside and expected them to still show up and vote,” said Joshua Anthony, 21, who is taking on the incumbent Democrat for the House District 153 seat in his hometown of Albany. “People have lost hope because they’ve been seeing and experiencing the same thing for the last 40 years. It’s now time to spark change.” 

It’s a crowded field for House District 153, with another Democratic primary challenger, Tracy Taylor, and a Republican, Brenda Battle. 

“Albany has almost a 30% poverty level which is extremely high and especially unprecedented for a population of over 50,000,” he said. “This is my hometown and in the last 40 years, we’ve not had the people actively in place to do the job they said they would do.” 

Calling out Albany’s disproportionately high rates of poverty and unemployment, Anthony is determined to advocate for the communities in the Southwest Georgia district. His campaign focuses on three things: revitalizing education, economic development, and building new infrastructure, which he believes are interconnected. 

He is pitching a five-year revitalization plan to Albany voters to create workforce development programs, develop solar panel projects and, eventually, build a light rail system that connects his hometown with other Southwest Georgia cities. 

“I want to see [Albany] thrive in a way that I believe only a person who was born and raised here can actually push for as feasible change,” Anthony said. 

Anthony’s approach emphasizes community engagement, as his canvassing efforts demonstrate. He said he’s knocked on almost every residents’ door for campaign feedback, then adjusted his five-year plan for Albany accordingly. 

While Atlanta candidates may have thousands of dollars for their races, Anthony sees his campaign as a true grassroots effort. He connects with voters through truthful conversations and “good ol’ Southern hospitality,” he said.

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The Democrat is challenging the two-term incumbent, Rep. Mesha Mainor, who caused a stir last July when she switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party.  Mainor’s flip has attracted a crowded field of Democratic challengers to the deep blue district – Adalina Merello, Corwin Monson, Dawn Samad, and William Watkins – whom Berry will face in the party’s May 21 primary. 

The new teacher said he decided to run for office after witnessing the profound hardship his APS students contend with. One bright student, he said, came home from school to find all of her belongings thrown on the ground, because her family had been evicted. After that, she stopped doing her schoolwork and started having behavioral issues. 

“My students see these things as normal – and it’s the fault of our leaders who leave our students, our families, and our communities behind,” Berry said. 

Berry is an active Democrat, who’s just finished up a two-year term as president of the Young Democrats of Georgia. While in college, he spent the fall 2022 semester working as the deputy political director for the Democratic Party of Georgia. He also served as a state youth leader for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2020 election campaigns. 

Berry, who lives in the English Avenue neighborhood, he has been campaigning and organizing since he was 12. He said his personal experience living at times on food stamps and in poverty give him unique credibility for representing people in his district. 

“We have to stop with the mindset that political experience is only characterized by titles,” Berry said. “It is also characterized by the experiences that you bring to the table.”

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Still was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate claiming to be a “duly elected and qualified” presidential elector in Georgia for Trump, even though Trump lost the state. The first-term legislator is facing seven charges, including impersonating a public officer, in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s sweeping RICO case against former President Donald Trump and 18 associates.

When Ramaswami returned to Johns Creek, he said, many issues had worsened: Teachers are not being paid enough, there are no “common sense gun safety laws,” and reproductive rights are under attack. These issues also inspired him to run for office. 

“I have these conversations with people and realize that people like me who grew up here, we don’t see our values being reflected in what people are doing down at the Capitol,” said Ramaswami. 

He said his campaign strategy is rooted in the belief that people in Johns Creek, a suburban Atlanta district, do not want to spend time worrying about politics. He hopes to prioritize local issues over national controversy and communicate the shared values of his district for Democrats and Republicans alike.

“People here in the suburbs, they just don’t care as much about a particular partisan,” Ramaswami said. “It’s more about who’s going to do a good job in representing the community, so they don’t have to worry about what their representative is doing over at the Capitol.” 

Although he’s just 24, Ramaswami will meet the legal age requirement of 25 by the November election. If elected, the second-generation immigrant would be Georgia’s first Gen Z Indian-American state senator – and likely the youngest. 

He said youth is not necessarily commensurate with experience, noting that his computer science degree from Stanford University and impending law degree in May from Georgetown give him  a combination of expertise that no other state legislator has. “We should really think about what every person brings to the table beyond just asking their age,” he said.

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Smith is also a committed disability advocate. She was diagnosed at age 8 with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye disease that causes blindness over time. Now 26, she has consistently advocated for Georgia’s disability community. At Georgia Southern University, she was a member of the Students With Disabilities advocacy group, and in 2023, she was elected as the Disability Caucus Chair for the state Democratic Party.

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