‘We Want Change’ Says 19-Year-Old Candidate for San Jose City Council

Marshall Woodmansee is not trying to go viral with a Snapchat or TikTok meme. The 19 year old is doing it the hard way – in real life.

Woodmansee has taken a year off from college to run for San Jose’s City Council. He’s banking on his skills as a connector and organizer to energize people who don’t normally vote in local politics. Woodmansee believes young people shouldn’t wait to influence issues important to them.

“We do need to enter the political system, as soon as possible, and if not enter, just bust in. Just break the door down and say hey we’re here, we want change, and we’re not going to leave until we get it,” Woodmansee recently told the audience at a candidate debate in San Jose.

The 2018 midterm elections saw a record turnout from voters aged 18-28, and turnout this fall is predicted to be even higher. Woodmansee wants to help propel this turnout.

A Childhood Steeped in Politics

Woodmansee has loved politics from an early age. He gave his first speech at San Jose's City Hall protesting local noise and air pollution when he was eight. For years, he has been a regular fixture at Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority meetings, advocating for improved bus and light rail service.

Michael Harris, a college student who is volunteering in Woodmansee’s campaign, said he met Woodmansee when they were high school students participating in the YMCA’s Youth and Government program.

“I knew from the moment I met him, this guy is made for politics,” Harris said. “He can connect with people, he cares about people, and he really tries to represent everyone. That’s immediately what drew me to Marshall.”

Woodmansee is from a family that lives their mantra of environmental sustainability. He and his father did the plumbing, electrical and structural components on the family’s property, a former bar. Together with his best friend Cameron Kemske, he jackhammered the bedrock underneath the house to make a livable basement. No one in the family drives regularly. They replaced a 1968 Dodge pickup truck they once used for hauling building material with an electric bike with a huge trailer.

Woodmansee’s mother is Tessa Woodmansee, a longtime clean air and transportation activist and serial door knocker. “I’ve seen her doing it my whole life, so I’m comfortable doing it,” he said.

For years, family dinners included a steady diet of issues including climate change and gun violence. Plugging away at college classes, he became resentful and anxious about his inability to make a difference.

Eventually, his mother said to him, “You can go that path, you know, of being aggravated and angry. Or you could be a leader.”

Woodmansee answered her challenge by running for office.

Fourteen-Hour Days

Woodmansee and contenders Ruben Navarro and Jake Tonkel are running against incumbent Devora Davis to represent San Jose’s politically influential District 6, which has about 100,000 residents.

To reach young voters, Marshall visits high schools, hosts music and arts events, and livestreams on Facebook and Twitter. To reach older voters, he canvasses the district and makes phone calls on many weekends.

His main advertisement is a homemade billboard with a monarch butterfly and a photo of his freckled face, which he tows on a modified electric bicycle while dressed in a suit and wingtip shoes.

On his bike, Marshall crisscrosses a community where some of San Jose’s wealthiest live next to some of the city’s poorest. He makes frequent stops to talk to just about anyone who makes eye contact. Invariably he shifts the conversation to his soapbox topics: housing, transportation and community resilience.

At a speech he gave to students at his old high school, he quizzes the 17 and 18 year olds about the cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose. The students gasp when Marshall tells them it’s about $2,700 per month.

“What it’s probably gonna mean is that you’ll work in San Jose, but you won’t be able to live here,” Marshall said.

He argues that many problems, including the housing and climate crisis, are a result of older voters’ inaction. To ensure their futures, young people have to get involved in politics.

Marshall rejects critics who say he and his peers don’t have the qualifications or experience to have a major say in city government. “We need to change our requirements for what makes someone a good leader,” he argued.

Despite his confidence, the campaign has been tough on his ego and on his endurance.

“Currently I’m putting in 14-hour days, doing intense outreach and being confused all the time, and not knowing what to do, and trying to do 50 different things,” he said. “Half of them don’t even work, half of them are futile.”

Financial hurdles, he said, can discourage young people from participating in government. Woodmansee works as a lifeguard at the YMCA to help pay some of his campaign costs.

It cost $3,000 to include his name and a 200 word blurb in the county voter’s guide — a fee that ate up most of his campaign donations, he said.

He said better funded candidates can purchase detailed searchable datasets to target potential voters, but he can’t afford the large sums of money that would require.

“I just spent $92 to get the plain text file of voter information and all that does is give you a 30,000 page PDF,” he laughed ruefully. “I just use it for phone calling.”

Woodmansee remains upbeat, however, because he believes his year running for office has taught him more than his first year of college. He said he’s connected with hundreds of idealists like him, and win or lose this election, he’s ready to continue their fight.

“Knocking on doors has been the most important thing that I’ve done in this campaign,” Woodmansee reflected. “I know my neighbors’ stories, and I’ve reconnected with people from my childhood. People have ties to where they call home. That’s what makes a city great.”