--- title: Will Haskell, 22, Wins Connecticut State Senate Seat description: Will Haskell, a 22-year-old Georgetown graduate, has won a seat in the Connecticut state Senate. canonical: https://time.com/5444401/will-haskell-connecticut-young-voters/ author: Ang Li article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-05T17:09:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:05:11.807Z article:section: Politics og:title: Will Haskell, 22, Wins Connecticut State Senate Seat og:description: "There is no minimum age for getting involved." og:url: https://time.com/5444401/will-haskell-connecticut-young-voters/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcda7779449671a5f/69893e528fd2ee071a35d0e7/will2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1920 og:image:height: 1080 og:image:alt: will2.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Will Haskell, 22, Wins Connecticut State Senate Seat twitter:description: "There is no minimum age for getting involved." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcda7779449671a5f/69893e528fd2ee071a35d0e7/will2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Inside a 22-Year-Old's Historic Victory for a Connecticut State Senate Seat > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=17fe3a82-4136-4378-a5c4-9df168d27e6a&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Inside a 22-year-old’s Campaign to Win a Connecticut State Senate Seat [Watch (HLS stream): Inside a 22-year-old’s Campaign to Win a Connecticut State Senate Seat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/HPMavdy6.m3u8) (2:58)  _Published 2018-11-05. Inside a 22-year-old’s Campaign to Win a Connecticut State Senate Seat_ by [Ang Li / Westport, Conn.](https://time.com/author/ang-li/) and [Anne Most](https://time.com/author/anne-most/) Nov 5, 2018 5:09 PM UTC by [Ang Li / Westport, Conn.](https://time.com/author/ang-li/) and [Anne Most](https://time.com/author/anne-most/) Nov 5, 2018 5:09 PM UTC Campaigns rely on young volunteers to do the legwork needed just before the election. But the candidates they are working for are often much older. That’s not the case in Will Haskell’s campaign, which won a bid to unseat veteran Republican state Sen. Toni Boucher on Tuesday. “I decided to run because I thought it was possible, but I did not think it was probable.” Haskell said during a phone interview with TIME after the race, “I was just absolutely stunned by the victory.” The 22-year-old Georgetown graduate ran to unseat Republican state Sen. Toni Boucher, who has been in office for as long as Haskell has been alive. And Haskell did it by relying on an army of teen- and college-aged volunteers to knock on doors, hand out fliers and call potential supporters. Although he’s young, Haskell is no political newcomer. He has worked for the Democratic National Committee, campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and interned for Rep. Jim Himes and Sen. Chris Murphy. He said he came back to his hometown after President Donald Trump’s election win and found he disagrees with many political views of Boucher, who represented his home district. He realized that no one was planning on challenging her and then decided he would run. About one in three volunteers who worked for Haskell’s campaign were either high school students or in their early 20s, the 22-year-old campaign manager Jack Lynch said. Haskell said the young volunteers were crucial to his election win, “They were putting in the hours over the summer, making calls upon calls when most people who were old enough to vote didn’t even realize there was going to be an election in 2018,” Haskell told TIME, “They put in the work early and I think it made all the difference.” Haskell’s campaign reflected a trend of young people getting involved in politics for this election season. According to Catalist, a voter data organization that works on the left, youth turnout rates among early voters were up 125% compared to the last midterms in 2014\. Statewide, the voter registration between ages of 18 to 24 has more than doubled for the 2018 election cycle compared to four years ago, according to the Connecticut Secretary of the State office. “A representative democracy should be representative, and it is not right now.” Haskell said during an interview recently, “Everyday, legislators in Hartford and every state capitol and in Washington as well, they make decisions that are going to impact the state, the community, the country for decades to come, and they often do so without the input of the next generation.” Kaila Finn, a 20-year-old writer for the campaign, recalled that she saw Haskell’s campaign ad on Facebook and was moved by his message about criminal justice reform and education and equality. She said she became more involved after finding out about bills like the Times Up Act, which aims to protect people from workplace harassments and assaults, died on the Connecticut House floor. Finn said she was also frustrated by many elected officials’ efforts to undercut bills and felt the current policies on issues like women’s rights are not progressive enough. She decided to “go full steam ahead” with the campaign for Haskell, whose policy proposals focus on areas like paid family leave, gender wage gap and workplace harassment. Charlotte Cohen, who was in charge of photography and campaign advertisement designs, said that the activism of Parkland students empowered her as a young person who is unable to vote. She was inspired by Haskell’s speech at the March for Our Lives rally in Connecticut and later decided to volunteer for a campaign for the first time. “I am really mad that I can’t vote,” the 17-year-old said, “I think the best way I could use my power is to help other people get out and vote.” Though many young volunteers on Haskell’s campaign could not vote in the 2018 midterms, he said, “There is no minimum age for getting involved and to be on the right side of history.” ## Transcript I'm a volunteer calling from Will Haskell's campaign. I'm calling to see if Will can count on your support next week. I hope that you will consider supporting me, but if you. My name is Will Haskell, I'm 22 years old. I'm running for the Connecticut State Senate in the 26th District. So I think that representative democracy should be representative, and it's not right Now, every day, legislators at Hartford and every state capital, and in Washington as well, they make decisions that are gonna impact the state, the community, the country, for decades to come. And they often do so without the input of the next generation. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] I mostly began and learning about politics before the 2016 election. There's a lot of offensive rhetoric coming from, Donald Trump, that I was pretty upset by and I felt pretty voiceless. So, then I went to the woman's march in January with my aunt and I just felt really empowered by that. So, since then I've been really active in politics I think that a lot of people were activated after the Parkland shooting, and then I think just seeing young people on the ballot gets more young people to want to be involved. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] I mean, I always knew voting was important, but I feel like working on the campaign has shown me how unimportant a lot of people think it is. The 26th district hasn't been blue since the 1970s. But there has never been a campaign wage like this with the energy of all of the young people, with an intergenerational excitement about electing new voices to Hartford. I knew that I wanted to do something that was fullfilling Gave me a sense of passion. I'd come back from a doctor's appointment and pulled off Facebook, and his ad come up, and it was the most liberal thing I'd ever seen come out of Connecticut politics. I was really moved by it, and so I'd called him right up. [ MUSIC ] Will and I are going to be door knocking. So Will always asks, what's the most important thing in this election for you? And it's just really interesting to hear what people have to say. And I think we get a lot about gun control, What's going on at the local level is so tied to schools, the gun violence protection, women's rights issues. When I was in high school I wanted to work on prestigious campaigns that looked good on a resume. I wanted to work for the guys who you saw on TV. I didn't sign up to work on state senate campaigns. That's why I'm so moved when every day Our office is filled with people who are 15, 16, 17 years old, who aren't old enough to vote, and yet they wanna make their voices heard. They know that their generation's perspective is lacking. 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