Elijah Manley never wanted to run for office. He was more than happy to continue his private life as a middle school teacher, out of the public eye — that is, until a friend pointed out how dissatisfied Manley was with the government and asked if he’d ever considered running for office.
“My first response was, ‘Hell no, absolutely not,” Manley tells Her Campus. “[I thought,] ‘I don’t want that world right now. I like my privacy. I like being a private citizen. No way I’m doing this.’” But after his friend’s suggestion, Manley thought about it, and made a post on X about how he was considering running. His notifications were flooded with supportive messages, with multiple people urging him to just do it. “I think as the time went by and the days went by, I got more excited about the potential of doing it,” Manley says.
So, Manley got serious about figuring out his looked into the logistics and his “why” for running — which turned out to be his students. “I have a lot of students who are on TPS in the classroom, a lot of Haitian students,” Manley says, referring to Temporary Protected Status, which allowed Haitian nationals to live and work in the United States without the threat of deportation — and which was just terminated. “And they’re asking me, ‘is everything going to be all right with our parents? Are they going to be taken away? Are we going to be able to come back to school?’ And then I just couldn’t give them an answer. That was heartbreaking to experience.”
That’s what led Manley here: running for Congress to represent Florida’s 20th Congressional District, with his Aug. 18 primary on the horizon.
Manley’s personal experiences with poverty and homelessness quickly taught him the importance of noticing when something needs to change. “It was the 2008 financial crisis when my family lost everything. That crisis led to us living in a car, couch surfing, living in a storage facility. That was our reality for most of my life,” Manley says. “At a young age, I kind of figured out that I wanted to do something to change the world. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be running for office. That wasn’t in my mind at the time, but it was ‘OK, I want to write letters to the president, letters to the local elected officials, volunteer on some campaigns, and do some good work.’”
If elected, Manley believes the challenges he faced growing up will make him an even more effective leader. “When conversations are being had on Capitol Hill about how much to cut a program by, I’m going to know from personal experience how that’s going to affect my constituents,” Manley says. “When they have conversations about how much to cut SNAP by, how much to cut Medicaid by, or where to allocate federal resources, I will be able to be in those rooms and really be able to not just understand the experience, but make the argument for why these programs should be connected.”
At only 27 years old, Manley is hoping to become one of the only Gen Z members of Congress. “Representation matters,” Manley says about his age. “With all of the challenges we’re facing with the affordability crisis, with housing costs, with healthcare costs, the climate crisis, not having young people at the table when we’re affected by these issues is not good. We need younger people to run because it’s not just about representation, but it’s also about having people with lived experience who will be affected by the issues of today, the present, and the issues of tomorrow, the future. We need to have people who are directly impacted by the future helping make those decisions.”
Speaking of issues affecting younger generations, one of the first things that comes to mind is AI, which is why one of Manley’s platforms is AI safety. “For me, it comes down to the future of humanity. This is a technology that is rapidly growing and expanding at a rate in which humanity has never seen before. And it cannot be allowed to grow without some type of regulation on it. Just like you don’t just build an airplane and let it just fly without any regulations,” Manley says. “This is about the future. This is about letting there be innovation, but also protecting our rights, our liberty, our jobs, our economy, [and] also protecting humanity as a whole.”
Another one of Manley’s main platforms is civil rights. “We’re seeing this unprecedented attack on our civil rights by this administration,” Manley says. “Whether it’s Black rights, criminal justice reform, what we’re seeing with the mid-decade redistricting across the country that has attacked Black representation, the attacks by Republicans in the South and states across the country on the LGBTQ community, specifically the trans community — seeing all of these attacks on all of us, in my opinion, means that we cannot live in a free world unless we’re all free, unless we all have rights that are protected and fought for by the people in government.”
Despite his initial reluctance to run for office, Manley is now hyper-focused on serving his district, should he be elected. “My job is to represent my constituents,” he says. “And that will be my singular focus when I get there, fighting for my constituents in District 20 and making sure they have the resources they need to live, their quality of life improves, and that they have a democracy and a government that works for them.”
Running as a Democrat in Florida isn’t easy, considering it’s had a Republican majority for decades. But Manley’s district is a blue dot in the largely red state, and he’s been feeling the love from his potential constituents. “I feel supported by my district because I think I am the district,” Manley says. “My lived experiences match those of the district. The people here love my story because it’s just like them and their families.”
Top three issues you’re running on?
Affordability, corruption, and immigration.
Favorite local restaurant?
Las Colinas or Apt. 9F.
Least favorite Florida stereotype?
None. They’re all accurate. People like to say that Florida’s not part of the South, and that’s one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever heard. Florida is 100% part of the South.
What are you listening to while on the campaign trail?
A lot of Chappell Roan.
Go-to coffee order?
Café con leche from Las Colinas.
Favorite season?
Fall.
Early bird or night owl?
Night owl.
Favorite movie or TV show?
I’ve been watching Severance a lot.
Favorite thing about living in Florida?
We’re a really unique place. A crazy yet unique place. And I love it.