Representative Congress

[T]he 113th Congress, despite being heralded as the most diverse in history, is still comprised of only 18 percent women and 15 percent minorities.

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Pichaya Poy Winichakul and Luke Squire, both 25, are recent Oberlin grads who quit their day jobs in New York and Washington D.C., respectively, to get [LaunchProgress] off the ground.

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LaunchProgress [is] a nonprofit and political action committee created earlier this year to support young candidates, many of them minorities, running for state office for the first time.

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Both felt the best remedy was to start grooming candidates earlier in their political careers and helping them secure wins. Besides small financial contributions – they have disbursed $6,250 so far – they offer strategy and communications advice and a team of volunteers to get out the vote on Election Day.

“Our whole idea is that we’re not just throwing money at these campaigns, but we’re providing other kinds of support and filling the bench with progressives who can then go on to national leadership positions,” Winichakul said.

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Republicans have an even more robust, longer-running effort in pursuit of the same goal. In 2011, the Republican State Leadership Committee launched the Future Majority Project. The initiative, chaired by Governors Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada, recruits, trains and supports 100 candidates of Hispanic descent and 150 women candidates nationwide for state seats.

  alJazeera