Twenty-year-old Mathias Lehman-Winters is already a veteran in Eugene’s local politics.

~ by Isaac Oronsky

In fifth grade, Mathias Lehman-Winters ran for class president. His campaign promise: Better cheese in school lunches.

“The [other] guy in my class, he was running and he was like, ‘I will give everyone ice cream every day,’” Lehman-Winters said while speaking to a University of Oregon journalism class. “I’m like, he can’t do that, that’s not right.”

Lehman-Winters won that election, though he was unable to deliver on the promise of better cheese. And then at 18, he ran for — and won — his election to be a precinct committee person (PCP), a liaison between voters and their party, for his precinct in Eugene. That year, he also got involved as a canvasser and field organizer for an aspiring judge and county commissioner in the community.

Two years later, at age 20, Lehman-Winters is the community action chair for the Democratic Party of Lane County. In July, as part of the job, he and a few others from the DPLC traveled to Crestwell, Oregon, a city he says is “not the most receptive to Democrats.” There, sporting Biden/Harris merchandise, they participated in the city’s Fourth of July parade.

“It’s a bizarre feeling having hundreds of people booing you,” he said.

The 20-year-old also works as a campus organizer for Congresswoman Val Hoyle’s reelection campaign. He believes that local politics is the most impactful way to get involved in politics, and works to leverage his age to increase youth political engagement. Most recently, he was in costume on the UO campus. Dressed as a legislative bill, he helped register nearly 20 voters in two hours.

Despite his political experience, Lehman-Winters doesn’t have plans to run for office after he graduates this year. Though he respects younger politicians and youth engagement, he believes that “if you want to represent a people, you have to have a certain life experience” that he doesn’t think he has yet. Maybe when he’s 40, he said.