After becoming the newly elected Chair Wesley Larkin shared plans for the Sumter County Republican Committee. “I want to have more regular meetings, have our social media presence larger.” He also wants to hold more informal, social meetings to connect with those interested in the party.

Larkin outlined the work of his predecessor, Darryl Hawkins, who recently transitioned from Chair to Vice Chairman. Under Hawkins the Committee was able to stay organized, engage in poll watching, and stay funded.

Larkin is 33 years old, an outlier at a time when the leadership of many organizations is dominated by grey hair. While he values the work of his predecessor, Larkin hope his youth is an asset he can bring to the Committee. “I want to move the party into a younger direction.”

Larkin sees a stark lack of youth participation. “I went to a District Convention a couple years ago, and there’s probably over 70 something delegates in there, and they told us all to stand up if we were 55 or younger, and I think there were like 12 of us that stood up, and that’s a problem, because you don’t have young folks, you don’t have new ideas to reach people.”

Despite challenges with participation, Larkin finds young people more interested in politics than ever before. “I think they are more so now than they used to be because of social media mostly.”

He sees a need to shift the current model for youth engagement in politics. “30 years ago, people might have just been happy with, you know, your local representative coming in and speaking to you about what’s going on in Washington or Atlanta, but I’m not sure that that’s necessarily what young folks want.” He also acknowledges many young people with families are at a stage in life that makes participation challenging.

However, Larkin sees restarting the College Republicans as a prime opportunity to reach those with time for political involvement. “I’ve realized that, man, I could get a lot more done when I was a student without kids.”

Larkin believes the Republican party’s message on the economy resonates with the younger demographic, believing younger people are more financially savvy than their predecessors. “And that’s not a knock on older generations. I think that is just a aspect of us being exposed to so much more information than we used to.”

In addition to the Republican’s message on the economy, he sees further draws. “Conservatism and libertarianism, if it’s described right, sold in the right way, people who hear it should believe that, hey, this group of people, they want me to live how I want to live.”

He sees the Republican party’s value of fairness as another engaging attribute, noting the party’s opposition to transgender sports as an example. “Males playing in, you know, female sports. I think that is a fairness issue.”

Larkin believes in civil discourse, even when there are disagreements. “It’s perfectly fine to say ‘I strongly disagree with you, and just about everything you say is, you know, antithesis of what I believe, but hey, you want to still go get a drink afterwards?’”