Why Representation Matters: The Case for a More Democratic Democracy
10 min
Updated: August 20th, 2026
Table of contents
Why We Mark Heritage Months (And Why People Ask Us About It)
Why Representation Matters, According to the Research
What Happens When the Room Stays the Same
Being the "First" Is Lonely. Being the "Only" Is Worse.
NDTC by the Numbers
Representation Starts With Someone Deciding to Run
At NDTC, we mark and celebrate a lot of heritage and affinity months throughout the year. Every time we do, a few messages show up asking why. Some are genuinely curious. Others are not so much. This is the honest answer for the people asking in good faith: representation matters, and American democracy is stronger when more of the people it governs also get to help run it.
Why We Mark Heritage Months (And Why People Ask Us About It)
NDTC was built to train any Democrat who wants to run for office, regardless of their background, bank account, or resume. We build relationships and highlight the stories of candidates and elected officials from different backgrounds throughout the year, not as a marketing exercise, but because we've watched what happens when people don't see a path to office that looks like their own life. That is how we back up our mission with our work, to make sure people from every community actually show up.
When someone doesn’t see anyone like them in a role, they often won’t picture themselves in it either. And if they don’t picture themselves doing it, they usually won't try for it. It’s a predictable response in a society that’s driven by connections. Our job is to close that gap, and heritage month and affinity programming are just one of the ways we do it.
Why Representation Matters, According to the Research
Researchers have been studying the effects of descriptive representation, meaning elected officials who share the demographic traits of the people they represent, for decades, and the findings line up.
The Urban Institute has compiled a body of research showing that when local officials reflect their constituents on measures like race, gender, and ethnicity, those constituents report a stronger sense of political power and belonging. One widely cited study found that Black respondents represented by a Black member of Congress were roughly 10 percentage points more likely to say they were "very interested" in following political campaigns than Black respondents without a Black representative, and having a Black representative increased the odds of Black constituents voting in the House race by 9 points. Representation measurably changes whether people show up to both run for office and vote for their elected officials.
The same pattern holds outside of politics. Psychologist Kevin Nadal has written about how seeing yourself reflected in media and public life supports identity development and self-esteem, particularly for young people from marginalized communities, and how the absence of that reflection can quietly shape what people believe is possible for their own lives. The Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition makes a related point about entertainment media: authentic representation validates real experiences, while flattened or stereotyped portrayals reinforce the exact biases that keep people out of rooms they belong in. Governing is no different. The people making decisions about your schools, your zoning, and your reproductive rights are either shaped by their own experience with issues, or they aren't.
What Happens When the Same Old Room Stays the Same
We're already living with the consequences of a legislature that doesn't reflect the country it governs. Women still hold a little more than a quarter of seats in Congress, and the average age in the House is in the late fifties, with the Senate even older. Averages hide a lot. Younger voters are navigating student debt, housing costs, and climate anxiety in ways that many of their representatives have never personally experienced.
The phenomenon predictably shows up in policy. When the people writing labor law have never worked an hourly job, or the people setting reproductive health policy have never needed to access reproductive health care, something important gets lost in the debate: the daily reality it's supposed to address. The Malala Fund's Assembly project has documented what political scientists call the "role model effect": girls and women are more likely to get involved in politics when they can see themselves in it. The inverse is just as true. When no one in power shares your life experience, it's easy to conclude that politics simply isn't for people like you, and to opt out before you've even tried.
Being the "First" Is Lonely. Being the "Only" Is Worse.
Representation is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When people who share your background are already in the room, your presence there is unremarkable. No one questions whether you belong or whether the issues you raise are worth raising simply because of who’s saying it. You can look at someone else's path and see your own future in it.
But when you're the first, none of that history exists yet. You can absolutely be your own cheerleader, and plenty of trailblazers do it well, but it's hard to chart a path that no one has walked before you. Being the "first" makes for a great story once you've won. While you're still in the middle of it, it can be isolating.
Being the "first" is temporary by definition. Someone else usually follows, and eventually there's a small community of people who've walked that same road and can tell you what to expect. Being the "only," on the other hand, can drag on for an entire term or an entire career. No colleague down the hall gets what it's like to be asked to speak for your whole community on every vote, no one to share that burden with, and no guarantee anyone else is coming after you. That's the harder version of the same problem, and it's exactly why representation needs to be more than a single milestone.
NDTC by the Numbers
These are the gaps NDTC works to close. As of 2025, 64% of our learners who won their general elections were women, 45% were BIPOC candidates, and 55% identified as women or nonbinary. Sixty percent of our winning learners ran in swing or red states, places where the conventional wisdom says a nontraditional candidate can't win.
That data matters because it shows representation isn't a nice idea we talk about in a mission statement. It's our track record. Every one of those candidates started as someone deciding, often against a lot of internal doubt, that their community deserved a seat at the table and that they were the person to take it.
Representation Starts With Someone Deciding to Run
None of this changes on its own. It changes when people from all over, who represent a wide range of communities, decide to run for a seat. Here’s where to start, depending on where you’re at:
If you're wondering whether you have what it takes, our guide on how to run for office with no experience is a good place to start.
If you're already building a campaign and want it to reflect the community you're serving, our course on Equitable and Inclusive Campaign Practices walks through what that actually looks like in staffing, outreach, and messaging.
Our Fundamentals of Equity & Inclusion course applies those same principles beyond a single campaign, and Creating a Positive Team Culture covers how to build a staff and volunteer environment where people from different backgrounds actually want to stay.
If you want to sit with these ideas on your own time first, our Inclusivity in Practice Reflection Questions worksheet is free to download.
Representation matters because democracy works better when the people making decisions have actually lived the consequences of those decisions. NDTC's mission is to lower the barriers that keep qualified people out of that room, train any Democrat who wants to run, and build a bench of leaders who reflect the country they serve.
Keep an eye on our live training schedule for upcoming affinity month programming, and check out our impact page to see what a more representative bench of candidates has already built.
