The food court is full of girls. Girls holding signs, girls photographing the empty stage with their first cell phones, girls moving restlessly from foot to foot, waiting for the show to begin.

At Senator Elizabeth Warren's Sunday rally at New Bo Market, an upscale food court in Cedar Rapids, local vendors were selling snazzy greeting cards in the shape of Iowa and a variety of merchandise (cutting boards, coasters, earrings). [One of them, Esther P., 12, was away from the crushing crowds, flattening a plate of Mexican food (the sign on the stall read "Hecho en Iowa," or "Made in Iowa") with her mother and grandmother. When I asked Esther why she wanted to come to this meeting, she paused and told her mother to be honest.

It was for Warren, but also for Warren's special guest, Esther admitted. 'I'm a huge fan

That special guest was, of course, Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye, who endorsed Warren in September and campaigned for her in the state eight days before the crucial Iowa caucus general election. Before coming to Cedar Rapids, he stopped by Studio 13, a beloved gay bar in Iowa City.

Like many of the girls I interviewed, Esther came with a political agenda. She cares about climate change, gun control, and corruption, and even if this was not her second Warren rally (it was the third for her mother and the fourth for her grandmother), she would have recognized Warren from the relentless TV, radio, billboards, and Instagram ads that covered the state as the party rally approached

Esther.

Esther's mother, Erin, calls Warren "smart" and "focused on what matters." Esther's grandmother Linda agrees. She likes the fact that Warren is a former teacher like herself.

Esther agrees. 'She's a straight shooter. She doesn't dawdle.' And, "It's empowering to see a woman who doesn't say fluffy things. She's not afraid to take people on."

As Warren and Van Ness took the stage, each wearing black sneakers and stacked-heeled gray leather booties, the crowd got a small taste of Van Ness and greatly enjoyed Warren's stump speech. Van Ness gave a short speech about the day he became concerned about the cost of health care as a political issue: it was the day he went to get a prescription for an HIV drug and found out it cost $3,500.

"I realized at that moment that this was a public health crisis. People need to get the medicine they need," he said.

"Elizabeth Warren is a policy expert, a leader I have looked up to for years and years, and she has the policies to back it up. She has a plan to unify our country."

"She has a plan to unify our country.

"Whether you are a gun control voter, an environmental voter, a child care voter, whatever your problem is, Elizabeth Warren has a plan for it," he told the crowd. For me, it's health care and it's LGBT issues."

As Warren finished her speech, Van Ness joined her, and hundreds of people lined up for selfies with the two. In the line of selfies, I spotted Chloe K., a sixth grader from Cedar Rapids." She said she came to the rally with her aunt "because she wanted to get out of the house. But like Esther, she is no stranger to rallies: her aunt took her to a Hillary Clinton event in 2016 and to the Women's March in Des Moines in 2017.

Chloe said she missed Van Ness and was glad to hear Warren speak about climate change and "the right for everyone to have rights." She asked Warren about what it was like to be a teacher ("I have a teacher at school, but she never tells me anything, so I always want to know") and about Warren's Tik Tok, i.e., does he have a cat? (There was no Tik Tok for the campaign, and Warren's dog, an obscenely photogenic golden retriever named Bailey, was right outside the venue and available for selfie requests.)

Elsewhere in the line, 9-year-old Tiana H., wearing a Warren beanie, waited with her sister and grandfather. She said that when she got to the front of the line, all she wanted to ask Warren was about gun violence. It's something she thinks about a lot and is talked about a lot in school, she said. Her grandfather said he wanted his two daughters to understand that voting is both a right and a duty.

For some of them, it's a right they won't be able to exercise for a few more presidential election cycles, but that doesn't mean they aren't paying attention. They see people almost their age becoming national leaders in ending gun violence and environmental racism, and world leaders on the climate crisis. generation Z is more inclined to believe that government should do more to solve these and many other problems. to do more to solve these and many other problems than earlier generations. They know that the adults around them are trying to vote, and that their vote will have cross-generational consequences.

Thirteen-year-old Jenna M., who had never seen Warren's speech in person ("I've heard of her and seen her ads"), was converted on the night. She seemed to really care about the people of Iowa and the general public." I was interested to hear Warren on Van Ness's podcast "Getting Curious." It was Hannah who pointed out that "if college is free, as Warren promised, it might be easy for Jenna to go to college.

Hannah N., 12, was just a few feet from the head of the selfie line and visibly excited when I spotted her. She had come mostly to see Van Ness, but was "glad I came, glad I came, glad I heard [Warren's] speech." Hannah's primary concerns are LGBT issues and health care. [It may be true that children are our future, but they are also our present. Today, they fuss over HIV-positive reality show hosts with thick beards and shiny leather booties. But before long, they are participating in elections, running for office, and winning. And you better believe their campaigns will feature Tik Toks.

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