Recorded from Cumberland, Maryland, 2021.

This snapshot was gathered in conjunction with the Maryland Voices initiative at Maryland Humanities, specifically to supplement the "Voices and Votes: Democracy in America" traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program. This collection, made up of stories of first-time voters between the ages of 18 and 24, showcases the experiences of young people as they wrestled with the 2020 presidential election, issues around social justice, the environment, immigration, and the pandemic. The full collection of stories is available at www.museumonmainstreet.org.

Jeremiah Mudge (00:00): Hello, I'm Jeremiah Mudge. I am a student at Allegany Community College in Maryland. I think from my local high school, a lot of my friends, the older ones who could vote in the election, were talking about it. So it intrigued me on why they wanted to vote for that candidate or the other.

Jeremiah Mudge (00:20): And that's how I got into politics, as I started looking into the candidates, just to see what all the fuss was about, because there was a lot of talk in the 2016 election among high schoolers. So that's what inspired me to look into it. And then from there, I just, I've kept researching and being interested in politics.

Asset ID: 2021.03.10.d