By Dustin Gardiner | The Arizona Republic
A crowd dominated by Millennials — teenagers and 20- to-30-somethings — looked on as rival candidates Kate Gallego and Lawrence Robinson appeared together for the first time on a small, dimly lighted stage inside a historical warehouse near downtown Phoenix.
The candidates, both in their early 30s, were meeting for a joint forum last spring, and the scene was anything but typical for a city election: Young campaign volunteers and urbanites cheered loudly from the audience, only occasionally looking down at their smartphones to tweet an applause line or insert a jab.
It was an enthusiastic moment in an otherwise generally low-key series of candidate forums in the District 8 council race this summer, but it highlights the youth movement that some political observers say is afoot in the upcoming city council elections.
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