Daniel Shafton has gotten a hands-on education the past few years in how political campaigns operate. And it’s paid off.
About two months ago, Shafton, a 21-year old Jewish Kansas City-area native and a senior at the University of Kansas, became co-manager of Kansas gubernatorial candidate Jim Barnett’s campaign. He shares co-manager duties with Maci Hagelgantz, who handles news media and scheduling while he handles all other aspects of the campaign.
Shafton hired about 30 staffers for the campaign, mostly for paid positions as his is, and he trained them, he said. About one-third of the staff is Jewish. Staffers also include African-American women, LGBTQ people, disabled people and college students. He and others on staff routinely work 50 to 60 hours a week.
He started working with Barnett’s campaign a little over a year ago after having gotten involved in politics in 2015 by working with the 2016 presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). Through his connection with his mentor, Howard Jacobson, Shafton volunteered in early 2016 for Joy Koesten’s campaign for Kansas representative in District 28, which she won. (Koesten is also Jewish and currently running for re-election.)
Shafton said he had learned a lot from the experience. Mainstream Coalition Executive Director Brandi Fisher, another member of the local Jewish community, approached Koesten about finding interns to canvass targeted districts in Johnson County to try to get moderates elected. Shafton applied and got an internship in the summer of 2016 with the job of increasing voter turnout.
“It was a really cool experience,” he said. “We won every single election we worked in, the moderate sweep in the 2016 election.”
He did a few more internships, which enabled him to further hone his skills working in politics, and then he joined Barnett’s campaign. He was impressed by Barnett’s stance on what Shafton considered key issues, and especially Barnett’s public opposition to a bill known as the Adoption Protection Act. It allows adoption agencies to decline to put children into foster care or to place them with adoptive parents “when the proposed placement of such child would violate such agency’s sincerely held religious beliefs,” according to the legislation’s text. Gov. Jeff Colyer signed the bill into law on May 18 and it took effect July 1.
The law is contentious because some argue that it allows discrimination against LGBTQ people who seek to adopt children. Shafton said he considered the law potentially discriminatory against Jews and other groups, as well.
Shafton is majoring in psychology and minoring in business administration at KU. He is one semester away from graduating. If Barnett wins the Aug. 7 primary, then Shafton will take the next semester off school and focus on the general election in November, he said. If Barnett loses in the primary, then Shafton might join another political campaign or take a job with a local company that deals in therapeutic extracts of hemp and cannabidiol (also known as CBD).
Shafton plans to eventually pursue a doctorate in industrial organizational psychology and apply it to working on national political campaigns or for political organizations.
He credits his advancement to co-manager of Barnett’s campaign to the experience he gained as a member of BBYO while he was in high school.
“I worked my way up to council president of BBYO,” he said. “In this campaign manager position, I’ve drawn so much from what I learned in BBY0 that I wouldn’t be able to do this (without that experience). I learned fundraising and networking.”
Shafton lives in Overland Park. His parents are Lynn Shafton and Joel Shafton. He attended and became a Bar Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Shalom.
He attended Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy (HBHA) through eighth grade. He then alternated between Blue Valley North High School and online schooling. He has a medical condition called abdominal migraine syndrome, which caused him to miss many weeks of school at HBHA and later interfered with his high school studies, he said. He received a GED diploma at age 16, attended Johnson County Community College and then transferred to KU.
He most enjoys his work with Barnett’s campaign because of “being able to work with such incredible people, and truthfully that’s at the core of this campaign,” he said.
“Jim and Rosie (Barnett’s wife and running mate) are the most devoted, caring, special people I’ve met,” he said. “They’re so invested in helping Kansas and helping people. Because of what they stand for, the people in the campaign fell into that same category. And the other part is leaving my unique impact on the campaign.”
He has a message for voters, too.
“Early voting is open now, and election day is Aug. 7,” he said. “Get out and vote. Please just vote.”