BRIDGEWATER – There’s something 1960s-like about young people spending the summer traveling the country.

But this is 2024, not 1968, and the band of Gen Z activists who popped into this Somerset County town Monday evening had politics in mind.

Officially, this excursion has the rather dramatic name of a “Tour to Save Democracy.”

More bluntly, it is a tour to drum up votes for Democrats nationwide and to “flip” the House. The group is visiting GOP-held congressional districts that Democrats think they can win this fall.

CD-7, which spans six counties in central and western Jersey, is one such district.

One thing’s for sure – the crowd didn’t disappoint.

About 300 people signed up to attend a rally at the Green Knoll Grill on Route 202, and from the looks of things, most of them showed up to enjoy political rhetoric, pizza and for those old enough – beer.

Sam Schwartz, the founder and executive director of the tour, said so many Republican positions are “unacceptable to my generation.” He ticked off GOP opposition to abortion rights, gun control and strong steps to combat climate change.

For the record, demographers consider those born in 1997 and later as Generation Z. That makes the oldest member of that group 27.

Many studies suggest that young people simply do not vote as regularly as older Americans do. So the mission here seems twofold – get young people to vote and also, get them to vote Democratic. Most of the crowd was young, but there were some exceptions.

Three of the region’s leading Democrats spoke: Andy Kim, who is running for the U.S. Senate, Rep. Mikie Sherrill of CD-11 and Sue Altman, who is running against Republican incumbent Thomas H. Kean Jr. in CD-7. Sherrill, who does not face strong opposition this year, said Republican control of government could mean a national abortion ban in addition to cuts in education funding, including Head Start, a preschool program that dates back to the Johnson Administration.

Kim certainly had his audience in mind when he said there’s a “hunger” and need in politics for a new generation. He spoke of Project 2025, a lengthy (it’s about 900 pages) conservative blueprint for reforming all aspects of government.

“They’re not trying to hide the crazy,” he said.

Altman’s race against Kean is getting national attention. To win, she has to do well throughout the district, but more specifically, she has to make at least some inroads in very Republican Sussex and Warren counties.

On that, she’s optimistic. She says that when she talks to people throughout the district about, say, climate change, they are receptive.

In speaking to the crowd, Altman, who is a millennial, had another generation in mind – baby boomers.

She said it was the baby boomer generation that fought for abortion rights and also for such things as Title IX, which mandates equal treatment for women’s sports in schools.

Altman, who played basketball in high school and college, said she would not have been able to do that without the work of boomer women, or as she said, “ferocious feminists.”