David Oks


David E. Oks is an American political activist, best known for organizing and managing the Mike Gravel 2020 presidential campaign as a high school senior.

Early life and education

Oks was born to a Jewish family of Argentinian immigrants, who have been described as "socialist" in their views.
Oks attended the Masters School, where he was a student when he convinced former Senator Mike Gravel to enter the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. He is an alumnus of The Bronfman Fellowship, an educational program for Jewish teenagers with many notable alumni.
Oks enrolled in Pembroke College at the University of Oxford in the fall of 2019.

Campaign work

Oks previously ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign for mayor of Ardsley, New York in 2017. His campaign for mayor was also notable for his young age, which received attention in The New York Times and on NPR member station WNYC.

Mike Gravel 2020 presidential campaign

Oks contacted Gravel on March 14, 2019 to propose a primary run. The stated goal was not to win the primaries but to reach the Democratic debate stage. Gravel was hesitant at first, but Oks and school friend Henry Williams convinced Gravel to launch a campaign in order to promote their left-wing political views.
According to Oks, he first learned about Gravel from Nixonland by Rick Perlstein but was also encouraged by Felix Biederman's praise of Gravel on Chapo Trap House.
Shortly after the campaign unofficially launched on March 20, 2019, Oks claimed authorship of posts that attracted much attention on Twitter.
Along with Williams, Oks was the subject of a June 9, 2019 profile in The New York Times Magazine.
After Gravel's campaign ended on August 6, 2019, Oks appeared on CBS News to discuss his tenure as manager. He said that his goal with the campaign was "to push for a new sort of politics" and "to talk about issues we thought no other candidate was talking about."