![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_9938.jpeg\")
Annika Lilja stands alongside Tim Walz and other campaign volunteers during an event in Minnesota. Lilja has been involved in campaign work since age 15 and continues to support voter outreach efforts. (Courtesy of Annika Lilja)<\/p>\nAnnika Lilja, \u201829, was 13 years old when she started \u201cAllTeenPolitics\u201d \u2014 a website that shares politics catered for teenagers with a name inspired by her initials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She launched the platform in 2020 during the presidential election because she thought it was important and wanted to find a way to get involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To get started, Lilja drafted a three-page business plan and began to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But her love for politics doesn\u2019t stop with \u201cAllTeenPolitics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lilja has been involved with campaign work since she was 15 years old. She first worked on a congressional campaign in Minnesota for Dean Phillips who challenged Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was such a unique experience talking with voters, going door knocking, and having to look a stranger in the face and try to convince them to vote for your candidate,\u201d Lilja said. \u201cIt gives you so many skills, (like) how to connect with people, how to persuade people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lilja also has experience working on a Minnesota State House campaign, as well as two congressional campaigns and one presidential campaign.\u00a0She said part of the reason why she wanted to attend Lehigh was because Pennsylvania is a swing state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Annika Lilja stands alongside Tim Walz and other campaign volunteers during an event in Minnesota. Lilja has been involved in campaign work since age 15 and continues to support voter outreach efforts. (Courtesy of Annika Lilja)<\/p>\n
Lilja is a double major in political science and economics. She earned a full merit-based Soaring Together scholarship, which is awarded to a select number of incoming Lehigh students interested in advancing gender equity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She is also part of the Eckardt Scholars Program, a selective honors program in the College of Arts and Sciences, allowing her to take specialized courses at an accelerated pace.<\/p>\n
Morgan Nelson, the senior director of strategic engagement in alumni relations, runs the Soaring Together initiative on campus and is in charge of the scholarship cohort.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said the program receives about 1600 applications and 15 students are selected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nelson said Lilja blew her away from the beginning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember thinking, \u2018You\u2019re going to do big things just with this opportunity, with this cohort, and then just everything else Lehigh has to offer,\u2019\u201d Nelson said.<\/p>\n
Lilja said the connections she has made with alumni, unique course offerings and leadership opportunities she has gained from the programs have given her a greater perspective on what it means to lead efficiently.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to be around other people thinking about how we can bring about gender equity change, and I think that is inherently tied into the mission that I\u2019m doing through my website,\u201d Lilja said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Growing up, Lilja said her parents had open conversations with her and regularly discussed the news.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said she was always the child that was asked political questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Initially, Lilja was running \u201cAllTeenPolitics\u201d by herself, juggling editing, writing articles and managing social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said she realized it was hard to do it all by herself and wasn\u2019t achieving everything she wanted to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lilja began asking her teachers if students could receive extra credit if they helped with the platform, hoping to incentivize students and grow the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before she knew it, more people began emailing her about getting involved and how to become recurring writers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soon, Lilja had a team of 15 writers contributing from all across the country, including India and the United Kingdom, and eventually formed an editing team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After working on the website for about five years, Lilja decided to take a step away from her work and focus on college.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But on Jan. 1, she plans to launch a new platform called \u201cBridging Politics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said the mission of her new site is the same goal she had when she was 13: spreading young voices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want this site to grow with me, and I\u2019ve evolved so much,\u201d Lilja said. \u201cThe things I wrote when I was 13 and 14, I just laugh because they\u2019re so different from how I write now. Even how I managed the site was different. I\u2019m no longer a teenager.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lilja said she hopes to upload more opinion pieces because she sees a gap between current people working in politics and students. She wants people working in politics to gain insight into how younger generations think.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lilja said it\u2019s critical for students to be informed and engaged before they leave college and join the workforce because they can make an impact on the future of politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today, Lilja is involved with Ryan Crosswell\u2019s campaign for Pennsylvania\u2019s 7th Congressional District, which she\u2019ll be working on for the next few months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said she hopes to become a political strategist in the future and work on campaigns and policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dean Caivano, an assistant professor of political science, said it can be difficult to get to know students in a 75-person class, but it\u2019s not hard to know students who are exceptional like Lilja.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said Lilja is a vital asset to the community and he\u2019s fortunate she will be spending the next four years making an impact at Lehigh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents who produce really creative and innovative and thoughtful work really stand out,\u201d Caivano said. \u201cStudents who aren\u2019t intimidated by a large lecture space and who are willing to ask questions and to engage with the conversation \u2014 and (Lilja) is certainly one of those students who stands out in a larger space.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Annika Lilja, \u201829, was 13 years old when she started \u201cAllTeenPolitics\u201d \u2014 a website that shares politics catered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5451,153,155,154,1197,523],"class_list":{"0":"post-80379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-5-minute-read","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-feature","13":"tag-people"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}