If you live in Arizona’s Maricopa County, Sebastian Matta will soon be in charge of your court records, restitution payments, child support, wills and marriage licenses, among other filings.
For now, though, he’s a sophomore at Arizona State University, with a reflection paper about a jury trial due this month. That’s because Mr. Matta is 19.
His grade point average, around 3.25, is not extraordinary, but his ambition certainly is.
In the midterm elections on Tuesday, Mr. Matta, a Democrat, won more than 740,000 votes to become Superior Court clerk in Maricopa County — the country’s fourth-largest county by population.
Seismic gains for Democrats across the country in Tuesday’s midterms reverberated down ballot as Arizona voters elected a rare trifecta, with Democrats taking up the governor’s office and statehouse majorities for the first time in six decades.
Mr. Matta is the next boss of more than 600 employees. Come January, he’ll oversee an office with a $65 million budget that processes nearly 15,000 documents and $500,000 each day.
He is thrilled.
“It’s not about the glory for me,” Mr. Matta said in an interview Thursday night. “I saw this opportunity, and I believe firmly that I can make a change in my community, and no one else was stepping up.”
Mr. Matta, who has a background in high school theater and debate, speaks with a political polish beyond his years and often wears a suit to class.
The viability of his campaign came as a surprise even to Mr. Matta, whose major is in the philosophy of politics, morality and law.
He said he found out about the job opening scrolling online “looking at what I could run for, just hypothetically.” Democrats had not put up a candidate for the office since 2018.
Mr. Matta told the late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday that he was eating a Chipotle bowl when his opponent, Jeff Dial, a 50-year-old former Republican state senator, called to concede.
Mr. Dial said he has his doubts.
“I like to see young people get involved, whether it’s City Councils, school boards or the legislature,” Mr. Dial said. “But I think you should learn more before you take on a large department.”
Mr. Matta, who is not the first teenager ever elected to office, said his goals include expanding court services into new languages and allowing residents to open probate cases online.
He does not plan to change his staff or shake things up anytime soon.
“I’m planning on listening to them,” Mr. Matta said of his staff. “I understand they may not take too kindly to a 19-year-old being their boss, but that’s unfortunately the harsh reality of their situation — that I am their boss, and I demand respect like anybody else’s boss.”
His new job pays more than $96,000, but Mr. Matta said he is not moving out of his parents’ house.
He was already on track to graduate from college early and will now drop down to part-time study to take on his new responsibilities.
“I want to do the job full-time,” he said. “But everybody has a side thing, right? And I mean, my hobby is learning.”
The county’s Democratic Party helped him collect the more than 4,000 signatures needed to get him on the ballot, said Eric Limbs, the executive director of the party.
Mr. Limbs said the party had struggled to find candidates for the unglamorous Superior Court job in what can be a challenging county, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 150,000, according to county data.
But Mr. Matta’s win was part of “a number of surprises for us” across the ballot, he said.
“The work that he’s put in and his level of diligence is, for me, what puts him in the special category,” Mr. Limbs said of Mr. Matta. “He is such a sponge and a quick study, as well as his real sense of civic duty, I think are all the qualities that make him well positioned to do well.”
Chris DeRose, a Republican who was appointed to the clerk position in 2018, said any fears around Mr. Matta’s capability amounted to “hyperventilating.”
“There are some very talented young elected leaders in the country,” Mr. DeRose said. “This is a really highly specialized office with a lot of people. To rely on them and to listen to them and find ways to make their jobs easier, and if he does that, he’ll be a great success.”
What is Mr. Matta going to put in his new office first?
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Mr. Matta said. “I really like fountain pens.”
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