The Generational Divide in U.S. Congress

25-year-old Maxwell Frost earned the Democratic Party’s nomination in Florida’s blue 10th Congressional District last week, making him the likely winner of the Orlando-area congressional seat in November. This would make Frost the first Gen Z member of U.S. Congress, an institution where Baby Boomers still reign supreme and not even Millennials, the generation who is now in their late 20s to early 40s, have gained a significant foothold yet.

Only 33 out of 435 voting members in the House of Representatives (8 percent) are Millennials, the youngest among them being 27-year-old freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), followed by 32-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). The U.S. Senate has only one Millennial member: John Ossoff, who started his term in 2021 as a new senator for Georgia. Born in 1987, 35-year-old Ossoff is more than seven years younger than the next-youngest United States senator, Josh Hawley of Missouri, who is 42 years old and was born in 1979, making him a member of Gen X.

Almost 80 percent of U.S. senators are either Baby Boomers or members of the Silent Generation, meaning they were born before 1965, while the same is true for 58 percent of House members. Sens. Bernie Sanders (age 80) and Mitch McConnell (age 80) as well as Speaker of the House, 82-year-old Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), are the most prominent members of the Silent Generation in U.S. Congress – all three were born before the end of WWII in the 1940s. Four senators and six House members were born in the 1930s.

Frost, who campaigned on a platform of civil rights, Medicare-for-all and marijuana legalization, was born in 1997, placing him among the first members of Gen Z who have reached the minimum age to be able to hold congressional office. With younger candidates stepping up and many young voters eager to be represented by somebody closer to their age, some change could be coming to Congress in the midterms. The number of House incumbents defeated in primaries already rose to a 20-year high of 15 by the end of August, according to Ballotpedia. While this was also aided by redistricting following the decennial 2020 Census, 2002 saw only eight incumbents defeated while 2012 saw 13 lose their nomination.