Millennial Action Project Announces New Report on Millennials Running for Office in 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 

August 20, 2020

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Stacy Lewis

[email protected] 

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Millennial Action Project (MAP) released the topline findings of a new report on Millennials running for office in 2020. The Millennials on the Rise candidate tracker is the best resource for researchers, journalists, and candidates looking for comprehensive data on every single Millennial running for Congress.

MAP researchers have assembled several topline findings on the current state of Millennials seeking congressional office:

• 236 candidates running for Congress in November are under the age of 45. Of those, 123 are “true” Millennials born between 1979 and 1996. For comparison, 103 “true” Millennials were on November ballots in 2018.
• From 2018 to 2020, there was a 266% increase in Millennials running for Congress. In 2020, MAP has tracked 703 Millennial candidates for Congress throughout this cycle, compared to just 264 in 2018.
• More Millennials are running as Democrats than as Republicans. Of the 236 candidates running for Congress under the age of 45, 141 are Democrats, 92 are Republicans, two are Independents, and two are Libertarians. 
• Of the 236 candidates running for Congress under the age of 45, 97 are women and 139 are men.
• 54 Millennial candidates for Congress are incumbents. 53 Millennials are running for re-election in the House, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is up for re-election in the Senate.

Millennials and those born after them now make up a majority of the U.S. population, and Millennials and Gen Z now combine to make up 38.1 percent of the electorate. Despite this generational shift in eligible voters, 28 senators and 84 representatives are age 70 or older. 

Figures from this report will be updated as more states finalize their primary results, and a final tabulation of winners will be released after November 3, 2020. 

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The Millennial Action Project (MAP) is a national, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to activating young policymakers to bridge the partisan divide and lead a new era of collaborative governance. In 2013, MAP organized America’s first-ever bipartisan caucus for young members of Congress, the Congressional Future Caucus. Shaping the next generation of leadership, MAP’s Future Caucus Network has expanded into nearly 30 state legislatures and grown into the largest nonpartisan organization of millennial elected officials in the U.S.