Millennial wave of candidates in midterm elections could lower average state legislature age to 56

Around 700 state legislature candidates running in the 2018 midterm elections, the majority of them Democrats, are millennials.

If most of these candidates were to win their respective contests among the 6,000 state legislative races across 46 states, the average age of legislatures were be lowered to 56, Axios reports.

A so-called blue wave could ensue. Run for Something, a liberal group, indicates that somewhere between 600 and 700 Democratic millennials are running.

Republican organizations indicate in the report they do not have an exact number of millennial Republicans running, but said there are a “bunch of them.”

Currently, millennials make up only 6 percent of state legislatures in the U.S.

Founder of the Millennial Action Project, Steven Olikara, told Axios that millennials are more inclined to be bipartisan than people in older generations.

“[Millennials have] new ideas, fresh perspectives [and are] not focused on the left-vs.-right agenda,” Olikara said. “The senior members are rigid in their thinking and more tribal in their politics. That’s part of a product of being in politics for such a long time.”

Millennial wave of candidates in midterm elections could lower average state legislature age to 56

Around 700 state legislature candidates running in the 2018 midterm elections, the majority of them Democrats, are millennials.