Young People in Politics

The first edition of On the Rise was published in 2020 as Millennials on the Rise. The biennial, election-year report analyzes a wide range of demographic data—including but not exclusive to age group, generation, gender, and political-party affiliation—on candidates for Congress, with an emphasis on generational trends.

The report is the only one of its kind and informs the work of academics, journalists, advocates, and policymakers.

• Younger candidates are on the rise. In 2026, for the first time, Gen Zers and millennials made up more than a third of the congressional candidate pool, narrowing Gen X’s lead to less than half a percentage point. Millennials are also now the largest generational bloc running for the US Senate, by a margin of three candidates, while the US House of Representatives continues to draw the youngest candidates. Overall, incumbents are a decade older on average than the people challenging them.
• Men outnumber women by three to one in the overall congressional candidate pool, and the gap widens among younger candidates: More than four in five Gen Z candidates are men, the largest gender disparity of any generational cohort. The gender gap in ballot qualification is small, but among Gen Z and millennial candidates, men drop out at notably higher rates than women. Women candidates lean Democratic across every generation, while men only do so among Gen Z and millennials. Among candidates challenging incumbents, men with state legislature experience outnumber women by nearly three to one.
• Mirroring the growing independence of Gen Z voters, Gen Z candidates are the most likely to run outside the two major parties. One in six filed as third party or unaffiliated, most of them as independents. Millennials are the only generation running majority Democratic for the US Senate, a field in which Republicans lead every other cohort. In a cycle shaped by mid-decade redistricting, 85% of House races are rated Solid Democrat or Solid Republican, with only 29 in the most competitive middle bands. Across generations, Democrats are more likely to be running in long-shot or competitive districts than their Republican counterparts.
• Candidates with state-level experience made it to the general election ballot at twice the rate of those without. Among current and former state legislators who are running for Congress, two in three reached the general election, compared with one in three of those who have not served at the state level. Most younger congressional candidates have yet to take this career path, particularly on the Republican side. With the exception of the Baby Boom generation, Democrats running for Congress are more likely than Republicans to have held state legislative office.
• But the younger the candidate, the less likely they are to remain on the ballot in November. Despite the trends supporting generational change, the field tends to narrow by generation over the course of the election cycle. Senate candidates face an especially steep drop-off.

On the Rise 2026 uses data from the KnowWho Candidate Data Service. KnowWho editors have managed, maintained, and updated these data since November 2025. The information is updated weekly by the organization; the data used in this report were last updated on September 6, 2026.

House of Representatives candidates were identified in all US states and territories; Senate candidates were only collected for states in which a race occurred in the 2026 cycle.

KnowWho identified 3,918 candidates who filed to run for the House and Senate in the current cycle. Of these, 3,428 candidates filed for the House, including delegate seats representing Washington, DC, and overseas territories, and 490 candidates filed for the Senate.

In 2025, Future Caucus gathered direct input from state legislators on the challenges of retaining emerging lawmakers. This report draws on focus groups, one-on-one interviews, surveys, and in-person roundtables. Together, these conversations reveal barriers undermining lawmakers’ ability to govern effectively and serve their communities.

1. Lawmakers fear for their personal safety and their families’ well-being. Limited resources and lack of coordination with law enforcement leave them feeling powerless and vulnerable. This lack of agency erodes resilience.
2. Young lawmakers are struggling to make ends meet. Legislative pay and benefits are often insufficient to sustain a family or household, forcing lawmakers—especially younger ones—to make untenable tradeoffs in order to serve their communities.
3. Lawmakers feel stretched thin, ineffective, and unsupported. Most state legislatures lack the staffing, technology, and administrative infrastructure to support meaningful policy and constituent work.
4. Outdated workplace practices limit the effectiveness of legislatures. Unpredictable schedules and committee calendars, insufficient orientations, and limited bipartisan engagement make the job unnecessarily difficult and isolating for those who want to serve well.

This report is informed by eight focus groups and 34 one-on-one interviews with lawmakers, complemented by a survey of 47 respondents. Six of the listening sessions were conducted virtually to ensure geographic diversity, one was held in person in Vermont, and another in Washington, D.C.

In addition, Future Caucus gathered input from more than two dozen lawmakers through in-person roundtable discussions and a supplemental survey at Future Summit in Washington, D.C., in June.