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Dick Durbin speaking to the press in October 2022.
Is the average age of a Democratic lawmaker about to drop?
Democrats have been waging a battle over who gets to bear torches for the party in the 2026 midterm elections. As GZERO’s Riley Callanan reports, young Democrats have been organizing primary challenges to older incumbents, including 85-year-old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Until recently, 80-year-old Jan Schakowsky was also on the list, facing a challenge from 26-year-old influencer Kat Abughazaleh.
The average age of Democrats in Congress is 59, per Quorum, the third-oldest cohort since 1789. The Senate Democratic caucus is even older, with an average age of 63. Some of the older senators, like Durbin and 78-year-old Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, are retiring as their seats go up for reelection next year. Others, like Ed Markey and John Hickenlooper, who are 78 and 73, respectively, are running for another six-year term, complicating efforts to freshen up the caucus. Only one Democratic senator running for reelection next year, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, is under 50.
The push to lower the average age of Democrats in Congress comes after criticisms that 82-year-old former President Joe Biden hurt the party’s chances at holding the White House as he fought to stand for reelection.International Space Station (ISS) crew member Terry Virts of the U.S. speaks by satellite phone shortly after landing near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on June 11, 2015.
EXCLUSIVE: Democratic astronaut explores Texas Senate launch
In the latest sign that Democrats are turning a new leaf after their dismal 2024 defeat, astronaut and political neophyte Terry Virts is planning to launch a run for the US Senate in Texas, GZERO Media has learned. He plans to challenge incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, according to a Democratic operative familiar with the race. Virts’ pending announcement comes as former Rep. Colin Allred, a fellow Democrat, is reportedly planning another Senate bid, just six months after his eight-point loss to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
The latest internal battle. Whether it’s young versus old, or pro-fight versus pro-fold, the Democratic Party is undergoing an identity crisis following US President Donald Trump’s resurgent victory in November. If Virts indeed runs, it will likely set up a primary with Allred, in what would be another battle between the old guard and the upstarts.
Virts didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from GZERO Media.
Who is Virts? Born in Baltimore, the 57-year-old astronaut first learned how to fly at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, graduating in 1989. He served for another decade in the US military, where he flew F-16s, before joining NASA in 2000 – the Johnson Space Center is based in Houston, creating his Texas links. He retired 16 years later. Over the last decade, Virts has been more of a talking head, setting up a podcast that ran for two years and even appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience in 2020 – take that, Kamala Harris. He’s now built a solid social media following.
Houston, the Eagle has landed. Winning Texas has been something of a moonshot in recent years for Democrats, but they’ll be hoping that Virts can provide the launchpad for victory. Mike Doyle, the chair of the Democratic Party for the Houston area, believes that Democratic failings in the former “blue wall” states make it vital for the party to flip Texas if it hopes to win back power.
Republicans have their own quandary. Cornyn faces a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who only narrowly escaped impeachment in 2023 over alleged corruption and bribery. Despite the charges, Doyle expects Paxton to pull through against Cornyn, who defied the party base in 2022 when he successfully negotiated the first major piece of gun-control legislation in 30 years.
“[Paxton] is a crooked, nasty dude, but he wins elections on the Republican side,” said Doyle.
A ray of hope? For all the backlash against Trump’s policies, 2026 is setting up to be a difficult year for Senate Democrats. Three incumbents in swing districts have already retired, and – outside of Maine – the opportunities for a flip look scant. If Virts runs, he remains a longshot, but the success of Sen. Mark Kelly – another former astronaut – in formerly conservative-leaning Arizona suggests Democrats can defy gravity in the Lone Star State.
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Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party speaks after Democrat Josh Stein won the North Carolina governor's race, in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., November 5, 2024.
Young Democrats look to bulldoze the old guard ahead of the midterms
As the Democrats start plotting their fight back into power in the 2026 midterms, Anderson Clayton has a suggestion about who should lead that fight.
“Young people have the energy and the mobility to reshape the party in ways which older generations, quite frankly, are not interested in.”
Clayton speaks with authority on this matter. At 27 years old, the North Carolina native is the country's youngest state party chair. She won the highest organizational position in the swing-state’s Democratic Party at 25.
And others are looking to follow her lead. In recent weeks, a handful of young Democrats have announced that they will be primarying powerful incumbents like 85-year old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 80-year-old Rep. Jan Schakowsky, and 70-year old Rep. Brad Sherman – to name a few. The challengers are former staffers and progressive influencers in their 20s who say the party’s establishment is too old and out of touch to stand up to Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling our country piece by piece, and so many Democrats seem content to sit back and let them,” says 26-year-old Kat Abughazaleh from behind an oversized podcast microphone as she announces her Congressional campaign via TikTok. “It’s time to drop the excuses and grow a f*cking spine.”
There’s a history here, after all. The party still remembers how Joe Biden stayed in the presidential race until just three months before election day, despite concerns about whether his age was an electoral liability. Many young people in the party still aren't convinced that generational change is happening quickly enough.
“Our party’s greatest problem right now is that people aren’t stepping back enough and saying, ‘Maybe it's not my time anymore,’" says Clayton.
She has a point: The average age of Democrats in Congress is 59 – the party’s third oldest cohort since 1789. Despite Millennials and Gen Z emerging as the demographic power center in American politics, Baby Boomers still make up the largest share of representatives in Congress, making up 42.8% of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
From 2011 to 2024, there have been an average of 50 retirements per cycle. It is still early days, but so far just four members of the Senate and five members of the House of Representatives have announced they would not seek re-election in 2026. Meanwhile, two Democrats died in office in March.
Dr. Elaine Kamarck, senior electoral politics fellow at the Brookings Institution, expects to see a generational shift in 2026, but says that primary upsets might not be the main driver.
“In spite of all the talk, it is very, very, very rare for members of Congress to lose primaries,” she points out. “They almost never do. It's like 2% usually.”
However, she believes many older members are likely to step down of their own accord, especially if it seems like Democrats have a chance to retake control of Congress from Republicans.
“They have been serving for a long time and have a good sense of when it's time to go,” she says. “No one wants to be the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there are a lot of people concerned with serving too long and hurting their own party.”
But does age really matter? What’s clear is that young people approach politics differently than older voters. According to Pew Research Center, voters under 35 – who account for roughly 29% of the national electorate – are markedly less partisan than their elders and are broadly disillusioned with both parties.
“I think that we look at issues more than we do party affiliation,” says Clayton. “Painting things with a broad brush anymore isn’t going to get a young person out to the ballot box. It's going to have to be, ‘how are you going to fix this particular issue that's impacting my life?’”
The economy, cost of living, and housing dominated the list of policy concerns for young people in the 2024 election, followed by foreign policy and climate change.
Can the Dems win back young men? Any successful strategy to capture the youth vote will need to have a big focus on young men, 56% of whom voted Trump in 2024 – a 15 point gain from 2020. Clayton says she recalls hearing that young men felt like the only reason to vote Democrat was “because you were an ally to people that were not men,” rather than because the party was interested in their concerns.
Clayton says the Democrats need to rebrand to make young men see they are the “party of raising the minimum wage, and having the right to access housing when you graduate college or high school and not have to go into debt.”
In 2024, young men were significantly more likely than young women to say that economic issues like jobs and inflation were their biggest political issues, as well as immigration and foreign policy.
Potential presidential hopeful and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer has begun directly appealing to young men, saying in her most recent State of the State address that her speech was directed “to all young people, but especially to our young men.”
While her speech celebrated the strides women have made in recent generations, including outpacing men in educational achievement, college enrollment, and home-buying, she also acknowledged that the flip side of that progress is a “generation of young men falling behind their fathers and grandfathers.”
What’s the missing piece in the Dem’s midterm makeover? National leadership. Many say the party is lacking a clear leader for the party to rally around – regardless of their age.
Currently, the most popular US politician is 83-year-old Bernie Sanders, who’s net favorability rating is +7 points, the highest of any prominent US political figure. In contrast, the party’s most powerful member, Chuck Schumer’s net approval rating stands at an abysmal -33, almost as unpopular as the Democratic Party itself, which stands at -35.
Sanders is currently on a popular cross country speaking tour that even included a gig introducing Grammy-nominated pop star Clairo at the Coachella music festival. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who is nearly half a century younger than Sanders, has made frequent appearances at these events too. She is currently polling ahead of Schumer and is allegedly considering challenging him in the primary.
It's too soon to tell whether AOC, Sanders, or another figure will emerge as a new leader of a party badly in need of a rebrand ahead of the 2026 midterms.
But back in North Carolina, Clayton knows what she wants to see.
“What I'm looking for most right now is not the age of the person that does it, but who's willing to step up and really be the fighter that the Democratic Party needs."
Since this piece was published, 80-year-old Sen. Dick Durbin -- a 5 - term Democrat from Illinois -- has announced that he will not seek reelection because of his age.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks during a marathon address from the US Senate floor on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Booker sets record for longest Senate speech, Israel expands latest Gaza offensive, Netanyahu and Orbán defy the ICC, Oz universities cut off Confucius, Argentina’s poverty plunges
25+: The Democrats may not have the White House or a majority in Congress, but one thing they do have, still, is words. Lots and lots of words. Words for days, even, as Democratic Sen. Cory Booker showed by taking to the podium on Monday with a broadside against Donald Trump that lasted more than 25 hours. The veteran lawmaker from New Jersey, a former football player, had vowed to stay up there as long as he was “physically able.” Before yielding the floor on Tuesday night, Booker broke the record for the longest Senate floor speech, surpassing one set in 1957 by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, who filibustered against civil rights.
42: The first stage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, brokered in January, officially lasted 42 days. The deal now looks to be far in the rearview mirror, as Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Wednesday that he would expand his army’s latest military offensive in Gaza. The two sides are still negotiating another ceasefire deal via mediators but haven’t yet reached an agreement.
5: Benjamin Netanyahuleaves Wednesday on a five-day visit to Hungary. It’s the Israeli PM’s second trip abroad since the International Criminal Court last year issued an arrest warrant for him over alleged war crimes in Gaza. In February, he visited the US. Hungary is an ICC member, but the country’s proudly “illiberal” PM Viktor Orban says he won’t honor the court’s warrant. In recent years, the right-winger Netanyahu has cultivated controversial ties with populist nationalist parties in Europe, including some with histories of overt antisemitism.
6: In recent years, half a dozen Australian universities have closed the Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes on their campuses. The CIs educate students about Chinese language, history, and culture. The moves come amid broader tensions between Australia and China, and they reflect fears that Beijing has used the institutes to spread pro-Chinese propaganda and cultivate possible intelligence assets.
38: Argentina’s poverty rate plunged from 53% to 38% last year. Analysts credit “anarcho-capitalist” president Javier Milei, who drastically slashed government spending to put the mismanaged economy on a more stable footing. After an initial bout of pain, those measures brought inflation down from nearly 300% to 70%, easing poverty as people’s spending power increased.
A coalition of labor unions, political action, and community groups march against DOGE and proposed cuts to Medicaid, housing, food assistance, and other vital programs in New York, New York, on March 15, 2025. Some expressed their outrage with Senator Chuck Schumer for voting to advance the Republican funding bill.
Democrats vs. Democrats
Senate Democrats unleashed a storm last week when Schumer and nine other Democrats voted in favor of a Republican-authored funding bill. To vote no, Schumer argued, would be to risk a shutdown of the federal government, a move President Donald Trump and advisor Elon Musk might use to further slash the federal bureaucracy.
House Democrats and others were furious with Schumer’s decision. They have argued that the Republican need for Democratic votes to pass the bill gave Democrats rare legislative leverage over Republicans and a chance to strike a blow at Trump. By refusing to stand up to the president and his party when given the chance, they’re leaving the public without a positive reason to vote for Democrats.
More immediately, Congress will replay this drama in September when the next funding bill comes to the floor. Now that Schumer has set a precedent by caving to pressure, critics within his party ask, what’s to prevent Republicans from offering a bill that Democrats find even more toxic than the one that passed last week, with confidence that that bill will pass too?
A new poll finds that Democratic-aligned adults say, by a margin of 52% to 48%, that the leadership of the Democratic Party is currently taking the party in the wrong direction. There isn’t yet a groundswell within the party that favors replacing Schumer as Senate minority leader, but that moment may be coming.US Capitol at nighttime
Will there be a government shutdown?
Amid the chaos of tariffs, trade wars, stock market slumps, and global conflicts, is the US government headed for a shutdown on Friday? The Senate is struggling to reach an agreement on the continuing resolution passed by the House, which would keep federal funding basically the same as it is now until Sept. 30.
The resolution needs 60 votes to be brought to the floor for a final vote, where it can be passed by a simple majority. This means Republicans need to convince at least eight Democrats to get on board. If the Dems play ball, the government stays open, but Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency get a win – one that will allow them to keep pursuing their agenda and gutting so much of the government Congress is looking to fund.
Democrats would prefer a shorter continuing resolution for one month instead of the six months in the Republican plan since the stopgap funding measure doesn’t come with the robust Congressional oversight on spending that a regular budget bill would. The showdown also represents a broader struggle, not just between Republicans and Democrats, but also between Congress and a White House that is asserting – and extending – its power, testing the limits of lawmakers and the law.
But the Dems don’t appear to be united on shutting down the government and are likely to give the GOP enough votes to advance their bill to the next stage -- where it can become law with just Republican votes. They will then vote no, going on record in opposition but with the full understanding that the GOP will pass it and the government will stay open. They also may try to save face first by voting on their own, shorter-period, temporary funding bill, though it will never pass.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., talks with reporters in Russell building after a senate vote on Wednesday, February 19, 2025.
Dems vs GOP: Who Blinks?
House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to pass a budget bill with only Republican support on Wednesday, sending Senate Democrats an imminent predicament: Either approve a spending bill created solely by the GOP or trigger a shutdown standoff – a strategy they have consistently criticized in the past.
Republicans need at least eight Democratic votes, assuming no additional GOP lawmakers join Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has committed to voting against the bill.
Democrats in the House have vowed to oppose the bill unless it includes language mandating that the Trump administration can’t cut the funds they allocate, and favor their alternative bill extending funding at current levels for four weeks instead – giving lawmakers time to craft a bipartisan funding package. However, a few Dems in the Senate may be willing to side with Republicans. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman,for example, has already committed to backing the bill.
The bill would extend government funding at current levels for seven months while adding $6 billion for defense funding and cutting $13 billion from nondefense spending. While that means some nondefense programs will be cut, it’s not expected to touch Medicaid or Social Security, or to be used as a means for Congress to hop on the DOGE train and start drastically downsizing the government. Those larger budget battles aren’t likely until the fall, when Congress needs to set a budget for next year.