Gen Z Candidates Are Running for Congress in 2026

In the 2026 midterms, Gen Z candidates have shown up in force. More than one hundred members of the generation have made bids for Congress this cycle, but very few have actually won, as reported by YPulse, which summarized recent reporting from The Hill. According to data from Future Caucus, a nonpartisan organization tracking young office-seekers, candidates under 45 now make up one in three of everyone running for Congress — up from just one in six in previous elections. The youth wave is real. Winning, so far, is not.

The gap between running and winning is the defining story of this cycle. Gen Z candidates are more likely than older candidates to run outside the two major parties, which makes victories statistically harder to secure. They also raise less money than sitting incumbents and established political figures. Still, a handful of Gen Z candidates will appear on November ballots — and one of them has already made history.

Melat Kiros broke through in Colorado

The breakout story of the youth wave is Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old from Colorado. Kiros, who was working as a barista while planning her campaign, defeated longtime incumbent Diana DeGette — who had held the seat for nearly three decades — in the Democratic primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in late June, according to iHeart’s K97 coverage of the race. The Associated Press called the contest shortly after polls closed, with Kiros leading 49 percent to DeGette’s 44 percent.

DeGette first won the Denver-area seat in 1997 — the same year Kiros was born. If Kiros wins in November, an outcome widely expected in the heavily Democratic district, she would become the first Black woman ever to represent Colorado in Congress and the first Gen Z woman elected to Congress, joining Florida’s Maxwell Frost as only the second member of Gen Z in the House. In her victory speech she told supporters, “We will not wait,” according to NPR — a line that has become shorthand for the generational mood.

Kiros ran as a political outsider. A Notre Dame law graduate, she left a major law firm after refusing to remove an article defending pro-Palestinian students, later enrolled in a doctoral program and picked up barista shifts to cover her bills. Her platform included Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, abolishing ICE and a moratorium on new data centers — positions that energized young volunteers who knocked on doors across Denver.

Why most Gen Z candidates fall short

Kiros is the exception, not the rule. More than 80 Gen Z and millennial candidates are challenging or seeking to succeed House Democrats aged 65 and older this year, according to NPR, which obtained a tally from the Democratic fundraising platform Oath. That is a sharp jump from the previous cycle, when Oath counted just 24 Democratic candidates under 50 mounting such challenges.

Tennessee state representative Justin Pearson, 31, is one of the challengers. A decade ago he interned for Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis; now he is trying to unseat the longtime incumbent and is outraising him more than two to one. But defeating an entrenched incumbent remains extremely rare in American politics, and most young challengers never make it out of the primaries.

Deja Foxx, a 25-year-old progressive activist from Arizona, learned that lesson this summer when her primary bid fell short. Her campaign showed how hard it is for first-time Gen Z candidates to break through without institutional backing — and how quickly the establishment closes ranks around incumbents.

The barriers Gen Z candidates face

Money is the bluntest barrier. Incumbents typically glide through primary season with deep donor networks, while Gen Z candidates — many of them first-time office-seekers — struggle to fund competitive campaigns. Running outside the two-party system, which younger candidates do at higher rates, only steepens the climb.

Incumbents have an answer, too. Asked about his young challenger, Rep. Cohen told NPR he was the voice of change decades ago and that Pearson still has a ways to catch up — a reminder that every generation of insurgents eventually meets the same argument about experience. Age, in other words, cuts both ways.

There is nuance the horse-race framing misses. Future Caucus has found that younger candidates are disproportionately good at bridging partisan divides, and its chief executive said the surge itself is remarkable: with faith in democracy under strain, more young people are choosing to run rather than check out. The Hill has noted that the trend shows more nuance in young candidates’ views and platforms than stereotypes suggest.

Why it matters even if most lose

For Gen Z, the significance goes beyond who wins in November. A generation often described as politically disengaged is building campaign infrastructure, donor lists and name recognition that will compound in future cycles. The jump from one in six to one in three candidates under 45 suggests the pipeline itself is shifting — and the midterms are only the first test.

Whether that pipeline pays off will be decided in the next rounds. Several Gen Z candidates remain on November ballots, and their results will shape whether parties invest in young challengers or keep treating them as long shots. Either way, this cycle has delivered a message: a generation raised on school-shooting drills, a pandemic and a climate crisis is done waiting for permission to lead.

Read more: Gen Z voters could decide the 2026 midterms. For more stories from this beat, see our youth activism coverage.