Young candidates are hard to find
But natural trends and constitutional requirements don’t fully explain why younger generations are so underrepresented in Congress.
One big additional reason is that younger potential candidates for Congress face a steeper climb and must make bigger sacrifices than older candidates do.
For example, even if they are interested in running for Congress, Americans in their 20s and 30s haven’t had as much opportunity to establish themselves in secure careers as older generations have. This means less access to that political science research says are crucial to success in congressional campaigns.
More importantly, this means less access to . When I with U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat – – he laid out why his success was the exception and not the rule.
“It’s really hard,” Frost told me. “The system is not created for young people to be running for office.” Just being a candidate, he said, means “a year without salary. If you’re already rich, that’s not a big deal; you’re fine, you have savings. It makes it so young people can’t run.”
Young potential candidates also face a deficit of time in addition to money. Compared with later years, your 20s and 30s usually contain more major life events and changes, such as , and starting a family. As a result, politics take up less space in young people’s lives, compared with older generations with more time, personal stability and career and financial security.