Young challengers take on older Democrats in primary challenges

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

As Democratic voters say their party needs to change and young voters grow more skeptical of traditional party politics, a crop of candidates in their 20s and 30s is stepping in to challenge older Democrats for their seats in Congress.

The primary challengers stepping up against veteran Democrats in recent months are emphasizing young-voter issues and railing against the ways they feel the Democratic Party has failed — from how it's pushed back on President Donald Trump's early actions to addressing the rising cost of living.

Saikat Chakrabarti, a 39-year-old former chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, launched a bid in early February for Rep. Nancy Pelosi's House seat in California. Last month, 26-year-old social media star Kat Abughazaleh jumped into the race for veteran Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky's seat.

Since then, a handful of other new faces have entered the midterm arena against entrenched incumbents, with Jake Rakov, 37, challenging his old boss, Rep. Brad Sherman, in California and George Hornedo, 34, launching a challenge against nine-term Rep. Andre Carson in Indiana's 7th District.

The local calls for change come as the party reached an all-time low in popularity in the most recent national NBC News poll, with almost two-thirds of Democrats saying they want congressional Democrats to fight rather than compromise, even at the risk of not getting things done.

Young Democratic voters interviewed by NBC News echoed these views, saying they're "disappointed" by a lack of action from Democrats. Some said they see the party's messaging as "redundant" and think party leaders aren't representing the issues affecting younger generations, with the rising cost of living getting frequent mention.

"They're not listening to what their voters want, and it's just backfiring on them," said Sean Connor, a college student from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Connor said he sees a lack of "real leadership" from Democrats but noted efforts from Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders to rally anti-Trump crowds as successful in mobilizing voters.

"Besides AOC, there's not a lot of young people in Congress to feel represented," Connor said. "I feel like the people controlling my life and controlling our government, they're decades behind what we really need."

Darcy McMillan, a 25-year-old nursing student from Raleigh, North Carolina, said her ideal candidate would be someone younger who understands "what normal people are going through," which she said is a divergence from the representatives she's seen in Congress.

"A lot of them are so out of touch, or 80 years old," said McMillan. "So someone who's younger, empathetic, has lived lives similar enough to us that they get it. Because I don't feel like I can relate to a lot of representatives."

"They keep saying, 'We hear you, we see you,'" said Rebecca, a 24-year-old voter from East Brunswick, New Jersey, who declined to share her last name. "But I haven't seen them condemn what Trump is doing, and the fact that his policies are making it more expensive to live in the United States. I haven't seen anyone say, 'This is what we're planning to do or bring up instead.'"

From California to Illinois, the batch of young Democratic candidates running primary challenges are focusing their criticism on where they think Democrats have "abandoned" voters or "blocked change," often pointing to congressional seniority — an asset in the Capitol, where it comes with better committee assignments and more clout — as a weakness when it comes to representing the current issues facing their districts.

"You'll see people like Sen. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Sherman have been there for decades, who are still operating at the speed of 1996," said Rakov, who is running to represent California's 32nd District, encompassing Malibu and the Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Rakov, who was a staffer for Sherman in 2017, said after Trump took office in January, he saw Sherman making TV appearances using similar messaging and "doing the exact same thing" as he did in Trump's first term. He said that's when he knew he had to run.

"I was like, 'This is exactly what's wrong with the Democratic Party,'" Rakov said. "If we keep going down this road, it's gotten us Trump twice. I don't want to think about what it's going to get us next time if we don't change route."

Rakov said Democrats are currently "flat-footed" in their approach to voters and are failing to match the energy and anger from their base as constituents are negatively impacted by the Trump administration. He said he thinks Democrats have gotten "stuck in their talking points" instead of having candid conversations with constituents about the issues affecting them, and he charged Sherman with being absent from his district in recent months.

Rakov said his challenge to Sherman isn't based on ideological or even generational differences.

"There's nothing about an age," Rakov said. "This isn't a generational argument, but this is about needing to actually get new energy and new voices into Congress on a regular basis. Congress was never meant to be a career."

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., at a news conference at the Capitol on Thursday (Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images)

Sherman's campaign committee released a statement that pointed to the numerous challengers he's faced through the years, saying Rakov was the first who "has never voted in Sherman's district prior to announcing his candidacy."

"Rakov has not identified any single one of Congressman Sherman's thousands of votes that he disagrees with," the statement said. "So at least there is an important aspect of the job that he believes Sherman has performed flawlessly."

Rakov pushed back against the statement, saying he's lived and voted in Los Angeles for "many years" of his life, having moved with his husband to the 32nd District earlier this year. And he said in an email that Sherman's "own social media" hasn't shown him "here since February — even through Congress had an 11 day recess last month."

Abughazaleh, who is running to represent Illinois' 9th District, said she "got sick of waiting around and for someone to do what I thought should happen."

Abughazaleh, born to a Palestinian immigrant father and raised by Republican parents, built a following through rapid-response videos for Media Matters and other organizations, arguing against right-wing narratives to hundreds of thousands of online followers.

"I think a lot of people assume this is going to be a purely digital campaign," said Abughazaleh, who noted she's currently the only person managing her social media. "But it's actually the opposite. We want to build a deeply on-the-ground campaign focused on mutual aid, direct action, and meeting people where they are."

She's launching her campaign in a district she didn't grow up in, hasn't voted in and only moved to last year — which has already become a point of contention for some Democrats opposed to her candidacy.

Abughazaleh pushes back on that framing, saying, "I would say I have the same right to run as everyone else. This is a district that's a quarter foreign-born. It has multiple colleges, tons of people from out of state. … I did not expect to, but I moved here last year — and I really love living here."

Schakowsky — an 80-year-old progressive stalwart who has represented the district since 1999, before Abughazaleh was born — hasn't yet announced whether she'll run again but said in a statement to NBC News that she has "always encouraged more participation in the democratic process."

"I'll be deciding on my plans soon," Schakowsky added, "but if I do indeed decide to retire, there are dozens of talented leaders, advocates, and organizers in the 9th Congressional District who know our community and who are ready to lead the charge as we fight back against the extreme MAGA regime and Trump's shameful policies."

Abughazaleh maintains she isn't launching a campaign against Schakowsky — at least not yet. She called Schakowsky "historically one of the most progressive members of Congress," but added "a lot of us … are worried about older people staying in office for longer periods of time."

Asked if Schakowsky's age played a role in her decision, Abughazaleh said, "I mean, it didn't not."