Young Democrats challenge longtime incumbents as party grapples with generational divide
By Eric Bradner, Arit John and Arlette Saenz, CNN
Indianapolis (CNN) — In his bid to unseat Rep. Andre Carson, the 50-year-old Democrat who has represented Indiana’s 7th Congressional District since 2008, 34-year-old challenger George Hornedo has argued the Democratic Party isn’t working, nationally or locally.
Some voters in the district are open to hearing him out.
Maria Langston, a 69-year-old retiree and longtime Carson supporter, said she “would be open” to voting for Hornedo. She added that she wanted Carson to increase his “visibility within the neighborhood” and play more of a role in building the Democratic Party, which is out of power across all branches of Indiana’s government and has few pockets of political clout outside Indianapolis, the solidly blue population center in the deep-red state.
“We have to rebuild our leaders. We have to identify the leaders,” she said. “A lot of people have become too complacent, and that might be some of our Democratic leaders.”
Putting a finer point on her message to the party, Langston added: “Come on, Democrats — let’s do something.”
Hornedo is part of a growing wave of young Democrats who have launched bids to shake up the party’s ranks by ousting incumbent House members in deep blue seats. They see voter frustrations with what they’ve described as Democrats’ ineffective response to President Donald Trump’s actions as a mandate to remake the party.
Leaders We Deserve, a group led by Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg, is planning to spend $20 million to boost young candidates, including some seeking to oust Democratic incumbents in safe seats. Justice Democrats, the organization that supported New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s successful 2018 primary run, announced its first challenge of the 2026 cycle Monday. So far, more than half a dozen young Democrats have launched campaigns against those in the party they say aren’t doing enough to combat Trump’s agenda.
Many of those candidates are making cases for generational change.
“It is about needing new energy in Congress to actually meet the moment where we are,” said 37-year-old Jake Rakov, who is challenging his former boss, 15-term Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of California. “We just need people who are more active communicators, who can move the party into the 21st century and don’t operate like it’s 1996.”
For others, it’s about tactics – and volume.
The 26-year-old social media star Kat Abughazaleh, who launched her run against Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky before reports the 80-year-old progressive planned to retire, said frustration with Democrats’ response to Trump is “probably what unites a lot of us” who are taking on House incumbents.
“We’re done with this administration and we don’t think that Democrats are doing enough,” she said. “We can’t be like Chuck Schumer and write a bunch of strongly-worded letters for a president who doesn’t like reading.”
Abughazaleh said she has spoken with a number of other Democrats considering their own campaigns, and is planning a May video call to talk with many of them. Schakowsky, meanwhile, said in a statement she has not yet made a decision and will announce whether she will seek reelection in a May 5 speech.
The spate of primary challenges comes amid a broader debate within the Democratic Party about how best to counter the president and reach the voters who handed Republicans full control of Washington in last year’s elections. In some cases, the push for younger leaders has also extended a difficult conversation about age and fitness in the wake of President Joe Biden’s late exit from the 2024 presidential race.
The debate is playing out in midterm races, within the Democratic National Committee and in the earliest stages of the 2028 presidential primary contest, as potential contenders use rallies, speeches and podcasts to begin to position themselves and test messaging.
The House primary races could test how strong the Democratic electorate’s appetite is for fresh faces, and whether any new approaches are effective. The internal tensions come as the party faces questions about its image with voters – fueled by dissatisfaction within its own ranks. A recent CNN poll found just 38% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents approve of the party’s leadership while anger with politics has swelled to 70% among Democratic-aligned Americans.
Challenging ‘the politics of loyalty and seniority’
As of now, the various primary efforts aren’t connected. But they all share a common theme: a complaint that many of the Democratic Party’s current leaders are relying on an outdated political playbook and failing to address the perceived overreaches of the second Trump administration with sufficient energy.
Justice Democrats is returning to its roots of supporting primary challenges to Democrats after spending the 2024 cycle focused on protecting progressive incumbents. (Two of its endorsed candidates – former Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush – lost their primaries last year.) The group is actively recruiting candidates.
“We feel like there is a mandate for us, based on the results in November, to help reshape and transform this Democratic Party, as we’ve tried to do since the start of this organization,” Usamah Andrabi, Justice Democrats’ communication director, said in an interview.
The group’s first target is two-term Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar, a 70-year-old multimillionaire the group plans to frame as the Elon Musk of Detroit. Justice Democrats is backing 32-year-old state Rep. Donavan McKinney in the Detroit-area 13th Congressional District.
As he confronts fresh political pressure from the progressive wing of the party, Thanedar this week introduced articles of impeachment against Trump. “We cannot wait for more damage to be done,” he said in a statement. “Congress must act.”
The current wave of young primary challengers shares some common themes with the 2018 midterm election cycle, when candidates backed by Justice Democrats such as Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and other progressive lawmakers who are part of “The Squad” beat longtime incumbents or won crowded primaries for safe seats. Now, however, candidates and organizations pushing for new leaders say the stakes are higher and the anger and frustration of the party base is more intense.
Saikat Chakrabarti, a co-founder of Justice Democrats who is now challenging former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said he’s in contact with other young Democrats running for office and has encouraged other would be challengers to launch campaigns.
The 39-year-old said he was inspired to challenge Pelosi, 85, after she maneuvered to block Ocasio-Cortez’s bid to become the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. The member Pelosi backed, 75-year-old Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, announced this week that he would step down from the leadership post on the committee due to health concerns and retire at the end of his term.
“We need our best fighters in there,” Chakrabarti said. “This is long past the time of the politics of loyalty and seniority.”
A spokesperson for Pelosi declined an interview request for this article.
Hogg, however, said he would not support primary challenges against members like Pelosi, who he credited with leading House Democrats’ resistance to Trump in 2018 and who he said needed to be there to mentor the next generation of Democrats. He is also not backing candidates who are running to the right of safe seat incumbents.
Still, Hogg has angered party leaders by attempting to launch his own wave of challengers while being a party leader. The national party, they argue, should project neutrality. Later this year, the committee will consider an expanded neutrality clause that would force Hogg to choose between challenging incumbents and maintaining his leadership role. Hogg has said he believes the committee is preparing to “remove” him.
Despite the controversy, Hogg has argued Democrats need to challenge what he deems “ineffective” lawmakers in safe seats to rebuild the party and improve its standing with voters.
“We’re going to have to challenge people. We’re going to have to shake things up, especially if our approval rating is at 27,” he said. “There is no amount of messaging that is going to get us out of that.”
‘Somebody’s got to do something’
Sherman, as well as other critics of the primary efforts, argue that Democrats could jeopardize their chances of retaking the House if they have to direct resources toward defending party members, and that incumbents in safe seats would have to spend money on themselves that could go toward flipping GOP-held seats. He also pushed back on the idea that Democrats need to radically transform the party.
“The fact is, we are doing a hell of a job,” he told CNN.
“We are winning, and maybe we’re winning because the other side is screwing up, or maybe we’re winning because we’re doing a good job, but the polls right now are very good,” he added, referencing Trump’s declining approval ratings and Democrats’ standing on the generic ballot.
But Democratic challengers are calling for more urgent and engaging representation in Congress.
Everton Blair, a 33-year-old Georgia educator, announced a bid to unseat 12-term incumbent Democratic Rep. David Scott in Georgia’s heavily Democratic 13th Congressional District last month, arguing voters there are “fed up” and need an “alternative.”
Scott, 79, was first elected to Congress in 2002 and fended off multiple Democratic primary challenges in past cycles. In 2024, Scott secured enough votes to avoid a primary runoff when he faced six Democratic challengers in a district that was redrawn months prior.
But Blair, a former chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Education, said this year’s contest is different.
“Somebody’s got to do something, and I think we’ve witnessed what running the same tired playbook gets us,” said Blair, one of several Democrats planning to challenge Scott in 2026. “It’s on us now. If we don’t learn from this lesson and if we don’t bring up a new bench of leaders, then we are the ones to blame when we don’t succeed.”
‘Only time I see him is on TV’
In interviews with Democratic primary voters in Indianapolis, conversations about the contest between Carson and Hornedo quickly shifted to concerns about the party’s larger leadership vacuum.
On a recent Saturday morning, Hornedo volunteered to clear invasive plants from an Indianapolis park. Several other volunteers said they’d gotten to know him through neighborhood association meetings.
Thuriya Sai, a 29-year-old nonprofit worker who moved to Indianapolis last year and plans to vote in next year’s Democratic primary, said he’ll be closely watching where the two candidates’ funding comes from.
He said he is looking for candidates who “say what they’re thinking and won’t just be bootlickers to established Democrats.”
Erica Johnson, a 62-year-old Indianapolis resident, said she’s met Hornedo three times at neighborhood association meetings.
As for Carson, she said: “Only time I see him is on TV.”
Hornedo, she said, has already earned her support.
“He deals with the people,” Johnson said of Hornedo. “He doesn’t shy away. He comes to the meetings, he answers our questions, he stays. So of course I’m going to vote for him.”
Carson, though, has the tried-and-true advantages of incumbency and deep connections to community leaders on his side — and those political assets could prove too much to overcome in a primary contest featuring a first-time candidate taking on an incumbent who is universally known in the district.
His grandmother, Julia Carson, held the 7th District seat until her death in 2007. Andre Carson won a 2008 special election to replace her, and has held the seat since. No opponent has ever come within single digits of Carson in a primary or general election.
At a recent Light of the World Christian Church event honoring the career of Bishop Tom Garrott Benjamin Jr., an influential Black leader in the city, Carson — who is Muslim — was invited on stage.
“We live in a world where everyone’s trying to amass power, but the power lives with the people,” he told the crowd. “Your job as a leader isn’t to lord and master and rule over other people.”
In an interview, Carson said Democrats in his district are looking for activism in taking on Trump, but it comes with a “Hoosier sensibility.”
He touted his role in securing federal funding for $1 billion in projects in Indianapolis, as well as presiding over a House Intelligence subcommittee holding the first congressional hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years. Carson also said he was open to debating Hornedo or participating in forums.
Most attendees CNN approached said they strongly support Carson, and many said they know him personally — some for decades.
“I think he’s a great leader. So was his grandma,” said Donna Perkins, 69, a retiree.
“Anytime there’s anything in the community, he shows up if you need him,” she said. “I think he’s in the fight for us.”
John Hall, a 78-year-old retiree who calls himself a political independent, said he has voted for Republicans for other offices but likes Carson and considers him “one of us.”
“I’m talking about who’s lived in this area, who’s lived in this district, who’s worked in this district, before you even become a representative,” he said.
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