Generation Z and young voters help redefine US politics after midterms

The outcome of the 2026 US midterm elections has marked a historic shift in American politics, with diverse candidates winning office and the first Generation Z woman elected to Congress.

Of the 117 Generation Z candidates who ran for Congress this year, 24 won their primaries and made it to Tuesday’s ballot, according to the organisation Future Caucus.

Among them was Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old Ethiopian-born democratic socialist from Colorado, who became the first Gen Z woman elected to Congress.

Kiros, a lawyer turned doctoral student, won a stunning primary victory earlier this year, with the first-time candidate beating 30-year incumbent Representative Diana DeGette in the Denver-area seat.

After winning the primary, she told supporters that she was taking the fight to “Donald Trump and the oligarchy”, abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), passing Medicare for All and ending the “genocide in Palestine”.

She joins Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida, who became the first Gen Z member of the House in 2022.

Young people voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, according to an Associated Press news agency voter poll.

After relatively high support for Trump in the 2024 election, young voters snapped back towards the Democratic Party in this year’s midterms.

The AP Voter Poll showed about seven in 10 voters under 30 nationally said they supported the Democratic candidate in their local US House race, while about three in 10 said they voted for the Republican. That was a dramatic shift from 2024, when the youngest voters were roughly split between Trump and Kamala Harris.

Most first-time midterm voters, who skew younger, also supported the Democratic candidate.

Both young voters and first-time voters made up a fairly small share of the electorate. Only about one in 10 voters in the 2026 national electorate are under 30, for instance, which limited the impact of the shift.

But young voters’ displeasure with the country and its leadership was clear. About half of young voters said they were “angry” about the way things were going in the country, compared with only about one-third of voters aged 65 and older. And about six in 10 voters under 30 said one reason for their vote for the US House was to express opposition to Trump, compared with about half of voters aged 30-44 and about four in 10 voters aged 45 and older.

Young voters shifted towards the Democrats in each of the Senate races where the Democratic Party picked up a seat, including in Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina.