Karoline Leavitt, a former White House aide to Donald Trump who CNN predicted would win the Republican nomination in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, could become one of the first members of Generation Z to be elected in Congress this year.
Leavitt’s victory is the latest in a trend of Gen Z candidates running for Congress as they turn 25, the minimum age required to be sworn into the House.
Maxwell Frost, a community organizer, won the Democratic nomination for Florida’s 10th Congressional District last month at age 25. Because the district heavily favors Democrats, he is likely to be elected to Congress in November.
Leavitt, also 25, has a much more competitive race against Rep. Chris Pappas, one of the most vulnerable House Democrats in the country. But the Republican has run with her age being a strength.
“We have people in Washington, D.C., who have clung to power twice as long as I’ve been alive,” he told CNN earlier this year. “My youth is a strength and it already shows in the campaign.”
And on Tuesday, as she declared victory, she pointed to her age as something that set her apart from the crowded GOP field.
“Tonight we made history. And I look forward to serving as the youngest congresswoman in the history of the United States when we defeat Chris Pappas,” she said. “As many of you know, my youth is one of the many reasons I felt compelled to run for Congress. Because it is my generation of Americans – your children, your grandchildren – who are not well served by the current state of our education system, our media and our entire culture.”
Leavitt is more of a political newcomer than her Republican rivals. After graduating from Saint Anselm College in 2019, he went to work in the Trump White House. He eventually became assistant press secretary under White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. After Trump’s loss, she went to work for New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who, when elected in 2014 at age 30, was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
Leavitt’s victory came in the face of millions of dollars in outside spending that seeks to halt her rise and help Matt Mowers, a Republican who failed to win the seat in 2020, win back the nomination. After polls showed Leavitt tied with Mowers, millions poured into the state from outside groups like the Congressional Leadership Fund and Defending Main Street, including attack ads calling her “woke,” “immature” and “irresponsible.”
Those Republican groups believed that Mowers, not Leavitt, would be better positioned to take on Pappas. A Mowers win would have set up a 2020 rematch, which the Mowers lost by 5 percentage points.
Leavitt’s victory is a testament to the effectiveness of mimicking Trump’s style and political aggressiveness in the GOP primaries. Both Republicans worked for Trump — Leavitt in the White House and Mowers on the campaign trail and at the State Department — but where Mowers tried to walk a fine line in Trump’s embrace, Leavitt was more cheeky.
Mowers’ attention opened the door for Leavitt and turned the fight into one of style and substance. Both Mowers and Leavitt focused their campaigns on the same politics that helped elect the former President, but the winner was relentless in her support of the former President, especially the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
Earlier this month, when Mowers was asked if he had confidence in the election, the candidate said, “I have confidence in the election in New Hampshire,” but added that there was room to “get better.”
Leavitt blasted Mowers for the response, saying, “The 2020 election was undoubtedly stolen by President Trump,” and accusing Mowers of siding with Biden by believing the Democratic president “legitimately won more votes than Donald Trump.”
Leavitt told CNN earlier this year that her candidacy and possible victory would show the impact younger voters could have.
“The Republican Party,” he said, “must support, recruit and encourage new candidates because we’re losing young voters.”
