Politics

The Most Powerful Millennials in the US Government

Aaron Webber

Published: December 20, 2024 1:30 pm

Millennials (or Generation Y), and people who were born between 1981–1996. As of 2024, this makes millennials between the ages of 28–43. This is the generation that got the infant version of the internet, purple ketchup, and mountains of student debt. And now, they are old enough to serve their fellow Americans in political positions.

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

• Millennials are severely under-represented in government due to Baby Boomers hanging on to power far longer than they should.
• Baby Boomers and Gen X have made concerted efforts to prevent and remove Millennials from government.
• Also: Take this quiz to see if you’re on track to retire (Sponsored)

There is a large generational divide in Congress, with only 8% of the House of Representatives and 1% of the Senate being millennials. In contrast, 52% of the House of Representatives are Baby Boomers (1946-1960, 34% are Gen X (1965–1980), and 6% belong to the Silent Generation (1928–45).

JD Vance

• Birthday: August 2, 1984
• Age: 40
• Office: U.S. Senate
• Political Party: Republican

JD Vance is currently the Vice President-elect of the United States and will assume office in January 2025. He is currently serving as a senator of Ohio. He has previously served as a non-combat military journalist, author (Hillbilly Elegy), served on the board of advisors of American Moment (a group affiliated with Project 2025), and co-founder of the venture capital firm Narya Capital. He is known for making false racially prejudiced claims against Ohioan Haitian immigrants that he later admitted were false.

Pete Buttigieg (Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg)

• Birthday: January 19, 1982
• Age: 42
• Office: Secretary of Transportation
• Political Party: Democratic

Pete Buttigieg, from Michigan, is considered one of the most powerful millennials in the United States Government. His political history includes being elected Mayor of South Bend, Indiana at age 30, running for president in 2019, and being nominated for Secretary of Transportation in 202 by President Joe Biden. Buttigieg is the first openly gay Cabinet Head in the United States. He has gained popularity through his sleek utilization of

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

• Birthday: October 13, 1989
• Age: 35
• Office: U.S. Representative
• Political Party: Democratic

Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez (AOC) is a U.S. Representative for New York in Congress. She garnered popularity and a large following of millennials and Gen Z voters over social media platforms like TikTok, X, Twitch, and Instagram. She is known for her aggressive social media presence and for relaying pressing political issues and updates through those channels in easy-to-digest ways. Being the youngest Congressmember in history, her tech-savviness and shared policy views with younger liberal voters have helped push the youngest voters to the polls and lead the progressive movement within the Democratic Party.

Her story is relatable. She came into Congress as a waitress/ bartender from the Bronx, with boots-on-the-ground knowledge and camaraderie of the shared disillusionment of the “American Dream” for millennials and younger. Saddled with student loan debt from her two prestigious degrees at Boston University, she was an activist before her election, participating in protests such as the Standing Rock in South Dakota, volunteering for Bernie Sanders’ run in 2016, and working at non-profits while bartending part-time to make ends meet.

Jon Ossoff (Thomas Jonathan Ossoff)

• Birthday: February 16, 1987
• Age: 37
• Office: Senator
• Political Party: Democratic

Jon Ossoff is the senior U.S. Senator from Georgia. Before becoming a senator, he was an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is known for introducing legislation preventing congress members from trading stocks, being the first millennial senator, the first senator born in the 1980s, and the first Jewish senator from Georgia.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

• Birthday: August 13, 1982
• Age: 42
• Office: Governor of Arkansas
• Political Party: Republican

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders was 40 years old when she was elected to office in January of 2023. She was previously President Donald Trump’s press secretary from 2017-2019. She was the third woman to hold this role and held the least press conferences in the history of Press Secretaries. She also admitted to making false claims when the Mueller Probe interviewed her.

Elise Stefanik

• Birthday: July 2, 1984
• Age: 40
• Political Party: Republican
• Office: U.S. House Representative
• Leadership Position: Chair of the House Republican Conference

Elise Stefanik is a nominee for the United Nations representative position. He is known for being a strong Isreal and Donald Trump supporter and for aggressively grilling the Presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania in 2023 regarding their policies on free speech and antisemitism during the Gaza Genocide Protests on those respective campuses. She is currently a member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committee.

Tara Houska

• Age: 40
• Office: Tribal Attorney

Tara Houska (Zhaabowekwe) is a Millennial Indigenous Attorney who is the campaigns director of Honor and Earth, a former advisor to Bernie Sanders on Native American affairs, and an advocate actively participating in the movement against Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline, defunding fossil fuels, and the Dakota Access Pipeline. She belongs to the Ojibwe tribe from the Couchiching First Nation tribe and is the co-founder of the non-profit Not Your Mascots, and also the founder of Giniw Collective. She was also the recipient of the 2021 American Climate Leadership Award.