Politics

The rift over generational change roils the Congressional Black Caucus

Published

8 months ago

January 25, 2026

A new generation of Black Democrats is running in the midterms, aiming to inject a younger vision into an aging Congressional Black Caucus. And in some cases, that means primarying incumbents.

The wave of new candidates comes amid an identity crisis for the Democratic Party, which has splintered along generational and ideological lines as the party searches for new leaders in the second Trump era, both for this November and the open presidential race in two years.

“This is a new moment that requires different ideas, requires new energy and new perspectives and you cannot be a part of the system for 40 years and also be the one who’s going to change it for the next 40,” said Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, 31, who launched his primary challenge to 76-year-old Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) last year. “You’ve done the best that you could, and it’s time for other folks to be able to do the best that they can for the present and for the future.”

Young Black candidates say they’re motivated to run due to rising racial tensions, redistricting and the possibility of an end to the Voting Rights Act — and what they describe as an inadequate response from older generations that are fighting past battles.

“Our generation recognizes the fierce urgency of now,” Pearson said.

The CBC has grown exponentially since its establishment in 1971, currently boasting a historic 62 members — the largest of any of the affinity caucuses. But the average age of CBC members is 60 years old, and some of the oldest House Democrats are members.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, 85, has represented South Carolina for more than 30 years and plans on running again. At 88 years old, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has not ruled out running for reelection, despite growing concerns about her age. And 87-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who was first elected in 1990, said she also plans on running for reelection this year.

These long tenures have started to worry some new candidates, they said in interviews.

“When I was born in 1992, this was the poorest district in the poorest state in the country,” said Evan Turnage, who is primarying 77-year-old Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). “Congressman Thompson was elected in ’93 and now today, I’m 33, and this is still the poorest district in the poorest state in the country.”

Turnage — a former senior staffer to Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — said these long-serving members have “failed” younger generations for too long.

“Just because you’ve been around the block for 30 years doesn’t mean you’re delivering results for the district, doesn’t mean you’re delivering results for your constituents,” Turnage said.

In a statement, Thompson said he has spent his entire career encouraging young people “to make a difference in the world.”

“If this is how Mr. Turnage chooses to make a difference in Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, that’s his choice,” Thompson said.

The younger Black candidates — and current lawmakers — have generally pushed more progressive policies in their campaigns than CBC members who have served for decades. They’ve had a heavy focus on issues they say are of most concern to those in their generations, such as the cost of living and education.

“The Democratic Party has to adapt in order to survive. That work starts right now,” said Pearson, who gained nationwide fame in 2023 as a member of the “Tennessee Three” after he was expelled from, and then reelected to, the state Legislature for leading a gun safety protest on the state House floor.

“Black folks in this country are still suffering disproportionately in every single category, and without leadership to elevate those concerns, those worries, those issues in a meaningful way, we’re never going to see that change,” Pearson added.

He is challenging Cohen, who is white, in a majority-Black district based in Memphis that Cohen has represented for decades. During his 2007 campaign, Cohen expressed interest in joining the CBC, but caucus members quickly shut that down.

Cohen said in an interview that his tenure in Congress is actually a strength.

“I know the issues and I know the problems, I know the people,” said Cohen. “The way you get legislation passed hasn’t changed, really, in the 40 years I’ve been here. Some people think it’s about getting a megaphone and hollering or making some kind of a fuss, and I’ve done some of that in my younger days, and I still like to occasionally … but it’s a matter of having friends, having relationships, and being able to get the majority of votes to pass the bills. And I’ve done that all my life.”

The CBC has begun to see younger legislators enter their ranks in recent years. Rep. Gabe Amo, 38, made history in 2023 when he was elected as Rhode Island’s first Black representative. And in 2022, at the age of 25, Rep. Maxwell Frost became the first Gen Z CBC member elected to Congress.

“Our movement — from the civil rights era to the birth of the CBC itself — was born from the energy and courage of young people to stand up and do the right thing,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), chair of the CBC’s political arm, in a statement. “Our caucus today represents the breadth and depth of our community — from every corner of America — and folks whose families have been here for generations, those who are immigrants, queer, disabled, and more women and young people than ever before.”

The CBC PAC has already endorsed some young candidates this cycle, including California’s Lauren Babb and Arkansas’ Chris Jones. It’s likely the PAC will also endorse Adrian Boafo, 31, according to a person familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss private matters, who is running to succeed 86-year-old Rep. Steny Hoyer.

But the PAC this year also endorsed 71-year-old incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) — who identifies as Afro Latino, currently chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and has had a bumpy relationship with the CBC — over his 32-year-old primary challenger, Darializa Avila Chevalier.

As the age gap between caucus members and voters grows, an influx of fresh faces will be vital to regaining voters’ support for Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms, said 25-year-old Courtney McClain, who is running for a red House seat in South Carolina.

“Within the party in general, we’ve had an issue of connecting with younger voters, and especially with young men,” said McClain, referring to the 15 percent of Black men who supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. “I really think a lot of people are more apt to vote if they can see themselves in the candidate as opposed to someone who has been there for many years.”

But these young Black candidates still hold a deep appreciation for the caucus, despite their concerns around age.

Turnage said he’d “love” to be a member of the CBC. Pearson called the caucus an “extraordinary institution.” And McClain — a onetime CBC Foundation intern and a fellow with the CBC Institute last year — said she would “definitely” like to be a member.

Ultimately, McClain said, the CBC needs young members if they hope to actually address the challenges facing the next generation.

“The legislation that’s being passed, a lot of the people that are currently in office won’t even be impacted by it, say, in the next 20 years,” McClain said. “But my generation will.”

Politics

Poll: Here’s what really matters for ‘electability’

Published

3 hours ago

September 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Voters are perfectly fine supporting candidates who aren’t white men.

But they do show small preferences for candidates who are younger and Christian, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll. And voters were most likely to penalize transgender candidates in hypothetical matchups, though Democrats were more likely to support them than GOP voters were.

The results cast a new light on a simmering, yearslong public conversation within both parties about what it means to be electable and whether putting forward candidates of varying backgrounds is too politically risky in a close election environment. It’s a debate that defined the last open Democratic presidential primary in 2020 and is poised to play a role in 2028 too.

Democrats have largely focused their debates on whether voters would accept a person of color or a woman, particularly after President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024 — while losing to Joe Biden in 2020. But the poll results suggest the characteristics voters care most about are different, shaped by frustrations over aging politicians and both new and old culture wars.

“The American people, I believe, think about identity way less than the average political consultant does,” said Mike Nellis, a longtime Democratic digital strategist who advised Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign. “Obviously there are factors in society that make it harder for women and people of color to get elected, but there are plenty of incredibly talented people out there who are capable of getting over the hump on that.”

To test whether demographic characteristics make a candidate more or less electable, Blue Light News’s polling partner, Public First, showed thousands of respondents a series of head-to-head matchups. In each case, respondents were given basic information about the candidate’s demographics, such as their race, age and gender; their career, with titles such as doctor, attorney general or CEO; and a single-sentence description of their political alignment, either as a progressive or moderate Democratic, independent, or moderate or MAGA Republican.

Respondents then picked which candidate they would prefer, and the results overwhelmingly showed voters cared the most about a candidate’s political ideology. But respondents also revealed more subtle patterns in their preferences.

Voters across both parties were more likely to reject older candidates in favor of younger ones. Republicans in particular favored candidates who were described as Christian or regular churchgoers, even when controlling for the candidates’ politics. GOP respondents picked candidates described as regularly attending a church just under 9% more often than candidates who did not have any faith.

That means that even though Republican respondents usually picked the GOP candidate in head-to-head matchups, for example, they were more likely to cross over and support an independent or Democratic candidate when that candidate was described as Christian.

The results on sexual orientation were more complicated: When candidates were described as “gay,” they were picked about 10% less often across all voters. But when the candidate descriptions describe the candidate as a man married to his husband — without a label for sexual orientation — respondents did not pick them less often in a statistically significant manner.

Voters were less likely to pick transgender candidates, with Democratic voters about 5% less likely while GOP voters were 17% less likely, all else held equal.

The age results were a strong signal that voters want a new generation of candidates after the last presidential cycle was driven by concerns about Biden’s age, fueling a slew of intergenerational primary contests this year and leading major Democratic voices to publicly call for a younger candidate for 2028. Trump is now 80, and Republicans have faced their own conversations about aging politicians, as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) faced serious health challenges earlier this year.

Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, which recruits candidates under the age of 40, said when the group started its work nearly a decade ago, younger people were often seen as “risky bets” electorally.

“Now I think people are starting to see that that is not true. Voters will judge people one by one,” Litman said. “They’re also really hungry for change and really hungry for someone who didn’t get us into this mess.”

The poll found candidates over the age of 70 were nearly 10% less likely to be picked than candidates under the age of 50, with Democrats slightly more likely than Republicans to disfavor a candidate due to age.

Notably, The Blue Light News Poll didn’t find differences based on a candidate’s race or gender overall, outside of gender identity. That has long been a topic of debate among Democrats thinking about winning the presidency.

When Harris replaced Biden on the top of Democrats’ ticket in 2024, few questioned that she would choose a white man as her running mate. Since her loss, some Democrats have argued that a white male candidate might be the best path forward for the party in 2028.

Harris also wrote in her memoir about the campaign that she thought picking former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as her running mate would have been “too risky” because he is gay, and that he otherwise would have been her ideal partner.

But Buttigieg, who is contemplating running for president in 2028, recently argued that the country is ready for a gay president, saying he wouldn’t have launched a bid in 2020 otherwise.

“What’s on people’s minds isn’t about you, your identity as a candidate,” he told NBC News last weekend. “It’s about them. It’s about their lives.”

Politics

Farm-state Republicans are having a cow over Trump’s beef imports as Election Day approaches

Published

2 days ago

September 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Farm-state Republicans don’t support President Donald Trump’s move to import cheap beef — but they’re still getting grilled for it.

Trump’s plan to combat sky-high beef prices by introducing discounted, tariff-free foreign beef has been widely condemned by ag-state Republicans who are concerned it will undercut the domestic beef industry and hurt ranchers, a normally reliable constituency.

And their opponents see an opening to paint Republicans as unconcerned about voters’ pocketbook concerns.

“Our ranchers and our farmers keep getting kicked in the teeth, and we have politicians that keep telling us that everything’s great, that we’re the hottest country,” Dan Osborn, an independent running for Senate in Nebraska, said in an interview. “And to be quite frank, I’m pretty pissed off about it.”

Osborn’s state is one of the top four top cattle-producing states — along with Texas, Kansas and Iowa — all of which have more-competitive-than-expected Senate races this cycle. And Trump’s controversial plan to remove tariffs from 300,000 metric tons of imported beef, sold at 25 percent below current market prices, is doing Republicans no favors.

Osborn’s campaign went on air with a pun-filled ad this week in which he says the import plan is “selling out American farmers and ranchers,” and blasts Congress for being “too chicken to stand up to the corporations who bought them off.” The campaign says it plans to spend at least six figures airing the spot. It’s the first major spending from a campaign focused on the beef import plan. But it plays into a larger economic argument Democrats are pushing to break through with farmers and ranchers: Trump and Republicans have turned their backs on rural America, as a worsening farm crisis and spiking fuel and fertilizer prices pinch agricultural communities.

“It’s part of a wider frustration,” said an adviser to one of the farm-state GOP senators, granted anonymity to speak openly. “I don’t think it sways anyone’s vote, but it isn’t a great look. … It isn’t fun for me to read the headline. It’s frustrating.”

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Osborn’s opponent, said in a statement he has a record of standing for his state’s agriculture community, “no matter who is president — from fighting Biden’s 30×30 plan to opposing this beef import plan.”

“Ranchers know the difference between a senator who delivers and a candidate reading a script his socialist ad agency wrote,” Ricketts said.

Farm-state Democrats and independents believe beef imports provide a window to speak to rural voters who have skewed red for decades but suddenly look more competitive amid Trump’s plunging political standing. A strategist working on Osborn’s campaign, granted anonymity to discuss strategy, said Osborn’s ad “codes as non-partisan in a way that running ads about taxes or healthcare doesn’t.”

Trump’s overall unpopularity is hurting Republicans across the map, but this policy could be especially problematic in a quartet of once-sleeper Senate races that could hand Democrats control of the upper chamber.

Spokespeople for the GOP nominees in Iowa and Kansas declined to discuss the issue, pointing to their candidates’ statements in August, when Trump’s plan was announced: Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) called Trump’s plan a “bad idea,” while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) said the priority should be growing the U.S. cattle herd, “not flooding the market with imports.”

Last week, during a debate at the Kansas State Fair, Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton slammed the import plan as “a slap in the face of all of our cattle ranchers,” earning a raucous response from fair-goers, and hit Marshall for “tepidly respond[ing] to it as opposed to shouting like hell that this is not okay.”

In Iowa’s agriculture-heavy first district, Democrats have been on the air since June with an ad hammering Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks for record-high beef prices” and other cost-of-living increases under the Trump administration. The Republicans who were already getting hammered for high prices before now are now hobbled by a proposed remedy — one that has infuriated their own base.

When asked how Republicans should message the beef plan back home, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, acknowledged there’s “certainly a lot of concern amongst our cattle producers.”

“I think they understand what’s going on. They’re just not pleased with it,” Boozman said. “We’re in contact with the administration, a lot of members are in contact, helping them understand the unintended consequences of it. We’d like to lower prices, but again, we don’t want the unintended consequence of lowering cattle futures significantly.”

That leaves ranchers worried that the import plan will undercut their struggling industry.

“President Trump wants to lower the price of beef, I think that’s where it’s coming from,” said Ben Menges, a cattle rancher in Arizona’s battleground 6th District. “The best way that President Trump can do that is by lowering the cost of fuel, not by importing a bunch of beef.”

Some Republicans have looked to turn the conversation into a culture war issue — hitting their opponents for past stances on meat consumption or veganism.

Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Iowa Friday — which Hinson did not attend — slammed Hamilton, the pastor-turned-Democratic nominee for Senate in Kansas, for having a “kind of a ‘gee whiz, I’m a nice pastor’ vibe” who tells his congregation to “repent for their white privilege while eating beef.”

It’s an attack Marshall made at last week’s debate, hitting Hamilton for a sermon he delivered on climate change and the impact of meat consumption.

“I think the senator needs to repent for not standing up for the beef industry,” responded Hamilton.

Politics

The Blue Light News Poll Electability Experiment

Published

2 days ago

September 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Respondents presented with 2 choices of candidates with various traits. Results represent the estimated impact of each trait on likelihood of selection.