Two candidates from Generation Z have a chance of being elected to Congress right now. According to CBS News, 25-year-old Karoline Leavitt won the Republican primary on Tuesday in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, putting her in a position to challenge Democratic incumbent Rep. Chris Pappas.
“We were outspent, but we were NOT outworked,” Leavitt tweeted after her victory. “Thank you to the people of my home district for believing in me! I am humbled by the outpouring of support. … Tonight, we celebrate. Tomorrow, the work continues.”
Less than a month after Gen Z’s first candidate made it beyond the primary, Leavitt’s victory is anticipated. Florida Democrat Maxwell Frost prevailed in a competitive primary in the state’s 10th Congressional District in August. In the largely Democratic district, the 25-year-old will compete against Republican Calvin Wimbish in November.
Despite the fact that they both belong to the same generation, the platforms they use are very different. Frost works to promote stricter gun control laws, superior healthcare, and increased attention to environmental justice. Leavitt’s campaign has put a lot of emphasis on stricter immigration restrictions, opposition to “red flag” gun laws, higher police funding, qualified immunity protection, and anti-abortion measures.
She was a presidential writer for former President Donald Trump in 2018, according to her website, and then worked as an assistant press secretary in the White House press office.
“I helped prepare Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany for high-pressure briefings, fought against the biased mainstream media, and proudly helped message President Trump’s America First agenda that uplifted the forgotten men and women and small business families like my own,” she says on her website.
She said that after the 2020 election, she served as Rep. Elise Stefanik’s communications director to help with messaging “against President Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the extreme agenda of the House Democrats.” Stefanik is the chair of the House GOP conference. The New York Times noted that she is also known to have repeated Trump’s baseless allegations that the 2020 election was rigged.
Significant conservative figures including Stefanik, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Utah Representative Jim Jordan all backed Leavitt. Kevin McCarthy, the head of the House Republican Party, supported Matt Mowers, one of her rivals in the GOP primary. Gail Huff Brown, whose husband is former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown of the moderate GOP, ran as well.
Trump congratulated Leavitt on her win, posting on his Truth Social site that she did an “amazing job.”