Will 2020 be the year of the millennial in Texas politics?

AUSTIN — When she ran for Houston City Council in 2015, people joked that Amanda Edwards was still a college student — although she was 33 and an experienced lawyer. She said people tell her every day that she’s too young to run for U.S. Senate and should wait to run for higher office.

Millennials like her are challenging that perception. This year in the San Antonio and Houston areas, 22 percent of 288 candidates for Congress, Texas Legislature and other state-level elected positions are in their twenties and thirties.

“It’s really a new time,” said Edwards, 38, one of a dozen Democrats seeking the party’s nomination to run against Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, 67. If elected, she could be the youngest member of the Senate.

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In the 2018 midterm election, 26 millennials were elected to the 435-member U.S. House. Before then, the chamber had six millennials.

Just 3 percent of people elected to the Texas Legislature in 2018 were under 35 years old when they took office, according to a demographic analysis by the Texas Tribune. At the time, people that age made up 30 percent of the nation’s population.

More Information Generations by birth year, age as of Dec. 31, 2019 Millennials: 1981 - 1996; 23 to 38 years old Generation X: 1965 - 1980; 39 to 54 years old Baby Boomers: 1946 - 1964; 55 to 73 years old Silent generation: 1925-1945, 74 to 94 years old

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Generational change is part of the national debate as Democratic voters consider whether to nominate 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg for president, who is vying with 78-year-old U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Texas joined that debate this week as thousands of people cast ballots during the early voting period, which began Tuesday and runs through Feb. 28. Primary Election Day is March 3.

Hearst Newspapers analyzed the list of candidates in the San Antonio and Houston areas running for Congress, the Texas Legislature, Texas Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, State Board of Education and Railroad Commission. In about 30 cases, we could not verify candidates’ ages and candidates did not respond to requests for the information. The analysis includes only candidates whose ages we could verify.

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The millennial candidates are conservatives and progressives, first-generation Americans and seventh-generation Texans. They work in energy, education and business; they led political coalitions, built nonprofit groups and city baseball teams.

“It’s not (that) you want to look at a picture of what diversity should look like in a room. It’s about hearing that viewpoint, that perspective that you might not otherwise gain access to but for the fact that you had someone who was young, or someone who was diverse, or someone who was a woman and came and had a seat at the table,” said Edwards.

Something has changed since 2016

Several millennials who won surprise victories in 2018 have become political stars. Dan Crenshaw was a little-known, 34-year-old former Navy SEAL when he ran for Congress in Houston’s 2nd District. He was outspent by millions of dollars in the GOP primary. But he won and is now one of the brightest young lights of the Republican Party.

Lina Hidalgo, a 27-year-old immigrant, was elected the same year, defeating the Republican county judge of Harris County, the third-largest county in the nation.

In New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became, at 29, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress when she won in 2018. She has since become one of the most recognizable figures on both sides of the aisle in Congress and has forced difficult conversations within the Democratic Party on issues including climate change and reliance on corporate donors.

At least 50 millennials are running in the Houston area and 19 in and around San Antonio. Most of them are first-time candidates, including Jeff McFarlin who skipped college to start a business out of high school and now, at 31, is running for Congress.

The Republican said the generations of Americans before his were “clannish” and “partisan,” and not just in politics.

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“We grew up in this world that had all these categories and millennials are over it,” said McFarlin, who works in the oil and gas service industry. “Any goofball can get angry, but show me somebody who can actually fix the issue… not just get angry about it.”

He is running in the 23rd Congressional District, which stretches west from San Antonio nearly to El Paso and includes one-third of the U.S.-Mexico border.

He said he wants to reject the labels that divide people and believes he could do a lot of good as a congressman.

Shauna Shames, who teaches political science at Rutgers University-Camden in New Jersey, spent five years studying the political aspirations of young people and examining why people in elite schools were averse to running for office.

The research, which she collected before the 2016 election, found students thought the costs — such as losing their privacy, anxiety about having to ask people for money, and the tinge of feeling indebted to donors — outweighed the benefits. Those benefits included helping people, making a change and achieving notoriety.

Of about 800 students, about 15 percent said they had seriously considered running for office. Generally, men perceived more rewards than women did. Women of color saw the fewest rewards, particularly in terms of making change and helping people, Shames said.

“It’s not that the millennials I talked to were selfish or selfie-taking or self-obsessed or not caring about the public or just wanting to make money or whatever the stereotypes are about millennials,” she said.

She said they were passionate about the environment, abortion and immigration.

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“So it’s the group that most wanted to help their communities and create change, but they were the least likely to see politics as the way to do that,” she said. “They are correctly perceiving a broken political system.”

What changed in 2020 in Texas? Shames said she suspects the potential rewards have made politics compelling enough to overcome the costs.

“There must be some reward out there. I don’t think the costs disappeared overnight,” she said.

2020: The year of the young people?

Still, millennials are outnumbered in electoral politics. Generation X, those born between 1965 and 1980, make up the vast majority of candidates. Baby Boomers, too, are running for office in higher numbers than millennials.

That’s true in both parties — except in the Houston area, where there are roughly even numbers of millennials and Baby Boomers running for office.

Rish Oberoi is one of them. The 28-year-old Democrat has consulted for political campaigns and nonprofits. He’s running for the Texas House District 26, an open seat in Fort Bend County.

As much as he wants to win, he expects to make less money if he does; most people his age can’t afford to quit their jobs to serve in the time-consuming state Legislature from January through May. A member of the Texas house makes $7,200 a year, plus expenses.

“Does that mean my parents are thrilled? Obviously not. It’s a huge risk,” Oberoi said.

“I think I would have hated myself if I just sat back,” he added.

“I’ve been saying all year, 2018 was the year of the woman. I’m certain 2020 will be the year of young people.”

Savana Dunning contributed to this report.