Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tx) slammed his party for nominating young candidates in two competitive House districts, implying that the GOP would have won if they ran older, more experienced candidates.
“We lost races we easily should have won. We elected two 25-year-olds to be our nominees. That’s batshit crazy,” Crenshaw told Politico. “I’m sure they’re nice people, but they have two years work experience at most. So in a general election, people are like, ‘No, we’re not electing that.’”
Crenshaw was referring to two Gen Z candidates who won their GOP primaries in New Hampshire and North Carolina, but lost to Democrats in the general election.
Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas defeated 25-year-old Karoline Leavitt in New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district, 54%-46%.
Republican Bo Hines, 26, was defeated by state Sen. Wiley Nickel in North Carolina’s 13th congressional district.
Gen Z and young Millennials came out to vote in record numbers in the 2022 midterms. They held off the expected red wave and sent the first Gen Z representative to Congress, Democratic Rep.-elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost, 25.
Though Crenshaw pointed to Hines’ and Leavitt’s ages as the reason for their loss, midterm trends suggests it had more to do with Republicans’ problem with candidate quality.
Both Leavitt, a former Trump White House staffer, and Hines backed the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Several candidates who held that belief were defeated in key races this midterm cycle.
Additionally, Republicans in North Carolina revolted against Hines, who they accused of being a carpetbagger because he didn’t live in or near the district he was running to represent in Congress.
[Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Pool via AP]
