The Left is finding new fronts in a battle over age as the Democratic Party slowly gives way to a younger generation of leadership.
David Hogg, the gun control activist-turned-party official, rekindled long-simmering tensions over what he called a “culture of seniority politics” on Tuesday when he confirmed his outside group, Leaders We Deserve, would funnel millions into challenging Democratic incumbents.
For weeks, Democrats have found little reprieve from that divide as candidates from New York to California announced campaigns with a message calling for generational change.
But the decision by Hogg, a 25-year-old Democratic National Committee vice chairman, to reject the party’s public neutrality in primaries has given the fight newfound prominence.
With a $20 million budget, his outside group is poised to force that conversation across the 2026 map as Hogg weighs interventions in both House and state legislative races.
Underlying that fight is the return of President Donald Trump to the White House. He has been a galvanizing force for the party writ large as Democrats stake their return to power on chipping away at his popularity.
But Trump’s second term has simultaneously torn the party into two camps — one that takes an incrementalist approach to opposition and another that wants to see leaders challenge the president at every turn.
In a March government funding fight, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), 74, outraged the Left when he handed Republicans votes they needed on a GOP-led bill, arguing the alternative, a government shutdown, would have backed Democrats into a corner.
Progressive Democrats saw it as a sign older leaders were unwilling to project the strength demanded by the party’s base, with left-wing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) urged to challenge Schumer in 2028.
Ironically, the outcry is as loud as ever despite party leadership slowly, and in many cases begrudgingly, beginning to hand the reins over to their younger counterparts.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), 85, stepped down with her deputies in the last Congress, but not entirely of her own volition. She signed a pact with a band of House rebels in 2018 limiting her tenure to another four years.
Former President Joe Biden, 82, put even greater turmoil behind the party when he reluctantly ended his reelection campaign last year and endorsed the ill-fated bid of his vice president, Kamala Harris.
Their retirement has helped usher in a new crop of Democratic leaders who have, to some extent, escaped the same scrutiny.
Pelosi’s successor, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), is 54, while no one on his senior leadership team is older than 61. Harris, 60, may have lost to Trump in November, but the party is regrouping for 2028 with a bench of younger Democratic governors.
Still, Democrats can’t seem to shake the restive demands of progressive Democrats who equate age with capitulation.
In fact, the expansive 2026 map has given progressive candidates looking to break into politics a fresh chance to seize on that unrest.
In California, a 37-year-old ex-staffer to Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), a 15-term incumbent, will challenge his old boss. In Illinois, YouTuber Kat Abughazaleh, 26, announced a run for the seat of 80-year-old Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) by railing on Schumer.
Even Pelosi, who filed paperwork for reelection but has not openly announced her plans, has attracted a challenger, a former aide to Ocasio-Cortez.
Pelosi is dealing with an undercurrent of resentment for retaining her sway over the party despite relinquishing her title. She is credited with helping steer Biden out of the presidential race and remains an outspoken voice in politics.
“The challenge I would issue to the old bulls: Do you want to read the room and recognize that you have had a long and distinguished career in Washington? Do you want to leave with dignity? Or do you want to be dragged out, kicking and screaming because you’ve lost a primary?” said Democratic strategist Jon Reinish, calling the prospect “embarrassing.”
Abughazaleh, in particular, drew headlines this week for outraising Schakowsky in the first quarter, though Schakowsky still has a far larger war chest.
The rift over age is not unique to the Democratic Party. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 83, drew outsize attention to his health after multiple falls and public freezing episodes attributed to the lingering effects of a concussion.
But the focus on age has not been so pronounced in the GOP and largely abated after McConnell stepped down from his record-long tenure atop Senate GOP leadership.
Instead, the ideological fault lines have been more focused on the establishment vs. outsider mentality that fueled the tea party movement and, later, Trump’s “America First” populism.
Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) recent surge in popularity suggests the age debate is in large part a proxy for that same dynamic. At age 83, he has become the glaring exception as he animates the Left with a series of “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies.
He has inched closer to Democratic leadership in recent years but has an enduring anti-establishment brand built on two presidential runs against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then Biden.
Ultimately, Democrats are dealing with a dynamic that long predates the current political moment or any one lawmaker’s actions.
Even unabashedly liberal Democrats like Schakowsky and Sherman, 70, have drawn upset simply by virtue of their long tenures in the House, while the Left was targeting the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein years before Biden’s apparent mental decline became a liability for the party, arguing she was not combative enough as chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A concern for the Left’s agenda is one element of generational divisions. Jabari Brisport, a state senator in New York and Ocasio-Cortez ally, is critical of both Schumer and Jeffries for their pragmatic streak, attacking them as more aligned with Wall Street than working-class voters.
“It’s not enough to complain about Republicans stripping away healthcare and then also not support universal healthcare,” he told the Washington Examiner in March. “You need to promote a positive vision. And I think, honestly, you know, leaders like Bernie Sanders are doing an incredible job of critiquing Republicans, but putting forth a positive vision of what America should be.”
Democrats calling for new leadership are nonetheless not in uniform agreement about who should or should not be replaced. Hogg, for his part, speaks positively of both Pelosi and Schakowsky, calling them “fighters who are delivering” in an interview with Politico.
Hogg has not yet detailed which House challengers his group will support but has promised not to target any Democratic incumbent in a swing district.
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In the Senate, Schumer, who has served as the top Democrat for a decade, has begun to take a harder line on Trump, blocking on Wednesday two of the attorneys he nominated for posts in New York. Schumer has also stepped up his appearances on cable television.
Still, the change in leadership has been incremental. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is widely expected to retire in 2026 after two decades as the Senate’s Democratic whip.
Rachel Schilke contributed to this report.