by Jessica Kramer
Morgan Murtaugh is a 25-year-old running for Congress in San Diego, and if she wins the race, she would be the youngest female ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “poised to become the youngest woman in Congress,”according to news outlets like CNBC, Teen Vogue and Pacific Standard. Murtaugh, however, is younger and headed to the November general election as well after coming in second to the Democratic nominee in California’s jungle primary, where candidates from all parties run against each other.
“There are no reliable counts of candidate ages by year … so amid this record-breaking year of women candidates, it’s hard to know exactly how big the wave of young women candidates is,” said Deborah Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, NPR reported Monday. “But like Ocasio-Cortez, there are multiple congressional candidates under 30, meaning multiple women could break that record for the youngest woman Congress member.”
All of these women are first-time candidates.
In addition to Murtaugh and Cortez, there are other women who are all 29 years old, vying for the record of being the youngest in Congress. In California, Sara Jacobs won her primary and is headed to the general, as did Mallory Hagan in Alabama, and Abby Finkenauer in Iowa, according to Refinery29.
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Jessica Kramer is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Jessica on Twitter.
