The Surge Comes to Washington

The U.S. Congress could see the largest influx of military veterans in decades as a new generation of service members, many of them women, seeks higher office in elections on Tuesday.

More than 170 veterans are competing in congressional races across the country. In 28 of those races, former servicemembers have a realistic chance of winning and in another seven of the contests, veterans are strongly favored to win, according to Foreign Policy’s analysis of data provided by Military Times and the Cook Political Report.

For the first time, many of the most high-profile veteran candidates are women. Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a 46-year-old former federal prosecutor and mother of four who served as a helicopter pilot in the Navy, is running in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, which has not sent a Democrat to Congress since 1985. In Kentucky’s 6th District, Amy McGrath, the first female Marine to fly an F/A-18 fighter jet in combat, wasn’t even favored to win the primary, but her first political ad went viral online. Meanwhile, Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally, a former Air Force pilot who has championed veterans’ issues and helped save the beloved A-10 Warthog attack jet from the boneyard, is vying for a Senate seat.

So why are so many veterans running in this election? Jeremy Teigen, a political scientist at Ramapo College of New Jersey who wrote the book Why Veterans Run, believes both parties made more of a concerted effort in this cycle to recruit veteran candidates in races where they had a shot at winning, perhaps as an antidote to President Donald Trump. He pointed to the Serve America PAC of Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran, as a critical source of cash and influence for many former service members.

Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, agreed that Trump’s 2016 election and his foreign policy, particularly his coziness with Russian President Vladimir Putin, motivated many veterans to run for office.

“As a man who used medical and educational deferments to avoid military service [and] said misogynistic things about women … what better force to try to retake the House but women [vets]?” Teigen said.

Close Races Featuring Veteran Candidates

Races in Which Veterans Are Expected to Win

Sources: The Cook Political Report and Military Times