Millennial candidates represent political shift in 1 Ohio district

With the midterm elections just one day away, one House race in battleground Ohio will see a generational shift no matter the outcome, with The Washington Post highlighting the pair of millennial women fighting to win the state's 13th Congressional District.

The race's Democratic nominee, Emilia Sykes, is a 36-year-old who became the first African-American under 30 to serve in the Ohio state legislature when she was elected in 2014. She would later go on to become the minority leader of the Ohio House when the state's Democrats elected her to helm their party. She announced her congressional run in January 2022.

Sykes' Republican challenger is Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a 30-year-old attorney who previously worked for the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. She is also a previous Miss Ohio USA winner, and first met former President Donald Trump as a pageant contestant, the Post reported. Gesiotto Gilbert would later become an ardent supporter of Trump, and served on his 2016 campaign and presidential inaugural committee.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The race is projected to be close, with FiveThirtyEight reporting that Gesiotto Gilbert holds a 52.2 percent forecasted vote share to Sykes' 47.8 percent vote share. However, two out of the three pollsters cited by FiveThirtyEight in the race had Skyes as the likely winner on Tuesday.

No matter who wins, the outcome will represent a significant generational change, as the two are running to replace Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who himself is running to be the state's next senator. The election constitutes a noted shift in younger candidates running for elected office across the U.S.