Trump's cabinet picks have an average age of 40 to 45 years old... I do think that this marks the beginning of a new trend in the kind of age range of political candidates shifting younger... as candidates start to emerge for the midterms by the end of 2025, we'll start to see younger new names start to pop up that deliver resonant messages and aren't part of kind of the old guard of the aging political class.
As of November 30, 2025, the timeframe for the prediction (“by the end of 2025”) has not fully elapsed, and the 2026 U.S. midterm fields—especially for the House—are still forming. Many candidates have not yet filed, and there is no comprehensive, comparable age dataset across cycles, so we cannot reliably measure whether the 2026 candidate pool is “noticeably younger” than prior midterms.
There are visible signs of a generational-change push and some prominent younger entrants. For example, 36‑year‑old Texas state Rep. James Talarico launched a 2026 U.S. Senate campaign explicitly framed around “generational change” and presenting a youthful contrast to older Republican leadership, getting national write‑ups and viral attention.(statesman.com) Within the Democratic Party more broadly, major coverage has emphasized a post‑2024 push for younger, more relatable leaders, and the retirements of senior figures like Sen. Dick Durbin, Tina Smith, Jeanne Shaheen and others have been framed as opening the door to a younger Senate caucus.(time.com) High‑profile primary challenges such as Rep. Seth Moulton (47) running against 79‑year‑old Sen. Ed Markey in Massachusetts also center explicitly on “generational change.”(washingtonpost.com)
At the same time, many of the most important 2026 Senate prospects for Democrats—like Sherrod Brown (72), Janet Mills (79), and Roy Cooper (68)—are themselves well over 65, and reporting notes that Democrats’ hopes of regaining the Senate majority still depend heavily on these older candidates.(en.wikipedia.org) Across early candidate lists for 2026 Senate and House races, there is a mix of long‑tenured incumbents in their 60s–80s and newer figures in their 30s–40s, but no clear, quantifiable evidence yet that the overall field is younger than in prior midterm cycles.
Given (1) the remaining time in 2025, (2) incomplete candidate slates, and (3) the lack of robust cross‑cycle age data, it’s too early to definitively say whether Friedberg’s prediction about a noticeably younger emerging 2026 field has come true, even though there are qualitative signs pointing in that direction. Therefore the prediction is best classified as inconclusive at this point.