In 2016, Donald Trump became the first president ever to be elected without any political or military experience. His success was preceded by the GOP Tea Party movement in 2010 which prioritized ‘outsiders’ over traditional political activists and elected officials. In 2018, Democrats took control of the House with candidates new to the political campaign trail. This cycle, four high-profile Senate races that the Cook Political Report rated as competitive GOP candidates who have not yet held political office (Dr. Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania; Blake Masters of Arizona; Herschel Walker of Georgia) ; and J.D. Vance of Ohio).
That made us wonder if we see the number of candidates elected to Congress who have no previous experience in electoral office. To test this theory, Cook Political Report expert Peter Jones delved deeply into the political experience and education levels of 2,029 members of Congress elected since 1980.
The result is a slight increase of four percentage points in the number of Congressmen with no prior experience in elected office, from 30.7% in 1981 to 34.6% today.
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