The next test of whether a new generation of Democrats can unseat members of the old guard comes Tuesday, in a battle over who will represent much of western Mississippi in the U.S. House.
The race to represent the state’s 2nd Congressional District features 34-year-old Evan Turnage — a former lawyer in the offices of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — mounting a longshot bid to replace 78-year-old incumbent Rep. Bennie Thompson. Whoever wins the Tuesday primary will almost certainly win the general election in the solidly Democratic district. (A third candidate, Petris Williams III, is also running in the Democratic primary.)
Turnage has branded himself as a fresh alternative to Thompson, alleging the incumbent hasn’t done enough to reduce poverty and other issues in the majority Black district — which has ranked among the poorest nationwide — during his 33 years in the seat.
“People in this district are ready for change,” Turnage told MS NOW in a phone interview on Monday. “This is the poorest district in the poorest state in the country, and it’s been like that for my entire life. People want better.”
Turnage is one of more than 80 Gen Z and millennial Democrats mounting primary contests this year against veteran House Democrats, according to data released last month by the Democratic political fundraising platform Oath. Others include Melat Kiros, a 28-year-old, Justice Democrats-backed lawyer and barista taking on 68-year-old Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado in June; and Justin Pearson, a 31-year-old state legislator in Tennessee vying to replace Rep. Steve Cohen in August and backed by both Justice Democrats and Leaders We Deserve, the political action committee founded by 25-year-old Democratic activist David Hogg.
Progressive power broker Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has also endorsed a small handful of the candidates taking on House Democrats, including Donavan McKinney, a Michigan state representative running in the state’s 13th district; and 32-year-old Nida Allam, a member of the Durham County Board of Commissioners who lost a tight race to oust Rep. Valerie Foushee in North Carolina last week. (Spokespeople for Sanders did not respond to requests for comment from MS NOW.)
Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, told MS NOW the deep field of young primary challengers shows that “voters are overwhelmingly ready to usher in a new generation of leadership in this party.”
But he added that the group is not “simply looking to replace old incumbents with young incumbents,” and is instead focused on backing candidates who oppose “democratic corporatism and billionaire greed” and display “moral and political courage.”
“It does us no good to replace aging corporate shills with youthful corporate chills,” Andrabi said. “The problem is that the Democratic Party is overrun with corporate shills.”
“People in this district are ready for change,” Turnage told MS NOW in a phone interview on Monday. “This is the poorest district in the poorest state in the country, and it’s been like that for my entire life. People want better.”
In Mississippi, Thompson has leaned on his experience in Washington, which has included wielding significant power as the first Black Democrat to represent the state in Congress. He’s currently the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, and formerly served as chair of the Select Committee on Jan. 6.
In an emailed statement to MS NOW, Thompson did not directly address the arguments Turnage has made about the need for generational change.
“Elections are about giving people a choice, and I respect that process. I have always run my campaigns by focusing on the needs of the people of Mississippi’s Second Congressional District and the work we’ve done together,” Thompson said. “There is always more to be done, and I remain committed to continuing that progress. Ultimately, I trust the voters of the district to look at the record and make the choice they believe is best for their communities.”
Tough Democratic primaries for some veterans is a hallmark of the 2026 midterm election cycle.
But the recent outcomes of some of these early races underscore the uphill battles younger candidates like Turnage face — and emphasize that they do not all share the same strategies for unseating older incumbents.
In North Carolina, Allam’s race against Foushee was widely seen as a bellwether for how far a left-wing challenger could go in a bid to oust an establishment Democrat in a deep blue district.
And in Texas, Rep. Christian Menefee, the 37-year-old elected to the House in a special election earlier this year, and Rep. Al Green, who has served in Congress for more than two decades, will head to a May runoff election to represent a newly-redrawn district after neither cleared 50% of votes in their race last week. (Menefee came out on top, earning about 46% of votes to Green’s 44%, according to the Associated Press.)
Similarly to Allam, Turnage has taken direct aim at his opponent in emphasizing the benefit of electing a millennial to Congress.
“People in my age group are the first age group in generations in America who are expected to have less wealth than their parents, expected to have lower life expectancy than their parents, and that is because of failed leadership from the current generation,” Turnage said.
Both he and Allam also criticized their opponents’ reliance on big-money donors.
Turnage noted that Thompson’s top donor is a group associated with Aflac, the insurance company, and that he has taken thousands from corporate political action committees. (Campaign filings show that, as of last month, Turnage had about $40,000 cash on hand and $85,000 in debts, compared to Thompson’s $1.5 million on hand.)
Allam — who did not respond to repeated inquiries from MS NOW — criticized Foushee for receiving support from outside groups aligned with AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. (Allam had close to $229,000 on hand last month and $86,000 in debts, compared to Foushee’s approximately $184,000 on hand.)
Menefee, on the other hand, swatted away questions about his candidacy representing a generational shift, telling MS NOW in an interview last week that he sees his challengers as President Donald Trump and the Republicans who supported gerrymandering the district in which he’s running rather than Green.
“Our support in this race has been intergenerational,” Menefee said.
“We’ve focused very heavily on making sure that folks know that I’m looking to bring new strategies to standing up to the Trump administration,” he added.
Green, on the other hand, has criticized Menefee for missing several votes during his first couple months in Congress, and has said he is proud of his own voting record; he has also claimed, “I am the generational change.”
When it comes to critiques of big-money donors in the Texas race, it is Menefee who has fielded criticism for earning the support of the cryptocurrency lobby — though he has said he was “not at all cognizant” of the financial power they wield.
For the Justice Democrats and the candidates they back, big-money is an ever-present obstacle. Still, Andrabi said, we “want to win every campaign we run.”
But the group also sees Allam’s loss to Foushee — by a single percentage point, compared to a 9-point difference in 2022 — as a win. They also take credit for pushing Foushee to denounce U.S. funding of the Israeli military and regulate artificial intelligence, two issues she said are among her priorities in her statement celebrating her victory.
“If nothing else,” Andrabi said, “we are showing Democratic incumbents that what they are doing is wholly insufficient for their own voters.”
In Mississippi, Turnage has been trying to send the same message to Thompson. But he said he did not seek out the support of groups like Justice Democrats because he did not want “to nationalize this race.”
“We are focused on the issues in Mississippi,” he said.
Still, Turnage said he finds hope in both Allam’s close race and the fact that Menefee — who Turnage said is a friend — will proceed to the runoff.
“I think it’s just another sign that, especially here in the South, people are ready for a new generation of leadership,” Turnage said.
CORRECTION (March 10, 2026, 1:04 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misidentified Sen. Bernie Sanders as a Democrat. He is an independent.
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.