Like many people in political circles, Charlotte Alter watched in disbelief on Sunday as Democratic Representative Haley Stevens announced that she was endorsing Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee in the race for a U.S. She wrote The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For, a 2020 book that profiled 10 millennial rising stars in politics as a way of examining a generation beginning to take power in an America dominated by a gerontocracy apparently unmoored from reality and the needs of the people. Newsweek contacted Alter for comment.
In the introduction to her book, Alter made clear she was not attempting to predict the future careers of her subjects but using them to offer a preview of what America could look like with millennials in charge. Stevens was one subject of the book, alongside widely recognized names such as Pete Buttigieg, who was transportation secretary under President Joe Biden, and Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, and less well-known local figures who seemed poised for bigger things. Six years later, their fortunes have diverged dramatically.
Some rose to national prominence, while others left elected politics and several saw seemingly unstoppable careers suddenly derailed. Stevens provides the most spectacular example. The former Obama administration official was part of Democrats’ celebrated 2018 House class and won reelection three times before giving up her seat to run for Senate this year.
After narrowly losing the Democratic primary to Abdul El-Sayed, she pledged to support him, only to endorse Rogers two days before Tuesday's general election following an increasingly bitter dispute over Israel and El-Sayed’s political allies. Two of the book’s Republican subjects have also discovered how quickly political fortunes can change. Former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw arrived in Congress in 2019, seemingly tailor-made for national Republican politics.
Instead, he lost his primary in March to Texas state Representative Steve Toth, becoming the first congressional incumbent denied renomination this cycle. Crenshaw had supported Ukraine aid and rejected claims that the 2020 election was stolen, while President Donald Trump declined to endorse him. While Crenshaw zigged, Stefanik zagged, transforming from a comparatively moderate Republican into one of Trump’s fiercest congressional allies.
She replaced Liz Cheney in House GOP leadership and was nominated by Trump to become U.N. ambassador before he withdrew the nomination, citing Republicans’ narrow House majority. And more setbacks were to come. She launched a bid for New York governor last November, abandoned it weeks later and announced she would not seek another House term.
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