In the current Congress, there are 91 military veterans currently serving in the House and Senate. 17 military veterans are in the Senate and 74 in the House.  Gone are the days when 3 out of 4 members of Congress were military veterans.  The generation that served in uniform in WWII has passed away, along with the generation that was subject to the draft which ended in 1973 when 75% of Congress was made up of veterans.  Now it is 1 in 6 serving members with military experience.

The party divide is pretty stark. Just 28 of these veterans serving in Congress are Democrats, while 63 are Republicans.

There are 12 states that have no veterans among their Congressional delegations, Idaho, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

2022, Mid-Term elections may change all that. Of the 858 House candidates, 196 of those running for office claim some type of military experience, including general officers and enlisted members of the Guard and Reserve.  In the Senate, 11 of the 70 running for office have prior military experience.

While this will not bring the number of veterans serving in Congress back up to 75% that existed up until the 1980s, it represents a significant number nevertheless.  Veterans represent less than 10% of the population in general and have been on the decline for decades. The passing of the WWII generation had something to do with this along with the end of the military draft in 1974. Another factor is the much smaller size of the US military today versus the Cold War manning levels of the military which were about double what it is today.

If military veteran candidates do well in this election it could dramatically increase the number of veterans not just in Congress but also in state house races around the country as well.

Here is a list of the military veterans running for office in this cycle.

We will up date this list today to show how veteran candidates faired in this mid-term election