100 Veterans Will Serve in Congress at the Start of Next Year

Eighty-seven of the 189 Republican and Democratic veterans who ran for Congress this year won their elections, meaning the start of the next congressional session will have more veterans serving than in nearly a decade.

Combined with the 13 veterans in the Senate who were not up for reelection this cycle, the winners this year will bring the number of veterans in Congress to 100 at the beginning of next year.

The results of this year's election point to a slow but steady growth in veterans in Congress. That should continue in the coming years because post-9/11 veterans are aging into Congress and are reversing the trend set by Vietnam veterans of those with military experience eschewing runs for office, said Seth Lynn, a Marine Corps veteran and executive director of the Veterans Campaign, which trains veterans on how to run political campaigns.

"If you look at the trends over time, what we're starting to see is that the freshman class of Congress is tending to have a higher proportion of veterans in it than the House overall," Lynn said.