Patrick Roath hopes to ride a youth movement into Congress and oust Stephen Lynch

On a recent evening in Walpole, as the sounds of Little League baseball wafted through the open windows of a meeting room in City Hall, Patrick Roath made his pitch to members of the town's Democratic Committee. The 38-year-old attorney from Jamaica Plain is running for Congress, hoping to knock off fellow Democrat Stephen Lynch in next year's primary.

Roath launched his campaign early — some 16 months before next year's vote — arguing the sooner Democrats understand the need for change, the better.

"It's just so obvious," Roath told the small gathering of about a dozen local Democrats. "We need some new people and new leadership and new thinking and new ideas to solve some of the really serious problems that our country's facing."

Roath is among scores of younger Democrats across the country who say the last election is proof their party desperately needs new ideas and new blood.

Roath is running to the left of the 70-year-old incumbent Lynch, who's been in Congress since 2001.

Roath said he takes issue with a number of votes that Lynch, a political moderate, has taken over the years. In 2009, Lynch was one of only 39 House Democrats to vote against the Affordable Care Act, former President Barak Obama's signature legislative achievement. More recently, he was the only member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation to vote in favor of the Laken Riley Act, which allows authorities to detain immigrants not yet convicted of crimes.

The law passed with bipartisan support, but Roath said the vote shows that Lynch is out of step with much of the district. He told the Walpole Democrat that it's more important than ever to stick up for non-citizens, "who are having their due process rights stripped away" by President Trump's administration.

Roath, who grew up in Connecticut, has worked for former Gov. Deval Patrick and as an attorney for Ropes and Grey in Boston. He served as a board member for Common Cause, where he advocated for voting rights.

In the last election, he said Democrats talked a lot about defending Democracy, but not enough about what Democracy can deliver to working families.

"Which is why I talk all the time about the housing crisis here and the cost of health care and access to good education and the cost of child care," he told WBUR. "That's what's on people's minds. That's what we need to be addressing if they're going to trust us with government."

Roath is part of a nascent youth movement in the Democratic Party — a wave of younger candidates running for public office across the country, according to Amanda Litman,  co-founder and president of Run for Something, a nonprofit that recruits and supports young, progressive political candidates.

Litman said  since the 2024 election, when Democrats suffered an electoral drubbing, her organization has heard from some 60,000 young people who are running — or plan to run — for public office; for city council, for mayor or, like Roath, for Congress.

"We have seen this in all kinds of different polling over the last six months: Voters want younger Democrats," Litman said.

According to Litman, large numbers of Democrats are frustrated with their party's current leaders, especially in Congress, for failing to fight effectively against Republicans.

Lynch declined a request for an interview, but Scott Ferson, a Democratic strategist who works for him, told WBUR Lynch looks forward to the campaign next year.

"But this year, he's focused on fighting the almost daily destructive actions by the Trump administration," Ferson wrote in a text, adding that Lynch is "laser-focused" on his work in Congress.

When it comes to opposing Trump, Lynch is no shrinking violet. During a June hearing, the House Oversight Committee member excoriated Trump for dispatching the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles to confront protests against his immigration policies.

"Deploying the military against a civilian population is wrong," Lynch said, accusing Trump of "thuggery."

"Trump is a wannabe gangster, and he's showing the world what he's about," Lynch said at the time.

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Knocking off an incumbent in a primary is never an easy task, and Lynch doesn't appear to be a soft target. A former ironworker, he has deep working class roots and enjoys strong union support. He ran unopposed in the 2024 primary, and demolished Republican challenger Robert Burke in the general election, winning his 13th term in Congress by more than 40 percentage points.

But now, as Democrats debate how to return from the political wilderness, Lynch may face a more challenging environment. He produced a viral moment last winter, when he responded sharply to a constituent who demanded that Democrats like him push back harder against Trump.

"I get to decide that," Lynch said several times. "I'm elected. You wanna decide that, you need to run for Congress."

That moment angered Walpole Democratic Committee member Megan Ahigian, who came out to hear Roath's pitch. She's glad Lynch has a challenger.

" I've been waiting for someone to primary Congressman Lynch for a very long time," Ahigian said, adding that she views Lynch as not sufficiently progressive.

But Ahigian said Roath's pitch didn't quite land with her — at least not yet. She wanted to hear more specifics about what he would do once in office; for example, is he for Medicare for All? Roath said he's open to the idea, but he’s not sure.

"I would like him to be successful," Ahigian said, adding that he should refine his "game plan" and "message."

While many Democrats hope the political youth movement, which helped propel Zohran Mamdani to victory in the New York City mayoral primary, can turn things around for their party, not everyone is convinced.

"It's striking so far that across the country, we're seeing primaries just on the basis of generational change without much reference at all to the specific issues about which voters really want to hear," said Bill Curry, a former Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Connecticut who served in the Clinton White House.

In the past, he said, when Democrats successfully remade themselves, they embraced major policies that spoke to the moment: the push for civil rights, the backlash to the Vietnam War, or an anti-corruption agenda after Watergate.

" There was a specific ask in every movement,"said Curry. Being "younger" is not enough to once again renew the party, he said.

Roath has raised more than $280,000 so far. That will buy him time to build his campaign and sharpen his message, but Lynch has more than a million dollars in his campaign account — and all the advantages of incumbency.

Roath said challenging Lynch is about offering a choice between sticking with the status quo or bringing new energy to the Party.  And he said primary challenges are a way to deliver that choice.

"We cannot just be saying, 'If you win one election, then you are good forever,' " Roath said. "Part of resisting Trump is showing what the alternative can be, and I just do not hear leadership on that."

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect new data from Run For Something about the number of candidates running, or planning to run, for public office.