The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are set to open this afternoon in Italy, where 232 American athletes will compete for the gold. Yet the halls of Congress could remain Olympian-free next year.
A former Olympic athlete has yet to jump into a congressional race this cycle, likely prolonging Capitol Hill’s roughly two-decade Olympic drought. Between 1967 and 2007, at least one former Olympian served in each congressional term.
Seven Olympians have served in Congress, collectively winning a total of four gold medals, four silver, and one bronze between 1932 and 1972. Former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and former Rep. Tom McMillen (D-MD) played basketball; former Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS) and the late Reps. Bob Mathias (R-CA) and Ralph Metcalfe (D-IL) medaled in track and field events; and the late Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) and Wendell Anderson (D-MN) competed in judo and hockey, respectively.
No Olympian has won a congressional race since Ryun’s defeat in 2006, even as five former NFL players made their way to Congress.
“[The big name sports are] going to give them the two basic things that athletes use as a platform to run for office, which is name recognition and fundraising capability,” David T. Canon, the author of Actors, Athletes, and Astronauts: Political Amateurs in the U.S. Congress, told Hotline. “Olympians are going to have a lot less of those just because it is so episodic for many of these athletes.”
Several Olympic alums have unsuccessfully run for Congress in the past decade, including 2018 PA-07 nominee Marty Nothstein (R), a former Olympic cycling champion; 2022 CO SEN candidate Eli Bremer (R), a former modern pentathlete; 2022 GA SEN nominee Herschel Walker (R), a former Heisman trophy winner and a member of the United States’ 1992 Olympic bobsleigh team; and 2024 NY-04 candidate Sarah Hughes (D), a former Olympic figure skating champion.
Former Olympic rower Monica Tranel (D), who competed in 1996 and 2000, lost to Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT 01) in 2022 and 2024. Tranel told Hotline that Montana, unlike some states with major league sports teams, is “an outdoor recreation-oriented state” open to a wide array of sports.
“I used to say that there are two things you can always talk to anybody in Montana about: the weather or sports,” Tranel said.
Tranel, recalling her time standing next to former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics opening ceremony, said her “Olympic mentality” helped her to be forward thinking and set long-term goals for her campaign. She jokingly quipped that “everybody in Congress should be mandated to go spend two weeks in the Olympic Village.”
Olympians might be out of luck in the 2026 midterms, but Paralympians could strike congressional gold. In Iowa, state Rep. Josh Turek (D)—who won two gold medals and one bronze for wheelchair basketball in 2012, 2016, and 2020—is running to replace retiring Sen. Joni Ernst (R), potentially becoming the first Paralympian in Congress.
“What high-level basketball taught me is just put your head down, do the work, and just ignore all the external noise,” Turek told Hotline. “That’s very helpful in politics.”
Unlike the past two decades in American politics, Olympians will have their moment this month—at least until millions of Americans are done watching the Super Bowl on Sunday.
— Nicholas Anastácio
