REVEALED: Raciest political couples' age gaps as romances rock the nation's capital
- READ MORE: How Republican John Rose met his wife
Love is in the air in the nation's capital as top lawmakers and political figures have often met and married after meeting in the halls of Congress or at the White House.
Recently, glamorous GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne and her married Georgia Republican colleague Rep. Rich McCormick confirmed they are 'happily engaged in a relationship' after he filed for divorce.
Other high-profile relationships have rocked Washington, D.C., in recent years. And the large age gaps make the pairings perhaps even more intriguing.
DailyMail.com breaks down a list of Washington relationships with the biggest age gaps beginning with the Trumps:
Donald and Melania Trump (24 years)
The pair met at a party at a Times Square nightclub in 1998. She was 28, he was 52. They went public with their relationship nearly a year later and married in 2005 in star-studded nuptials.
The pair remained a top New York socialite couple until Trump decided to run for president in 2016.
Melania Trump made headlines when rumors circulated that she might not live with her husband if he's re-elected, upending a two and a half-century precedent for White House wives. The couple are pictured in 2007 with their then-baby son Barron
Jill and Joe Biden (9 years)
Joe was a 33-year-old senator and Jill was a 24-year-old college senior when they met.
The year was 1975, three years after Joe's wife Neilia and 1-year-old daughter Naomi died in a car crash, leaving him with two young boys to raise as he navigated life in the Senate. Jill had divorced her first husband during her junior year in college.
'I was a senior, and I had been dating guys in jeans and clogs and T-shirts, he came to the door and he had a sport coat and loafers, and I thought, 'God, this is never going to work, not in a million years,'' Jill told Vogue in 2016.
.He was nine years older than I am! But we went out to see 'A Man and a Woman' at the movie theater in Philadelphia, and we really hit it off. When we came home ... he shook my hand good night ... I went upstairs and called my mother at 1:00 a.m. and said, 'Mom, I finally met a gentleman.'
Joe had to propose five times before Jill said yes and they married in 1977.
Jill and Joe Biden in 1987
Matt and Ginger Gaetz (13 years)
The pair met at Mar-a-Lago in 2020 and eloped in 2021. Ginger told DailyMail.com her mother had 'dragged' her to a party there for Kimberly Guilfoyle's birthday.
Now 42 and 29, Gaetz and his wife are a political power couple on the far right: Ginger often accompanies Matt to votes on Capitol Hill and the pair both have many friends in right wing circles in both Congress and former President Donald Trump's orbit.
Ginger often credits herself with helping her husband clean up his look and drop weight with jabs on X.
The pair met at Mar-a-Lago in 2020 and eloped in 2021. Ginger told DailyMail.com her mother had 'dragged' her to a party there for Kimberly Guilfoyle's birthday
John and Chelsea Rose (25 years)
Rose and wife Chelsea seemingly met when she was in high school and he was 42 and they crossed paths at a farming convention. She was of legal age when they married four years later.
In 2007, 17-year-old Chelsea Doss traveled from Murfreesboro to Gaitlinburg, Tennessee for the state's 79th annual Future Farmers of America (FFA) convention.
Chelsea's Eagleville High School FFA chapter won the State Superior award and Chelsea won the State Job interview contest. She was named the 2007–2008 Tennessee FFA Association state president.
Among the convention's attendees was Rose, then the vice chairman of the board of the Tennessee FFA.Shortly after the FFA convention, Chelsea won the Jerry and Betty Williams Rose Scholarship, named after Rose's parents.
Fewer than four years later the couple was married, according to an engagement announcement from the now-defunct local Eagleville Times.
Republican Rep. John Rose and wife Chelsea seemingly met when she was in high school and he was 42 and they crossed paths at a farming convention
Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao (11 years)
The pair married on February 6, 1993 on Ronald Reagan's birthday, just shy of Chao's 40th birthday after meeting on a blind date set up a few years earlier by mutual friend Stuart Bloch. McConnell was already a senator at the time, and Chao would go on to become secretary of Labor under President George Bush and former President Trump's Transportation secretary.
Chao is now 71 and McConnell 83. He'll step down as GOP leader at the end of this Congress.
Chao was born in Taiwan and her family runs a lucrative shipping company.
'Those who have encountered Ms. Chao describe her as an unapologetically ambitious operator with an expansive network, a short fuse, and a seemingly inexhaustible drive to get to the top and stay there,' the New York Times reported in 2014.
McConnell has three daughters from a previous marriage, including liberal activist Porter McConnell.
The pair married on February 6, 1993 on Ronald Reagan's birthday, just shy of Chao's 40th birthday after meeting on a blind date set up a few years earlier by mutual friend Stuart Bloc
Justice Brett and Ashley Estes Kavanaugh (9 years)
The pair met while working for the Bush administration in 2001. Ashley worked on his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns and then as his secretary until 2005. Justice Kavanaugh worked as counsel and staff secretary for Bush.
During Brett's swearing-in to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2006, Bush joked that their marriage was the 'first lifetime appointment I arranged.'
'Ashley likes to remind me that true love, true love is a Texas girl who is willing to marry a guy with a lifetime appointment in Washington, D.C.,' Kavanaugh, now 59, quipped at the swearing-in ceremony.
Their first date was the day before 9/11. The next day, they both navigated the president through the unprecedented attack.
The pair married in Washington in 2004, and George and Laura Bush attended.
Ashley Estes smiles at her husband, newly sworn-in Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh while US president Donald Trump applauds, October 8, 2018 at the White House in Washington, DC
Clarence and Ginni Thomas (8 years)
In 1986, Clarence was a 37-year-old single father and Ginni was a 29-year-old labor lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce when the pair met at a round table on affirmative action.
'I have some Black female friends I'd really like to put together with you,' Ginni said. Clarence laughed and said he wasn't interested.
The pair later met for a professional lunch on K Street. He didn't consider dating her at first, because he had 'more than enough problems' and didn't need to add dating a white woman to the list, according to a New York Magazine profile.
They later went to dinner and a movie and Ginnie said she 'left that dinner smiling like I'd never smiled.'
'I was in love with this guy.'
'She was a gift from God that I had prayed for,' Clarence said. 'And then I was iffy, because I started questioning God's package. You know, like what are you doing? You pray for God to send you someone, he sends you someone, and you say, 'Oh, but she's white' or 'She's younger.' He's sent you someone. What are you talking about?'
In 1986, Clarence was a 37-year-old single father and Ginni was a 29-year-old labor lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce when the pair met at a round table on affirmative action
'I have some Black female friends I'd really like to put together with you,' Ginni said. Clarence laughed and said he wasn't interested
The pair later met for a professional lunch on K Street. He didn't consider dating her at first, because he had 'more than enough problems' and didn't need to add dating a white woman to the list, according to a New York Magazine profile
Bernie and Jane Sanders (8 years)
Bernie and Jane met in 1981, when he was participating in a mayoral debate in Burlington, Vermont. Jane had divorced her husband and father of her three children one year earlier.
'I sat in the second row and I fell in love with Bernie's ideas,' Jane told PEOPLE. 'We met eyes — a few times, which I thought was interesting.'
The pair dated for a few years, then broke up for a year when she wanted to get married and he didn't. The pair married in 1988. Bernie adopted Jane's kids after her first husband passed and they've fostered 13 children. Sanders also has his own son Levi from a former girlfriend.
Bernie and Jane met in 1981, when he was participating in a mayoral debate in Burlington, Vermont. Jane had divorced her husband and father of her three children one year earlier.
'I sat in the second row and I fell in love with Bernie's ideas,' Jane told PEOPLE. 'We met eyes — a few times, which I thought was interesting'
