Rahm Emanuel was elected to Congress in 2002, a decade after leading the Clinton efforts to twist enough Democratic arms to pass George H.W. Bush’s catastrophic NAFTA legislation. He was immediately given a plum slot on the most corrupt on House committees at the time: Financial Services. In January of 2005, when DCCC chair Bob Matsui died, Pelsoi appointed Emanuel to succeed him. From then on, I’ve been seriously vetting Democratic candidates for Blue America. And I feel confident in saying that there’s never been a worse bunch than this cycle.
In competitive districts that the DCCC is active in, there is exactly one actual progressive in the whole country: Sue Altman (NJ). There are a couple of quasi-progressives who may even turn out to be ok if elected (Michelle Vallejo, Kirsten Engel, Josh Riley, Ashley Ehasz) but most of the rest have proven what garbage they’d be by their records in their last jobs, former California state legislators Adam Gray and Rudy Salas being the worst of the lot, and NY state Senator John Mannion, Oregon state Rep Janelle Bynum, Arizona state Rep Amish Shah and Wisconsin Assemblyman Peter Barca being not that much better. Write their names down along with this prediction: if they win in November, they will be defeated 2 years hence. Oh, and did I mention that some are crypto-criminal whores, genocidal maniacs or corrupt slime buckets looking to line their own pockets?
Almost all of the Red to Blue candidates are Blue Dogs and/or New Dems. As has happened in previous years, when the DCCC and House Majority PAC decide which candidates to spend millions of dollars on, it’s likely to be the most conservative and the most corrupt— so candidates the DCCC leaders recognize themselves in— and not anyone with integrity, honesty, a moral code or a tinge of progressivism. Meanwhile, the DCCC press department works to persuade a lazy and incompetent media that the only Democratic candidates who can win, are the one ones they have prioritized, usually based on which candidates can raise the most money, more often than not from corrupt sources. None of these are that.
Yesterday, Jessica Grose, focused on a race in Pinellas County, Florida pitting an incumbent MAGA sociopath, Anna Paulina Luna against Blue Dog Democrat Whitney Fox, a contest we covered last week. Grose never used the phrase “Blue Dog,” let alone explain to her readers what one is and how their Republican-lite positions turn of the base once they win election. (There are only 10 left in Congress and one Wiley Nickel is retiring while another, Henry Cuellar, is likely to be serving a prison term before the next congressional term is complete. Two others, Mary Peltola and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, are unlikely to be reelected.) A premise behind Grose’s essay is that Fox can only win if there’s a Kamala blue wave.
Her colleague at The Times, Michael Wines noted that Democrats have a tendency to not bother to even run candidates in tough districts. 90For90 has forced Virginia and, more recently, Florida, to abandon that policy and run candidates as a party-building exercise that has already paid off handsomely in Virginia and will probably take longer in Florida because of the dilapidated condition the state party is in. “[T]hough defending democracy was a dominant theme of the Democratic National Convention last month,” write Wines, “in the 2022 midterms, Democrats failed to field a single candidate for fully half of all partisan offices— well over three times the rate of Republican no-shows… Political scholars say that politicians elected without opposition cast fewer votes and introduce less legislation, and that no-contest elections depress voter turnout.”
One-sided elections also lead to one-sided policies untempered by political opposition, said Keel Hunt, a onetime aide to the former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander, a Republican. Hunt, the author of three books on the state’s political history, said the repercussions are playing out nationwide in states overwhelmingly dominated by one party.
“You see extremist gerrymanders,” he said. “You see all these rules affecting how people live, from the schoolhouse and banning books to the hospital and abortion laws. You get this kind of extremism that only reinforces itself if there’s never any competition.”
Uncontested elections are hardly limited to small-bore offices. On November’s ballot, three of four elections to the Georgia Supreme Court— which seems almost certain to decide whether the Fulton County election interference case against Trump will proceed— have but one candidate. All three Nevada Supreme Court races are uncontested; so are all five in Oregon.
…[P]olitical scholars and strategists alike say running is the only way to claw back lost voters. Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, said the party recruits and counsels rural candidates— and gives even guaranteed losers a cash stipend— because “if you don’t take a swing at it, you never get anywhere.”
One result: Democratic candidates for seats in Wisconsin’s State Assembly and State Senate this November outnumber Republican ones.
Lauren Gepford, a vice president at Movement Labs, oversees the effort by Contest Every Race to recruit and finance rural Democratic candidates. About four in 10 go on to win, she said, but the benefits extend beyond that.
“Our initial goal was to make sure that everybody has a choice on their ballot,” she said. “But we’ve seen when a Democrat runs locally it reshapes political terrain. There’s some counties that we’ve worked in for six years now where you’ll see that they’ve become consistently more Democratic.”
“Running for office is never easy,” said Blue America-endorsed Ohio congressional candidate Jerrad Christian, “especially in districts where the odds seem stacked against you. But giving up on tough races cements the control of the opposition and silences the voices of those who deserve representation. I’m committed to pushing forward, no matter the challenge. My run for Congress ensures that every voter has a choice and keeps our values front and center, even when the path is tough. The reality is that democracy and freedom are not easy to preserve. It was harder to win our freedom from a king or dictator than it is to keep it, but the moment we stop defending it, we lose what makes this country great. When we allow uncontested elections, we invite the worst kind of political extremism and policies that go unchecked. One-party rule always leads to more extreme laws that affect everything from the books our children can read to the healthcare choices women can make. We show up and fight, even when the odds are against us and especially because it's difficult. I am focused on showing people that their voices matter. In places like Wisconsin, we've seen that stepping up, even in so-called ‘unwinnable’ districts, can change the political landscape over time. It forces the opposition to work harder, engages voters, and creates the potential for future victories. I'm running because every community deserves a representative who’s ready to fight for them, even when the odds seem steep. Silence is complicity.”
Ben Braver isn’t running for Congress. He’s running for a state Senate seat northeast of Tampa, one that’s been gerrymandered to return Republicans every cycle. Braver, a 22 year old progressive doesn’t embrace failure. “My Florida State Senate district went to the Republican candidate by 25 points last cycle,” he told us this morning. “This seat was seen as an entirely lost cause, with the establishment and traditional Democratic boosters unwilling to invest. But I see a path forward. The Republicans have perfected the art of the long con, pumping politics into the public sphere, infiltrating religion and monopolizing media outlets. The only way to fight that kind of organized money is with organized people, and we can’t build a base unless we’re building when times are tough. The Democratic Party has an addiction to running to the middle and showing their belly anytime the political climate worsens. They took the wrong lesson from their clobbering by Reagan and abandoned popular progressive policies from the New Deal in favor of Neo-Liberal whimpering. The strategy was to capitulate and lose by less rather than fight for more. But that is a weak position with no forward momentum, fair-weather friends won’t inspire those weathering a hurricane. Contesting every seat, never missing a chance to push for our great society is how we build that shinning city on a hill. We can’t take any voter for granted, we can’t take any win for granted, and we sure as hell shouldn’t take any loss for granted.” Want to help Braver do that? Right here, please. America needs more fighters like him in the Democratic Party.
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