This year, the DCCC had the worst roster of candidates I’ve ever seen. Their red-to-blue program was absolutely putrid— and most of them lost. Of the 33 candidates— almost all of whom were being backed by the New Dems and/or Blue Dogs— just 10 won:
Shomari Figures (New Dem-AL, D+?)- his nomination was bought for him by the crypto-criminal cartel
George Whitesides (New Dem-CA, D+4)- self-funder to the tune of at least $1.3 million
Dave Min (D-CA, D+3)
April Delaney (New Dem-MD, D+2)- self funder— $2,600,000
Kristen Rivet (New Dem-MI, R+1)
Laura Gillen (New Dem-NY, D+5)
Josh Riley (New Dem-NY, even PVI)
John Mannion (New Dem-NY, D+1)
Janelle Bynum (New Dem-OR, D+2)
Eugene Vindman (New Dem, VA, D+1)
As you can see, almost all the districts won are blue— two exceptions, an even district in New York and a slightly red district in Michigan. Biden won each of the 10 districts in 2020. With that one exception in Michigan, DCCC-backed candidates attempting to win in areas with Republican PVIs all lost.
Even with this stinking pile of dreck, it was easy to identify the 3 worst candidates— Rudy Salas (Blue Dog-CA), Adam Gray (Blue Dog-CA) and John Avlon (Blue Dog-NY)— although impossible to rank the 3 in terms of bad to worst. Salas and Gray were members of the “Mod Squad” in the California Assembly and had run up two of the worst voting records of any Dems in the legislature and were remarkable for the intensity of their outright and consistent corruption.
Each ran in blue districts— D+4 for Gray and D+5 for Salas— in 2022 and lost and each was recruited by the DCCC to run again because… the DCCC loves running candidates who are corrupt and who vote like Republicans. That defines the DCCC. Over the corse of the two cycles, the DCCC and House Majority PAC spent lavishly on the 2 failed candidates:
Salas- $18,955,333
Gray- $18,942,129
I would just like to add that these are among the half dozen lowest turnout districts in the country and virtually none of this immense pile of donors’ money (nearly $38 million in the two majority Latino Central Valley districts) was spent on registering and turning out new voters.
We’ll get to John Avlon’s record in a moment. Neither the DCCC nor the House Majority PAC spent money in his race. But right-wing billionaires like Reid Hoffman, the Walton family and the Murdoch family did through their WelcomePAC PAC, which spent $3.5 million bolstering Avlon. Running in an R+3 Suffolk County district that has been trending red, Avlon’s only realistic shot was for a big Kamala win. Instead, she lost Suffolk County 402,924 (55%) to 323,473 (45%). In 2020 Trump narrowly beat Biden county-wide, 381,253 (49.30%) to 381,021 (49.27%). Trump had routed Hillary in 2016— 51.46% to 44.62% after it was won by Al Gore, John Kerry, and Obama both times. Avlon did worse:
He’s never held elective office, so had no voting record. Instead, his record was his commentary, as a writer and on CNN. What he had to say is considered center-right, perhaps leaning more Republican than Democrat. He was best known as a Rudy Giuliani speechwriter and as an outspoken anti-union asshole who admired Rahm Emanuel and Scott Walker for their militant anti-union actions. He also admires Paul Ryan but that was because they’re both Ayn Rand fanboys and because they both want to cut Social Security and Medicare. His other role models are Chris Christie and Joe Lieberman. And he was a co-founder of No Labels and served as the vehemently anti-progressive group’s first executive director.
Since losing his election, he’s been writing for The Bulwark and in yesterday’s column he said “To regain trust, we need to be strong on security and safety, beginning with border security as a down-payment on comprehensive immigration reform.” (So border first and a pathway to citizenship… sometime when Republicans agree to it.) He also wrote that “Democrats also need to stop getting spun around the axle of culture war debates that are amplified by right-wing media. Democrats often get stuck on defense because they tip-toe around issues for fear of offending someone, somewhere, when there should be a higher degree of common sense and moral clarity. One surefire way to do this is to stand up against illiberalism on the far-right and the far-left. That means denouncing campus protests that turn violent and standing up against any form of group blame— especially antisemitism— that often comes as a side order with identity politics. Democrats need to be reformers who police our own extremes. Especially in the face of Trump’s impulse to praise autocrats, Democrats should lean into the contrast by reaffirming that we stand with our fellow democracies and against tyrants and terrorists.”
All in on finding common ground with MAGAts, Avlon hid his anti-union bias and penchant for “pension reform,” behind a claim “we need to celebrate patriotism and reclaim the American flag because it belongs to all of us.”
