That’s where Welcome and Blue Dog Action spent three days with Bobby Pulido for the fourth episode of Battleground, Welcome’s series on the races that will decide the majority. Pulido is a Tejano music legend, a Latin Grammy winner, and he’s running for Congress in Texas’s 15th District, one of the hardest seats on the map for a Democrat.

The District Democrats Were Told to Give Up On

Texas’s 15th District stretches from the Rio Grande Valley up toward San Antonio. After decades as a Democratic stronghold, Monica De La Cruz flipped it in 2022, and in 2024 Donald Trump carried it by 18 points. Republicans redrew the lines in 2025 and made it even redder.

Many wrote off South Texas and Latino voters. Pulido never bought that. He knew that an authentic conservative Democrat could win the seat back, even while his primary opponent Dr. Ada Cuellar tried running to his left in the primary. In a district overwhelmingly Hispanic, Pulido is committed to common sense and kitchen table issues. As Michael Baharaeen wrote for the Long View last week, Hispanic voters swung right in 2024, and they’ve been swinging back left stronger than any other group since then. Race raters including the Cook Political Report now call this seat a toss-up.

Why Pulido Fits This District

Pulido isn’t running as a national Democrat. He’s running as the kind of Democrat South Texas used to vote for: conservative on social issues and focused on working families, the price of groceries, and an immigration system that works without tearing families apart.

Pulido is unique: Democrats can’t run a Latin Grammy winner in every district. But that wasn’t always an asset. On primary night, De La Cruz scoffed that this election wasn’t about “who you want performing at your niece’s quinceañera.” Pulido turned it into a movement. He asked families to invite him, and he got a thousand requests in a day. He told us the count is now about 5,000 requests to participate in family quinceañeras.

As he put it when he launched: “You can gerrymander the district, but you can’t gerrymander Tejano culture.”

“With all due respect to my campaign manager and my campaign teams, the biggest political move made in this campaign has been made by my opponent, because we would have never thought about that had she not tried to insult me.”

— Bobby Pulido, The Singer Who Can Turn Texas Blue

What We Saw

The episode follows Pulido through three days on the trail. He tells his story from the beginning: how a song he recorded as a favor to his father turned into a record deal, how South Texas voters think about immigration, and how he makes the case that South Texas’s immigration fight is an affordability fight too: you can’t build the houses that bring prices down without the workforce to build them. And he closes a campaign event the only way Bobby Pulido could, singing with his father.

At the Democratic gala “Noche Azul,” Pulido is unapologetic about his position in relation to the perceived national Democratic Party:

“I watched Congresswoman Monica la Cruz win in 2022, and I knew that it was going to be very difficult for a Republican to actually represent this area. And I think one thing that unites us all as Democrats is we have heart. We don’t just care about ourselves. We care about other people. That’s why I’m a Democrat.

“Now, I’m going to be honest with you. Are we the party of inclusivity? Are we? We should be. We should be the party of inclusivity. That also means the party of inclusivity of thoughts. Not all Democrats think the same, but we do have common things that unite us. I don’t care if you’re a Democratic socialist or if you’re if you’re a Progressive or like a Blue Dog Democrat like myself. I care about other people, but I’m a conservative Democrat .

“And it bothers me: They told me ‘South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley is red.’ Bullshit. They gerrymandered this district. And boy, were they ever so wrong because we’re going to flip this seat.”

His reason for running is the simplest one in politics. “Either I was going to be the guy that sat there on the couch really angry about what I was seeing,” he told us, “or I was going to do something about it.”

Today, in this district Trump won by 18 points, a new poll released October 21st — commissioned by the San Antonio Express-News, El Pais and the nonprofit Puente News Collaborative — found that likely voters favor Pulido 51% to 44% over Republican Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz.

Watch, share, and help

Election Day is November 3. Early voting in Texas is already underway, and this race could come down to a few thousand votes.

• Watch the full episode, and send it to your friends who need a reason for hope.

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• Subscribe so you don’t miss future Battleground episodes.

• Give directly to Pulido and Welcome’s other candidates doing the work to flip Trump-won seats.

Beating Left-Wing Challenges

• Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez cruised to victory in Washington’s 3rd congressional district, easily beating left-wing candidate Brent Hennrich 38.9% to 15.3%. She enters the general election in her strongest position yet with Democratic candidates taking in 55.9% of the vote (recall Washington has a top-two jungle primary where candidates of both parties share a first ballot, and the top-two candidates move on to the second round). She heads into the general election with a 2 to 1 cash-on-hand advantage over Republican John Braun.

• Rebecca Cooke convincingly won her primary with 57% of the vote, beating a left-wing candidate, and a rematch against Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s third congressional district is now official. Cooke came within three points of defeating Van Orden in 2024, even as Donald Trump carried the district by seven. Now she gets another shot in a considerably more favorable national environment and against an incumbent who voted for the GOP’s reconciliation bill, causing voters in the district to reel from rural hospital closures.

• Bale Dalton decisively defeated progressive challenger Marialana Kinter and former Rep. Alan Grayson to win the Democratic nomination in Florida’s 7th congressional district. Republicans also chose a new nominee in former television anchor Ryan Elijah, ousting scandal-plagued Republican incumbent Rep. Cory Mills. While Republicans now have a candidate with less baggage, Dalton enters the general in a strong position. A Navy veteran and former NASA chief of staff, Dalton has both a compelling resume and the resources to put a traditionally overlooked district on the map.

  Support The Win The Middle Slate

Scaring off the GOP

• Jamie Ager scared off several Republicans from running in North Carolina’s 11th congressional district after incumbent Chuck Edwards dropped out (the second Republican to leave the district in disgrace, after Edwards unseated Madison Cawthorn). Republicans have now installed state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom as their replacement nominee, giving Ager a rare opportunity against an untested opponent in an open seat. He has more than $2 million banked, deep ties to the district, and a clear head start, but in an R+5 district, the race remains an uphill climb and any support helps.

Rolling into the General

• Pia Dandiya won her primary in Florida’s newly redrawn 22nd congressional district by 37 points after Florida’s late redistricting pushed her into a new seat just months ahead of the election. A former high school principal and White House fellow under Presidents Trump and Biden, Dandiya has already raised more than $2 million ahead of the general. She now heads into an unpredictable open-seat race against Republican nominee Casey Askar in a sprawling district that backed Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024.

• In Iowa, Christina Bohannan is officially headed for another match-up against incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa’s 1st congressional district. The 2024 race was decided by just 799 votes, and Bohannan enters this cycle’s contest with significant financial resources: she outraised Miller-Meeks last quarter and has more than $5 million cash on hand (the Associated Press recently covered her efforts to win rural voters). And Sarah Trone Garriott will face incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd congressional district. Nunn has spent most of his time as a congressman trying to leave Congress. He previously considered running for governor and then reportedly explored jumping into the safer 4th congressional district before the White House pushed him to stay in his seat. Trone Garriott has turned that reluctance into a real vulnerability by outraising Nunn last quarter and entering the general election with $3.9 million on hand, slightly more than Nunn has. The Iowa Capital Dispatch recently covered her race.

• In Pennsylvania, Janelle Stelson has turned her rematch against Scott Perry into one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities by outraising the former Freedom Caucus Chair by more than two-to-one last quarter. Paige Cognetti has moved Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district into toss-up territory.

• In Texas, Bobby Pulido is taking his working-class, culturally grounded campaign across South Texas. On the other end of the spectrum, his district will soon be visited by Speaker Mike Johnson. Republicans are clearly sweating their Texas gerrymander, with a new poll showing Pulido up 5 points and hitting 50% of the vote.

• Incumbent Reps. Vicente Gonzalez, Tom Suozzi, Kristen McDonald Rivet and Adam Gray are defending Trump-won districts with proven track records of winning. Check out our new video on Adam Gray here.

These leaders are ready to prove that Democrats can go on offense, win the middle, and help flip the House. Support the Win the Middle slate here.

Support The Win The Middle Slate

Trump ended up winning CA-13 by 5 points while Gray also won it, making Gray the only Democrat in 2024 to flip a House seat that Trump won.

How did he do it? A new video collaboration from Blue Dog Action and Welcome explores the answer to that question by speaking with the voters who elected Gray.

The place explains the man

“I grew up here in Merced, California. Just a few blocks from where we’re sitting is what was our family business for over 50 years: Merced Dairy Supply. This idea of being involved, taking some responsibility for your community, a lot of that led me into public life.”

Merced’s population was in the 60,000s when Gray was growing up. It’s pushing 100,000 now, and he can narrate the difference because he’s lived it.

The region’s agriculture community grades Gray on camera:

“We have a wonderful relationship. He’s always open to talk to us. He knows the ag issues. He is definitely a Blue Dog Democrat. He will cross lines to try to make things happen.”

Work, not fight

Gray talks about work the way most politicians talk about fighting. The film’s focus is a project everyone told him was dead on arrival: a medical school for the Valley.

“I was told, ‘You’re never going to have a medical school. Don’t even talk about it. It’s not on the table, it’s not for discussion.’ Through two governors and several speakers, I kept it as my number one priority. Ultimately, with Governor Newsom, we were able to secure the money. And now we have a building.”

Then he gives the credit away:

“Someday we’re going to have a hospital, and someday we’re going to have a full-on medical school. That’s just that perseverance that everybody had in the community for all those years.”

The university remembers who did the pushing:

“He wasn’t really going to accept no for an answer. Not from his colleagues in the legislature or Congress, but also not from the university, which forced all of us to level up our game.”

A longtime colleague explains how he operates:

“With Adam, he always found something in it for everybody. You could have a group of 10 people that are all in disagreement, who have disparate interests. Through conversations that are always informal, always disarming through humor, Adam has this amazing ability to get to the bottom line and figure out what they actually want.”

That’s what defines a Blue Dog: bringing people together regardless of party to solve tough problems.

Water, water, water

Ask Gray the three most important issues in his district and you get one answer, three times: water. In the Valley, water reliability is destiny for farmers.

“One of the worst droughts in California history is 1977, which is the year I was born. I was born into a drought, and I feel like I’ve spent my whole adult political life fighting to protect us from droughts.”

The film visits the proposed Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir — the kind of project the Valley hasn’t seen since San Luis. While politicians pontificate about a progressivism that builds, Adam Gray is, well, building.

The official position of Merced

At Joe Del Bosque’s melon farm outside Los Banos, the national immigration debate meets the people who actually do the work. These voters hold Blue Dog values: the need for a secure border, but a humane path to citizenship for those who can contribute to America’s greatness.

“We’ve spent an awful lot of time on the 1% of people that are criminals. What about the 99% of people that are hardworking families that are here making a better life? What are we doing to help them?”

And:

“People have literally come from all over the world to work with their hands and farm to live the American dream. We just have a different attitude about immigration. We care more about hard work. You want to come here and work hard, you can succeed here.”

Del Bosque:

“All they want to do is to be able to work without having any fear. They want to raise families. They have values just like we all do.”

Many Democrats struggle to formulate their immigration position, relying on focus groups and polls. Adam Gray doesn’t need focus groups: his conversations with voters ground his policy views.

The film ends where Gray always ends: “My job is about solving problems, not about winning an argument, not about blaming other people for our problems.”

This November, Gray faces Kevin Lincoln, the former mayor of Stockton who was running against a different member of Congress a few months ago and switched seats when Prop 50 moved the lines.

Gray is a Win the Middle-endorsed incumbent also endorsed by the Blue Dogs. The Welcome and Blue Dog Action slates over-performed Harris in Trump-won districts by nearly six points, and nobody’s margin was thinner than Gray’s.

Gray knew what it took to win two years ago and he’s carried that with him throughout his time in Congress, proving to not only those 187 voters who delivered him the victory in 2024 but to all of CA-13 that he’s working on their behalf and always will.

WelcomePAC is making two new endorsements that will increase the chances of Democrats bucking the Republicans’ gerrymander: Bale Dalton (FL-07) and Pia Dandiya (FL-22). Both embody what it takes to win in competitive territory: a record that speaks for itself before party affiliation does, a willingness to run as themselves rather than as a national brand, and a coalition that spans party lines.

They join Welcome’s Win the Middle slate, bringing the total number of endorsed candidates for the 2026 cycle to 14.

The Navy Captain who leads with service, not party

Bale Dalton was born and raised in Central Florida and is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He has spent 24 years in the Navy and Navy Reserve, flying search and rescue flights in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, medical evacuation missions in Kuwait, special operations missions in Iraq and Africa, and directed combat air support with the Navy SEALs in Afghanistan.

After his first stretch of active duty, Dalton worked at the State Department and as a military legislative assistant to former Sen. Bill Nelson, helping Florida veterans access the care and benefits they’d earned. He then returned to active duty as commanding officer of the Navy’s special operations support helicopter squadron before moving to the private sector, where he used his military background to improve operations at an aerospace company. He went on to serve as Chief of Staff at NASA, managing an agency workforce of roughly 16,500 employees.

When he launched his campaign against scandal-plagued incumbent Rep. Cory Mills last November, his opening video led with his service record and never mentioned his party. That’s a deliberate choice in a district Trump carried by more than 12 points, where the case has to be about the candidate first.

An educator who moved toward the fight, not away from it

Pia Dandiya is a first-generation American, born and raised in Palm Beach County to parents who emigrated from India. She started her career as a teacher but at 28 became a high school principal in Harlem and founded a public charter school where every graduate earned college admission despite 86% of students living in low income households.

Her success in education earned her selection to the White House Fellows program, where she served under both President Trump and President Biden, working on the White House Domestic Policy Council and at the Department of Education on child development, school nutrition, and access to quality education. She went on to lead public-sector modernization work at Apple.

Dandiya entered this cycle challenging Rep. Brian Mast in FL-21. After the Republican-controlled legislature moved to redraw Florida’s congressional map this spring, she shifted to the newly-created, competitive 22nd district, refusing to let the legislature’s redistricting effort go unanswered. If elected, she’d be the first South Asian American to represent Florida in Congress.

Support Bale Dalton and Pia Dandiya

Bale Dalton and Pia Dandiya are running in seats Democrats will need to win in order to flip control of the House in 2026. Winning either district will take significant resources, strong grassroots support, and sustained investment, which is why supporting Dalton and Dandiya now is critical.

Support Bale & Pia

Now is one of those times. And people want to know what they can do right now.

The next major election is July 21 in Arizona. And the clearest investment for impact is Marlene Galán-Woods, who will give Democrats the best opportunity in a recently-opened district.

Support Marlene Galán-Woods

Arizona’s 1st congressional district is one of the best pick-up opportunities anywhere in the country this cycle. It’s an open seat and considered a toss-up by every ratings agency.

It also has an independent streak: in 2024, it voted for Trump by 3 points while Sen. Ruben Gallego won it by 5 points.

And Marlene matches that independent streak: the daughter of Cuban refugees who fled communism, Marlene spent decades as a broadcast journalist known for exposing corruption and holding leaders accountable. Her late husband, Grant Woods, served as Arizona's Attorney General — as a Republican. If elected, she'd be the first Latina to represent Arizona's 1st congressional district in Congress.

Marlene has what it takes to win this district. She recently signed the Promise to America, staking her campaign on a results-focused brand of politics that’s needed to win in a purple district like this one. That shows in her endorsements - the New Dems endorsed her last week:

"Marlene is battle-tested and laser-focused on lowering costs, the exact kind of person who flips and holds this tough seat," said Rep. Kim Schrier (WA-08). "House Republicans spent last year raising costs and gutting health care to hand tax breaks to the wealthy. Marlene is running to make them answer for it, and to deliver the majority in November."

Days ago, Senator Mark Kelly endorsed her as the strongest general election candidate in this field. She needs support now - give here.

Support Marlene Galán-Woods

The last line of her press releases notes Marlene is running for Congress to stand up to extremists. Let’s stand with her in doing that.

Shannon Bird doesn’t approach politics like a typical candidate. She’s running in Colorado’s 8th congressional district, one of the most closely-divided districts in the country. CO-08 has flipped parties in back-to-back cycles, and both times the winner received less than 50% of the vote.

Bird was raised by a single mom and her grandmother, and for a time they lived in a trailer. She talks openly about it on the campaign trail as a way of grounding how she approaches both governing and campaigning.

Her background isn’t in politics, but in finance and budgets. She carried that with her into the state legislature, where her focus remained on the basics like improving schools, reducing crime, protecting jobs, creating housing, and making life more affordable for Coloradans.

Some of that work is easy to miss at a distance. They’re the kinds of policy and legislative fixes that don’t always break through immediately but show up as real results over time.

In a district like this, that’s the job.

Watch our conversation with Shannon Bird below, and support her campaign here.

Both candidates embody what it takes to win in competitive territory: local authenticity rooted in real world experience, a willingness to buck political pressure when it matters, and a record of putting community ahead of party.

Paige Cognetti: A local leader who took on the machine and won

Paige Cognetti’s rise in northeastern Pennsylvania began not by climbing a party ladder, but by taking a broken system head-on.

After years working in government oversight and accountability, Cognetti stepped into Scranton politics in 2019 after Scranton’s mayor was indicted for extortion. When the local Democratic establishment closed ranks around its preferred candidate, she made the bold decision to run as an Independent.

In the 2019 special election for mayor, Cognetti rejected the machine politics that had become the norm in the city and appealed directly to voters by running on a platform of transparency, fiscal responsibility, and reform. She won, becoming Scranton’s first female mayor and sending a clear message that voters wanted clean government and practical leadership.

Two years later, Cognetti ran for a full term as a Democrat and won decisively, continuing her focus on stabilizing city finances, investing in infrastructure, and restoring confidence in local government.

Now she’s running for Congress to defeat Republican Rob Bresnahan, who campaigned on a promise to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, then became one of the most prolific traders in Congress. Bresnahan has made headlines for trades that coincide with his votes – he dumped up to $130,000 in Medicaid provider stock the week before he voted for the largest Medicaid cuts in history. He’s also bought AI stocks while pushing for data centers.

Cognetti’s independence, her willingness to stand up to party insiders, and her results-first type of leadership is exactly why she’s the right candidate for Pennsylvania’s 8th, a swing district that will help determine control of the U.S. House. Cognetti isn’t defined by party labels; she’s defined by delivering for working families, rooting out government corruption, and meeting voters where they are.

Support Mayor Paige Cognetti

Dr. Jasmeet Bains: A Doctor who brings real-world solutions to public service

Dr. Jasmeet Bains comes to politics the same way she came to public life: through service.

A family physician and addiction specialist in California’s Central Valley, Dr. Bains has spent her career on the frontlines of healthcare, treating patients, navigating broken systems, and seeing firsthand how policy decisions affect everyday lives in rural and working-class communities.

When she ran for the California State Assembly in 2022, she did so not as a career politician, but as a doctor determined to fix problems she had lived with every day: lack of access to care, rising costs, and communities too often overlooked by Sacramento and Washington alike.

Since taking office, Dr. Bains has built a reputation as a pragmatic legislator focused on results and standing up for the economic realities of the Valley. She has shown she is willing to break from party pressure when she believes policies would increase costs or threaten local jobs.

As CalMatters observed, Bains “has never been particularly shy about voting ‘no,’ even if it irks her Democratic colleagues,” reflecting her willingness to put her constituents ahead of political convenience.

That independence is rooted in the people she represents. Dr. Bains has made clear that her priority is ensuring Central Valley families can afford to live, work, and build their futures in their own communities. Her approach has earned credibility across a diverse district that expects leaders who understand working-class realities and deliver practical solutions.

In her run for Congress, Dr. Bains brings what Washington desperately needs: real-world experience, independence, and a commitment to fighting for affordability, local jobs, and the communities she serves.

Support Dr. Jasmeet Bains

Support Dr. Jasmeet Bains and Mayor Paige Cognetti

These two races in Trump-won districts will be among Republicans’ top targets in 2026. Incumbents David Valadao in CA-22 and Rob Bresnahan in PA-08 have both been named NRCC “Patriots,” signaling that national Republicans are prepared to pour millions in outside spending into defending these seats. Winning here will take early resources, strong grassroots support, and sustained investment, which is why supporting Dr. Bains and Mayor Cognetti now is critical.

Support Welcome's Win The Middle Slate

How will America escape the polarized mess of our politics?

By following the example of Democrats who win Trump districts: with the deep confidence that comes with knowing you share the values and priorities of your community.

Getting to know those candidates over the last five years has been the most energizing part of our work. And so now we’re bringing those personalities to you in a more vivid way.

Last month, members of the Welcome and Blue Dog Action teams spent three days in Western North Carolina with Jamie Ager, who woke up yesterday as the Democratic nominee in North Carolina’s 11th congressional district. Jamie is a farmer and small business owner who we endorsed last year.

Majorities are won when Democrats go on offense in Trump-won districts that have been pushed away from the party in recent cycles.

This video is the first in a series following Democratic candidates as they navigate the realities of campaigning in Trump country. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the strategies, pressures, and day-to-day realities of running in some of the most competitive races in the country, along with a closer look at the personal stories behind the campaigns.

How will we get out of this mess? As Jamie shows us, sometimes you just have to chainsaw your way out.

Follow him: get to know Jamie on YouTube here and support his campaign here.

Contribute to Jamie

PS for more on Tuesday’s elections, check out the rundown from

But a lot of that money goes back to Meta, the fundraising firm, and their texting subcontractor. And the money that makes it to the campaign? Often siphoned off each cycle to candidates who don’t have a chance at winning or are basically guaranteed to win, gerrymandering Democratic dollars in districts where money isn’t needed.

That’s why we formed our Win The Middle slate: incumbents and candidates in Trump-won districts who are doing what it takes to differentiate from the unpopular national brand and win.

So unsubscribe from the emails, Stop2End the texts and read why we think these 12 candidates are worth your money. ALL of them are in districts won by Trump. So don’t reply to the Meta ad, or the YouTube pre-roll, or the fundraising text - go straight to the slate to beat MAGA.

Support The Win The Middle Slate Here

Where To Invest

Pragmatic Incumbents Who Won Trump Districts in 2024: Adam Gray, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Kristen McDonald Rivet, Tom Suozzi, Vicente Gonzalez

These incumbents are among the most endangered, and valuable, members of the Democratic caucus. They’re beating back extremists and holding together the Democratic majority. In Washington’s 3rd, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is seeking a third term. She’s never backed down from a fight, even if it means taking on her own party on immigration or ensuring voters have the right to choose their own representative. Kristen McDonald Rivet was the top over-performer of 2024, running 9 points ahead of a generic Democrat in a district Trump won by 2 points. She’s an independent voice for Michigan’s 8th district (and a guest on our Depolarizers podcast). In New York’s 3rd, Tom Suozzi showed how Democrats can turn immigration into a winning issue. Adam Gray was the only Democrat in 2024 who flipped a district Trump won. He founded the Problem Solvers Caucus in the California legislature and now serves as whip for the Blue Dog Coalition. Texas has been ground zero for the GOP’s efforts to win the midterms by changing the districts. Vicente Gonzalez can win his Texas district because he understands where his voters stand on issues like guns and immigration.

Candidates Who Over-performed in 2024 Who Are Back To Win: Christina Bohannan, Janelle Stelson, Rebecca Cooke

These candidates massively over-performed in 2024, and had the Presidential election been closer, they likely could have won. This year they are back again to beat the extreme MAGA incumbents. Rebecca Cooke is taking on incumbent Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd, who has spent more time fighting his constituents than fighting for them. Last cycle she ran 7 percent ahead of the Democratic ticket and she’s built a broad coalition from Bernie Sanders to the Blue Dog Caucus because of her populist independent brand. Janelle Stelson spent her career as a trusted local news anchor, and that credibility led to her over-performance last cycle. She’s back to finally finish the career of Trump stooge and extremist Scott Perry who hasn’t been representing the voters of PA-10. Christina Bohannan has put up two amazing over-performances against incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks and came within 800 votes of winning in 2024. With tariffs hitting Iowa farmers where it hurts, Bohannan has a golden opportunity to flip Iowa’s 1st.

Candidates With Unique Biographies That Can Flip Districts: Jamie Ager, Bobby Pulido, Sarah Trone Garriott, Shannon Bird

These candidates have the type of independent background that can win tough elections. Jamie Ager is running in North Carolina’s 11th with a farming background that can appeal to independent rural voters. Ager calls himself a Mountain Democrat and isn’t afraid to call the party out for failing rural voters. In Texas’s 15th, Bobby Pulido brings a unique background as a Tejano music star. He’s emphasizing a credible vision for border security. In Colorado’s 8th district, Shannon Bird brings bipartisan credibility on crime and opportunity while incumbent Gabe Vasquez has been cutting Medicaid in one of the highest Medicaid districts in the country. And in Iowa’s 3rd, Sarah Trone Garriott, who has over-performed in every state level election she has contested. As a Lutheran minister, she has credibility with Iowa’s Christian community. Her opponent, incumbent Zach Nunn, has been more focused on his next office than representing his current one.

Welcome’s Record

Welcome recently released Deciding to Win, a report that analyzes what Democrats have gotten wrong in recent years and offers a blueprint for how the party can win again. All of the candidates on Welcome’s Win the Middle slate are leaders who are actively deciding to win in the types of districts Democrats need to be able to compete in to win back the House.

In the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Welcome invested more than $10 million supporting a dozen of the Democratic Party’s most over-performing U.S. House challengers and incumbents. Welcome’s 2024 slate over-performed Kamala Harris in Trump-won districts by an average of nearly six points, demonstrating that candidates who “decide to win” the middle can beat expectations, even on red turf.

Independent analysis by Split Ticket confirms that WelcomePAC’s slate had the highest Wins Above Replacement (WAR) of any Democratic group in 2024.

The Win the Middle slate exhibits Welcome’s commitment to supporting Democrats who represent the center of the country, not the center of the Party.

We can win – especially in Trump districts – by backing leaders with histories of over-performance, good governance, differentiation from the Democratic Party brand, and bucking the status quo. We hope you’ll join us.

Time to Win the Middle

Let’s make a resolution for 2026 – and every year after that – to Win the Middle.

Support The Win The Middle Slate Here

WelcomePAC, the only PAC that exclusively supports Democrats in Trump-won congressional districts, announced four new endorsements for the 2026 cycle: Jamie Ager (NC-11), Shannon Bird (CO-08), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03). They join the eight candidates on Welcome’s Win the Middle slate, bringing the total number of endorsed candidates for the 2026 cycle to 12.

Last week’s endorsements were featured in the Washington Post:

“Centrist Democrats don’t only recalibrate the party to where the voters are, they also provide voters with the nuance that’s needed for people to see the Democratic Party as something other than the toxic brand that it’s become,” said Lauren Harper Pope, the co-founder of WelcomePAC, a centrist political organization that supports Democrats in Trump-won congressional districts. “When are we going to prioritize the ideologies, the values, the vision, the sentiments of the people who are running in places that we wouldn’t necessarily even have a Democrat in office if they were not this type ofDemocrat?”

To that end, WelcomePAC is endorsing six candidates today, putting their organization and money behind Jamie Ager in Western North Carolina, Christina Bohannan in Eastern Iowa, and Sarah Trone Garriott in the district around Des Moines, Bobby Pulido in a Texas district that stretches from near San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) in SouthTexas. The group is labeling these contests “winnable races where the math says centrists can win.”

Welcome has a proven track record of supporting candidates who over-perform the fundamentals of their districts. Let’s dive into each race.

The Fourth-Generation Farmer Disrupting a North Carolina Gerrymander

Jamie Ager is a populist moderate with a distinct rural identity. He’s centering his campaign on his agricultural roots. As a fourth-generation farmer who focuses on local economic resilience rather than national culture war issues, Ager explicitly campaigns on a willingness to “speak out against [his] own party” to position himself as an independent voice.

His candidacy is built around his small business Hickory Nut Gap Farms, a regional meat producer that allows him to speak authentically about how Trump’s tariffs are punishing America’s farmers. Ager’s platform is explicitly constructed to distance him from the “Asheville liberal” stereotype that Republicans often use as an attack. He is instead running as a “Mountain Democrat” who talks about his faith, his love for America, and his support for the Second Amendment.

His opponent, Rep. Chuck Edwards, defeated Madison Cawthorn by promising reasonableness, but he hasn’t delivered. Edwards supported Republicans’ drastic cuts to Medicaid, abortion restrictions, and he was sanctioned by the bipartisan House Communications Standards Commission for violations concerning official mail communications. He under-performed in his district by 3 points in 2022 and by 1.5 points in 2024.

North Carolina has been defined by incessant Republican gerrymanders, with districts changing multiple times since the last census. The best way for Democrats to derail Republican gerrymandering is by running district-aligned candidates who keep Republicans on the defensive. Jamie Ager is on pace to do that well.

The Iowa Centrists Running Against Tariff Disruptions

It’s indisputable that Trump’s disastrous tariff policies have hurt farmers. The Administration is trying to mop up the damage done with subsidy after subsidy, but farmers don’t want subsidies or excuses – they want smart policy. In few states is that desire more intense than in Iowa, a state where the Democratic Party’s weakness with non-college white voters has been evident. Two Democrats are looking to change that.

In the 2024 cycle, Christina Bohannan had the strongest over-performance by a Democratic challenger in the country. Not only did she over-perform Harris by 8.2%, she ran 11.3 points ahead of a generic Democrat in the district.

Bohannan is running in Iowa’s 1st congressional district. She grew up in a mobile home and worked her way into the middle class, eventually becoming a law professor and state representative. In each of her campaigns, she’s made an intentional effort to talk and meet with voters in rural parts of the district who typically don’t hear from Democrats.

She’s distinguished herself from the party by leading her Democratic colleagues in the state house in support of a bill requiring faculty and students at state universities to be trained each year about free speech rights. Bohannan also publicly opposed Biden’s plan for student loan forgiveness and was early to call for Biden to step down, despite receiving criticism from Democrats in the state for the move.

In 2026, Bohannan faces Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a serial under-performer who lagged by 4.6 points in 2020 (when she won by just six votes), 1.6 points in 2022, and a whopping 11 points in 2024.

Over in Iowa’s 3rd congressional district, Sarah Trone Garriott is running to face Zach Nunn in the general election. A member of the state senate, Sarah is a Lutheran minister and works at an interfaith food pantry. She is one of the few Democrats who leads prayer on the senate floor during the legislative session.

Notably, Sarah is the only Democrat in Iowa to flip two Republican-held state senate seats from red to blue. She first won an open seat in 2020, then beat sitting Senate President Jake Chapman in 2022 by more than 3 points in a district Kim Reynolds carried by seven points, a whopping 10-point over-performance. In 2024, she was the only Democrat to hold a Trump-won Iowa senate district, demonstrating her cross-over appeal with the swing voters that will decide this election.

Her differentiation credentials include filing bills banning state lawmakers from trading stocks and instituting term limits. Sarah also broke with her party to support a middle class tax credit.

Sarah will face Zach Nunn, who just this year tried twice to run for Governor, but both times was told by Trump allies to stay in the House. Nunn’s lack of enthusiasm for the district is reciprocated by voters: he under-performed by 2 points in 2022 and by 4.6 points in 2024.

Support The Win The Middle Slate Here

Flipping A New Swing District In Colorado

Colorado’s 8th congressional district is the near definition of a swing seat and will almost certainly determine which party wins control of the House.

The district has existed for two cycles after Colorado was awarded an additional seat following 2020 reapportionment. It elected a Democrat in 2022 and a Republican in 2024, but both won with less than 50% of the vote. The district also has a Cook PVI of “Even.”

Shannon Bird is running to make sure that this seat flips and stays blue for cycles to come.

A state representative with an independent streak, Shannon has never been afraid to challenge the status quo to deliver results for her constituents. From protecting jobs to keeping communities safe to fully funding public schools for the first time in 15 years, Shannon has proven she’ll always fight for the people she serves.

The Democratic primary field in CO-08 at one point boasted six candidates but has now winnowed down to four. Colorado’s 8th is a winnable seat, but only if the right type of Democrat emerges from the primary.

Shannon is the only candidate in the primary who’s won contested campaigns, and she’s working to build the broadest coalition possible. With her bio, record, and commitment to service, Shannon is uniquely positioned to not only flip this must-win district “blue” in 2026, but to remain in elected office for cycles to come.

Colorado’s 8th is currently represented by freshman Republican Gabe Evans, who has voted to support Medicaid cuts that will disproportionately affect this district, where more than a quarter of residents are on Medicaid. Medicaid cuts are overwhelmingly opposed by Colorado voters.

And despite Evans campaigning on improving public safety, Shannon has actually passed bills to reduce crime, like barring car thieves from owning guns and passing a law that led to a 52% decrease in auto thefts in the largest county in the district.

Welcome’s Record

Welcome recently released Deciding to Win, a report that analyzes what Democrats have gotten wrong in recent years and offers a blueprint for how the party can win again. All of the candidates on Welcome’s Win the Middle slate are leaders who are actively deciding to win in the types of districts Democrats need to be able to compete in to win back the House.

In the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Welcome invested a combined $14 million supporting a dozen of the Democratic Party’s most over-performing U.S. House challengers and incumbents. All of Welcome’s 2024 slate over-performed Kamala Harris in Trump-won districts by an average of nearly six points, demonstrating that candidates who “decide to win” the middle can beat expectations, even on red turf.

Independent analysis by Split Ticket confirms that WelcomePAC’s slate had the highest Wins Above Replacement (WAR) of any Democratic group in 2024.

• Welcome Endorsees: +5.1 WAR (Average over-performance)

• Blue Dog PAC: +4.5 WAR

• New Dem Coalition: +2.3 WAR

• Progressive Caucus: -1.3 WAR

• Justice Democrats: -4.6 WAR

The Win the Middle slate exhibits Welcome’s commitment to supporting Democrats who represent the center of the country, not the center of the Party.

We can win – especially in Trump districts – by backing leaders with histories of over-performance, good governance, differentiation from the Democratic Party brand, and bucking the status quo. We hope you’ll join us.

Support The Win The Middle Slate Here

WelcomePAC is making two new endorsements that will increase the chance Democrats derail the GOP’s gerrymander: Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34) and Bobby Pulido (TX-15), two culturally competent, centrist Texas Democrats who fit their districts and speak to their voters’ concerns.

Support The Win The Middle Slate Here

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez is a proven over-performer who has consistently held the line in South Texas by prioritizing veterans and energy independence over national party orthodoxy. He has repeatedly demonstrated crossover appeal and an ability to outpace top-of-the-ticket Democrats in South Texas.

As we wrote earlier this year:

This morning, our team talked to Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who represents a district Trump won by 5 points. That’s where our focus is - learning how we can support leaders like Vicente to win back a majority.

Here is what we learned:

Last year, MAGA donors spent $8 million against Vicente, outspending Democrats by $3 million.

But voters sent him back because they know Vicente - they know his working class background, and his focus on affordability and sensible policies on energy & immigration.

So now, Texas Republicans are trying to change his voters. You’ve probably heard about what they’re doing, but you may not know that there are ONLY TWO TRUMP DISTRICTS THAT DEMOCRATS WON in all of Texas.

Vicente over-performs with Hispanic voters not in spite of his moderation, but because of it: Hispanic voters hold moderate views.

Gonzalez was one of 46 Democrats to vote yes on the Laken Riley Act, which mandates the detention of undocumented immigrants who commit crimes like burglary and theft. This vote was a strategic necessity for Democrats to prove the party is prioritizing voters’ concerns with immigrant-related crime, a top issue in his border district.

He also frequently breaks with his party to support deregulation bills like the “Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act” and the “DUMP Red Tape Act,” aligning himself with local business interests over federal agencies. Notably, Gonzalez voted against the Assault Weapons Ban in 2022, breaking with the majority of his caucus to align with the hunting and sportsman culture of South Texas, and he and fellow Texan Rep. Henry Cuellar were the only Democrats in the country to vote for the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. Gonzalez supports an all-of-the-above energy strategy that leverages all of America’s energy resources and options to keep costs low.

We’re proudly supporting Rep. Gonzalez because the way to fight MAGA extremism is to win the middle. This year, he is running in a redrawn TX-34 (Trump +10) where he could face a rematch with Mayra Flores, who denied the 2020 election results, regularly tweeted using the QAnon hashtag, and supports Texas’ law banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest, as well as a federal abortion ban.

Support Rep. Vicente Gonzalez Here

Bobby Pulido

Bobby Pulido is a legendary Tejano musician (check him out!) and small business owner, making him the ultimate political outsider. He represents a new-generation challenger whose appeal aligns with Welcome’s belief that Democrats can regain ground in South Texas by focusing on costs, community safety, and resisting the status quo that has frustrated voters. In a district Republicans redrew to be safe (+18 Trump), Pulido’s deep cultural ties and name ID offer a unique opportunity to reclaim the working-class vote.

Pulido has criticized Biden’s open borders policies, called out the use of the term “Latinx,” and highlighted his faith and support for American energy, calling himself a “Tejano Democrat.”

As Pulido says:

”I’m proud to be from the [Rio Grande Valley],” he said. “And I’m proud to say that in the RGV, people vote for the person, not the party.”

Pulido believes Democrats can improve their standing across the region by focusing on economic issues and leaning into religion.

As industries across South Texas contend with tariffs, labor shortages and immigration raids, Pulido said he plans to discuss economic solutions — including changes to immigration policy — with voters as he considers whether to run. Latinos in the region are culturally conservative, he added, but the right Democrat could win them over.

“The further left we run on certain things, certain Latino voters are not in agreement with it — that’s just a fact,” Pulido said. “But I still believe that as a Democratic Party, we’re a big tent, and we’ll accept all kinds of people. I also think that you can have the right messengers.”

Last cycle, incumbent Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz faced left-wing progressive Michelle Vallejo, who backed Medicare for All and free public college while having no policies to address the border crisis or rising crime. She had to walk back a 2022 interview when she decried “border militarization” and tried running to the center, but she couldn’t outrun her past left-wing affiliation and lost 43% to 57% last year.

Monica De La Cruz could be vulnerable to the right challenger. She’s been quietly trying to cover up her past stances, such as supporting an extreme abortion ban and privatizing Social Security. Sixty percent of the new district wasn’t in her old district.

In 2024, Welcome-endorsed candidates over-performed the top of the ticket by an average of nearly 6%. In a district like TX-15, Pulido has a real shot at victory, providing Democrats with a huge win in the House.

Support Bobby Pulido Here

The Opportunity

President Trump’s economic agenda is already causing support among Hispanic Independents to plummet. The recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey show this trend, with Hispanic areas shifting dramatically toward Democrats.

As we showed in Deciding To Win, Democrats are struggling with non-college Hispanics, in large part due to their extreme positions on cultural issues.

Rep. Gonzalez and Bobby Pulido can win back Hispanic voters in South Texas and turn the Republican gerrymander on its head. We hope you’ll join us in supporting their races.

If you’ve been a WelcomeStack reader for a while, you know we’ve written extensively about Jared – particularly his ability to win cycle after cycle in what has been a Trump district since Trump’s name was first on the ballot in 2016.

From Jared’s progressive conservatism to his differentiated voting record and his role as a leader in the Blue Dog Coalition, he has been successful in each of his bids to convince Mainers to split their ticket, most notably last cycle in 2024’s presidential election year.

As a former Blue Dog Co-Chair and the current PAC chair, Jared proves that winning in a Trump +10 district as a Democrat is not only possible, but replicable. His record provides a roadmap other Democrats running in rural and red districts can follow.

Without the Jared Goldens of the world, we wouldn’t have a chance at a Democratic House majority. We need Jared Golden, and more members like him, in Congress.

Support Rep. Jared Golden

Why Jared Can Win

Jared can win in 2026 because he’s been winning in a Trump district longer than anyone else in Congress.

As the only Democrat in the entire country to win four consecutive congressional races in a district that Trump also won, the cornerstone of Jared’s continued success is based on his cross-partisan appeal as a self-described “progressive conservative.”

Jared’s ability to connect with working-class and independent voters, his bipartisan approach to governing, and his authentic personal style make him one of the most effective and resilient Democrats in the House.

He wins by focusing on issues that matter to Maine and impact voters in his district – things like lobstering, logging, and agriculture – and not on the issues Democrats obsess about in DC. His populist-style focus on issues like healthcare and keeping USPS locations open while pushing for Democrats to align more closely with the median voter on immigration and crime have been key to this Blue Dogs’ electoral over-performance.

The District

Maine’s second congressional district covers the northern two-thirds of Maine, ranging from just outside of Portland in southern Maine all the way up to the Canadian border. It includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities, Lewiston and Bangor, the capitol city, Augusta, and sprawling rural counties and communities along the coast, in the state’s interior, and along the extensive Canadian border.

Not only is this district the second-largest congressional district east of the Mississippi River, it’s also the second-most rural district in the entire country. It’s home to a large group of working-class, rural, and deeply independent-minded voters who appreciate the straight talk, no BS type of personality that Golden brings.

This independent-mindedness is apparent in the district's voting history. In 2020, on the same ballot, this district voted for Trump by almost 7 points, Susan Collins by 22 points, and Jared Golden by 6 points. In 2024, Trump carried the second by nearly 10 points. Independent Senator Angus King won the district with 49% of the vote in a three-way race, while Golden won re-election with over 50%, winning by less than a point. Voters in Maine’s second congressional district vote for the person they trust the most and are not bound by party loyalty.

Support Rep. Jared Golden

Just as in the past three cycles, this race will be one of the most competitive races of 2026. National Republicans have already made it clear they think they can flip this seat, with the NRCC naming it as a top pick-up opportunity and recruiting a well-known challenger in former Maine Governor Paul LePage.

LePage was a popular two-term governor among voters in Maine’s second congressional district, though he also has a wide range of vulnerabilities such as threatening to shoot a cartoonist and saying that “drug dealers named D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” would “impregnate a young white girl” before leaving the state. Early in his first term, he tried to kick 65,000 Mainers off of Medicaid. Throughout his governorship, LePage vetoed Medicaid expansion seven times despite the state legislature’s continuous efforts to pass it. Not only that, but LePage also ignored the will of the voters and blocked the expansion in the state after Mainers voted to approve it. Despite all of this, LePage won Maine’s 2nd congressional district in all three of his gubernatorial races, making this battleground race all the more competitive.

Sending Jared Golden back to Congress must be a top priority for 2026 – not only to help Democrats win back the House, but to have Jared’s leadership and vision for winning over voters in red districts that Democrats need to contest.

Support Rep. Jared Golden

A dedicated public servant and advocate for working families, KMR (as she has become known) has consistently demonstrated the values, experience, and vision needed to represent Michiganders in Congress.

Support Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet

Why Kristen Can Win

Rep. McDonald Rivet wins because she focuses on the “real things” that matter most to voters. When she first ran for Congress in the 2024 cycle, she consistently focused on the kitchen table issues that were of greatest concern to the working families in her district. Things like cutting taxes, lowering costs, and keeping communities safe throughout the district were all consistent talking points from Rep. McDonald Rivet both on the campaign trail and in her ads.

KMR understands the challenges her community faces because she has shared many of them herself. Rep. McDonald Rivet and her husband raised six kids, so she talks about how much that costs (for instance, how much milk her teenage son drinks). She honestly calls out that “most politicians are full of s***.” And she talks often about her work as a public servant in Michigan to make childcare more affordable and to lower drug and housing costs. KMR not only knows the issues that matter most to voters but has consistently provided the leadership needed to address them. Before she was elected to Congress, KMR served as Executive Director of Michigan Head Start and in the Michigan State Senate, where she was a driving force in the passage of the Working Families Tax Credit, which created the largest tax cut for working families in Michigan history.

In Congress, she’s already proven she’s ready to work with anyone – regardless of Party affiliation – to deliver results for her constituents. In her first 100 days as a Member of Congress, Rep. McDonald Rivet introduced a whopping 51 bills, nearly 70% of them with bipartisan support, and most geared toward lowering costs, creating jobs, and keeping communities safe. She even passed one out of the House! She was also elected to a leadership position in the New Democrat Coalition, further reinforcing her center-left credentials.

KMR’s pragmatic approach to politics helped propel her to a big win in the 2024 election cycle. While Harris lost Michigan’s 8th congressional district by nearly 2 points, Rep. McDonald Rivet won by 6.7, becoming 1 of just 13 Democrats to represent a Trump-won district. Notably, her Split Ticket WAR score, which aims to measure candidate quality by comparing outcomes to baseline predictions, showed a D+8.6 WAR, making her the highest over-performing, winning Democrat in the country in 2024. Analysts estimate that without her candidacy, a generic Democrat likely would have lost the district.

The District

Michigan’s 8th congressional district is in what’s considered “mid-Michigan.” It is anchored by Flint in the southern part of the district, and the Tri-Cities area in the North (made up of Saginaw, Midland, and Bay City).

Voters in the 8th are independent-minded and not beholden to either party. In 2024, this district voted for Trump by a margin of 2 points, Elissa Slotkin by 1 point, and Kristen McDonald Rivet by nearly 7 points. In 2020, Biden won the district by 2 points, meaning the district swung right by 4 points between the two presidential elections.

This back and forth and split-ticket voting is reflected in Cook Political Report’s analysis of the district. Not only does it have a PVI of R+1, but Cook has also notably rated Michigan’s 8th as the median congressional district for the entire country: There are exactly 217 districts that are rated more Democratic and 217 districts that are rated as more Republican than this district, making M-08 the tipping point district for control of the House.

We know Rep. McDonald Rivet can Win the Middle because she has quite literally won the middle by winning in this district. And her seat could well be the race that decides control of the House in 2026.

Support Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet

Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet is someone Michiganders can count on to work hard for working families, strengthen communities, and deliver results. We are proud to support her in her bid for re-election.

This district is a top target by the NRCC. Already, GOP super PACs have spent nearly $1 million in ads attacking KMR, buying more television in this district than against any House Democrat in the country. Given the close nature of this district, we expect this to continue, with the Republican nominee and outside groups slated to spend tens of millions of dollars to flip this seat.

We need Rep. McDonald Rivet back in Congress in 2026 to flip the House and continue delivering results and finding solutions for the things that matter to voters in Michigan and across the country.

Support Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet

As someone who has served in elected office for most of his career, Rep. Suozzi knows that common-sense solutions and a district-first type of politics are needed not only to represent the people of Long Island, but as elected leadership in Congress.

Support Rep. Tom Suozzi

Why Tom Can Win

Tom can win because he’s done it his entire career. Suozzi was elected Mayor of his hometown at just 31 years old. After four terms as Mayor, he won a hard-fought primary against the party-backed favorite for Nassau County Executive and then went on to win the general election, which had been held by Republicans for decades. He’s credited to this day for the county’s complete financial turnaround, negotiating tough deals and making hard choices to bring it back from the brink of fiscal ruin.

Rep. Suozzi has also been elected to Congress five times, building a track record and earning a reputation for getting things done. He’s earned trust among voters for knowing exactly which fights to pick, and who to collaborate with to get things done for his constituents – even when that means working with Republicans. As co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, Rep. Suozzi works regularly with his Republican colleagues to find common ground in Congress. He prioritizes listening over lecturing and building real relationships with leaders on both sides of the aisle, which allows him to focus on delivering real results that have a positive impact on the everyday lives of his constituents.

Rep. Suozzi is also not afraid to buck his own party when necessary. During the special election in February 2024 following the expulsion of George Santos, Rep. Suozzi went on offense and took the issue of immigration head-on instead of pivoting, ignoring it, or downplaying the matter.

Consultants told him immigration was a “Republican issue,” but Suozzi, buoyed by the conversations he had with everyday Americans, had the wisdom to ignore that advice. He knew that his constituents – his neighbors – were concerned about the border. As he once said, “It’s not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. If the people are talking about it, it’s an American issue.” While Democrats tip-toed around the issue throughout the 2024 election cycle, Rep. Suozzi called for investments in border security and criticized Republicans for scuttling bipartisan border security legislation. That message resonated, and the voters of NY-03 delivered him a 9-point victory, emphatically sending him back to Congress after a year of Santos’ chaos.

Tom’s approach works, and he has proven it by his electoral over-performance. In November 2024, when other districts on Long Island and throughout New York swung hard right, Rep. Suozzi and his Split Ticket WAR of D+1.9 ran nearly 8 points ahead of Harris, while Trump carried the seat by 4.4 points.

The District

New York’s 3rd congressional district is on Long Island and covers portions of Nassau, Suffolk, and Queens counties. It runs along the North Shore from Great Neck to Huntington, and down into northeast Queens, including Whitestone and Bayside. It’s a mix of waterfront neighborhoods, affluent suburban areas, middle-class towns, and diverse immigrant communities. In an area of the country that has been drifting away from Democrats, Rep. Suozzi has been able to buck that trend.

The electorate in NY-03 is independent-minded, focusing on local issues and supporting candidates who work to offer tangible results for them. Before the lines changed in 2024, this district voted for Biden by 8 points in 2020, then voted for George Santos by 7 points in 2022, and then for Suozzi by 8 points in early 2024 – a 15 point swing in under 16 months. This independent streak continued in 2024 when the district voted for Trump by 4.4 points while electing Rep. Suozzi by 3.6 points on the same ballot.

Support Rep. Tom Suozzi in the 2026 election cycle

Rep. Suozzi is experienced in running in tough races, and 2026 will be no different. It is one of just 13 districts in the country that Trump won but is currently represented by a Democrat in Congress. Because of that, Republicans have made flipping this seat a top priority for this cycle, and the NRCC has already listed it as one of their top targets. We expect them and additional outside Republican groups to spend millions of dollars trying to unseat Rep. Suozzi, and we cannot let that happen.

We need Rep. Suozzi and members like him to win in 2026 to keep fighting for common-sense solutions and help take back the House.

Support Rep. Tom Suozzi

We’ve written extensively on Marie – her notable appearances on national television, some of the many profile pieces written on her, and our endorsement of her last cycle.

In addition to being co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, Marie is an aggressively local and authentic Democrat who has won over voters across the political spectrum. She’s proven time and again that she’ll fight for what’s best for her district, even if it means bucking party leadership.

Support Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

Why Marie Can Win

Marie can win because she has done it before. Twice.

In 2022, Marie had the upset of the cycle. She flipped Washington’s third congressional district – rated Likely Republican or even Safe Republican by every major rating agency – after far-right Joe Kent defeated incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler in the Republican primary. Election forecaster Nate Silver gave her just a 2% chance of victory going into election night. Marie stunned the political world with her victory.

In 2024, she did it again, beating Kent in what was deemed a Toss Up district by a wider margin than she had in 2022, even as Donald Trump carried the district by 3 points.

Her success is not an accident. It is a direct result of her cross-partisan appeal that is fueled by her local credibility and consistent district-first politics. Voters like Marie because they know her. A working mom who owns and operates a car repair shop with her husband, Marie focuses on everyday issues that affect voters in her district. Last year, she notably introduced a bill that would make it easier for childcare providers to feed children in their care, and she’s long been a champion of the “Right to Repair,” to make it easier and more cost effective for people to repair their own equipment. She even helped Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) fix her car radio to raise awareness for their bipartisan efforts to protect AM radio.

These are just a few of the reasons why Marie consistently over-performs. According to Split Ticket’s WAR Score, which measures candidate quality by comparing the final results to how the race “should have” gone, Marie had a score of D+5.8 in 2022 and D+6 in 2024 – remarkably, some of the highest scores in the country.

The District

Washington’s third congressional district is located in Southwest Washington, encompassing the southernmost corner of the state along its border with Oregon. It contains six full counties and a portion of Thurston County.

The district is a mix of suburban and rural communities. The majority of the population resides in Clark County located just north of Portland, Oregon and where the county seat Vancouver, Washington is located. The district then expands north, stretching across rural timber and agricultural towns that have historically leaned Republican. And while these communities are more conservative, they respect and value the authenticity and pragmatism that Marie brings to Congress and her constituents.

Just like in past cycles, this race will be one of the most competitive races in the country in 2026. Republicans have made it clear that they believe this seat is winnable for them as they seek to keep and expand their majority in the House. The NRCC has already listed it as a top pick-up opportunity, and outside Republican groups stand ready to pour millions of dollars into this race.

Washington State Senate Minority Leader John Braun is expected to enter the race soon. As she’s proven, Marie will be ready. She’s stood up to the far right and defeated them twice, and she’s prepared to do it again.

Support Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

As we look to the 2026 midterm elections, we’re all in to help Rebecca as she builds on the momentum of her last campaign and finishes the job of unseating Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s third congressional district.

Support Rebecca Cooke

Rebecca Cooke Can Win

In 2024, Rebecca came within striking distance of flipping one of last cycle’s most competitive U.S. House seats in the country. She ran nearly 5 points ahead of Harris in the district, and even ran ahead of popular incumbent U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin by more than a point (Baldwin went on to win re-election).

How did Rebecca manage to come within 2.7 points of victory in a race that started the cycle as Likely Republican? By focusing on what is best for Wisconsin and meeting voters where they are.

Rebecca is a sixth generation Wisconsinite who grew up working on her parents’ dairy farm. She’s from the district, started her own small business in the district, and works as a waitress in her hometown in between campaign events. Rebecca is able to build trust with voters because her lived experiences are very similar to theirs. As a result, she’s earned trust from a wide range of supporters – from Trump voters to Blue Dog Democrats to U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders. This is exactly the type of big-tent coalition she’ll need to win in this district, and we’re excited to see her continue to cultivate it.

The District

Wisconsin's third congressional district covers 19 counties in a vast area of western Wisconsin known as “the Driftless.” Outside of the population centers of Eau Claire and La Crosse, this is a largely rural and agricultural district with a reputation for being independent and swingy – despite its current extreme representative in Congress. Prior to Van Orden, this district was represented by the famously moderate Democrat Ron Kind for 26 years.

Wisconsin’s third has lived up to its purple reputation in recent elections. In 2022, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers won the district by about a point, while Derrick Van Orden won by 3.7 points, and incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson won by 5.7. The next year in the Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Janet Protasiewicz, the Justice who Democratic groups backed, won by 10 points.

The Incumbent

Derrick Van Orden is someone the Welcome team refers to as “a walking opposition book.” Some of his most prominent highlights include:

• Being present at the Capitol insurrection on January 6th

• Trying to bring a loaded gun through airport security

• Exposing another man’s genitals to female officers while in the Navy SEALS

• Yelling at…well pretty much everyone (from teenage Senate pages to children in libraries to White House officials to House committee witnesses and *checks notes*... the President of the United States.

And those are just the people he yells at in person! It does not account for the thousands of tweets he has sent out while in Congress from his personal account, many of which take aim at those who disagree with him. One tweet in particular stood out following his vote to pass the “Big Beautiful Bill”:

As Democrats prepare to run against Republicans for gutting Medicaid and kicking millions of people off of their health insurance, most Republicans are trying to disguise the extent of the cuts. Meanwhile, Derrick Van Orden is bragging about them.

Van Orden has proven time and time again that he does not care about the people of southwestern Wisconsin – or really anyone, for that matter. He is a poster child for performative politics and talking a big game while actively passing legislation that hurts his constituents, including the ones who voted for him.

Welcome Picks Over-Performers

Welcome has a proven record of identifying the races that pundits and race-raters miss. In 2022, we focused on Colorado's 3rd and California’s 41st — districts that were widely considered Safe Republican seats that ended up being very competitive. We also identify over-performers: in 2024, all of our candidates had a positive “wins above replacement” score, according to Split Ticket.

Our strategy is simple, but rarely practiced: we find under-the-radar districts that are trending toward Democrats that are represented by extremist Republicans, and we recruit centrist Democrats who can appeal to moderate Republicans and swing voters.

Rebecca Cooke checked all those boxes and then some in 2024, and we are excited to support her campaign again as she aims to be the elected leader voters in Wisconsin’s third congressional district deserve. We hope you’ll join us as we help her unseat Derrick Van Orden in 2026.

Support Rebecca Cooke

WelcomePAC endorsed Stelson in 2024 when she came within 1.2 points of defeating the former House Freedom Caucus Chair and FBI investigatee Scott Perry.

Now she’s back for a rematch and the path to victory is clear. We are thrilled she’s in the race.

Last month, WelcomeFest attendees heard how Stelson over performed (watch that video here).

Janelle has what it takes to win over Republican and swing voters in PA-10 because she’s already done it. In 2024, Stelson nearly shocked the political world when she came within 5,133 votes of defeating Scott Perry. A race that started the cycle as Likely Republican ended up as a Toss Up and one of the closest races in the country.

This race will be one of the closest watched races this cycle and will help determine control of the US House of Representatives (she was 1.2 points away from being the 219th Democrat in 2024). The early polling is strong for Stelson, with a House Majority PAC poll showing her ahead 46% to 43%.

Support Janelle Stelson here

Diligence

Entering the 2024 cycle, race-raters claimed the race was “likely Republican” after being “Safe Republican”.

But we saw an opportunity. We scoured the country to identify the most vulnerable Republican extremist. Our diligence process started with 36 potential districts, and after months of research, dozens of conversations with candidates and local leaders, a series of calls with partner organizations and district visits, we identified Scott Perry as the unlucky winner of that process.

We wrote in 2023 about why Scott Perry was vulnerable in what (at the time) was a race that was not in the national conversation, and encouraged Democrats to go on offense and challenge Scott Perry in 2024:

Perry, however, is vulnerable. His Harrisburg-based district gave Trump just 51% of the vote in 2020. He is the archetype of an opponent that Democrats and their Never Trump allies must target in the 2024 elections.

We knew that this combination of GOP extremism and Democratic moderation would create the potential for an upset. Perry provided plenty of GOP extremism, and Janelle Stelson provided the Democratic moderation by focusing on winning the middle and nearly put Scott Perry out of a job.

Most Extreme Swing Seat Republican

We have written plenty about why Scott Perry should not be in Congress. A few lowlights:

• Perry was “central to the planning of January 6.”

• Perry’s phone was seized by the FBI as part of an investigation into his role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election .

• Perry admitted to doctoring reports related to the illegal dumping of sludge on the back of a local creek.

• As a former head of the House Freedom Caucus, Perry brought the country to the brink of a shutdown multiple times. He even questioned if people would be affected by them, saying, “Who’s living that they’re not going to make it to the next paycheck?”

• When the mother of a disabled child reached out to Perry with concerns about losing Medicaid coverage, he sent her a letter telling her that her concerns were based on the media’s “desperate, fearmongering propaganda.”

• Scott Perry’s extreme views mean he is often the lone lawmaker from the Pennsylvania delegation voting against vital legislation, like protecting firefighters from cancer, something Stelson’s ads have taken advantage of.

Since his re-election in November, Scott Perry has continued to be absent in the district and ignore his constituents. His district office doors were locked, no one in his office across the district answered phone calls, and voters couldn’t remember the last time he held a town hall.

Perry’s latest vote to pass the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will have a huge impact on the nearly 173,000 people in PA-10 who are on Medicaid.

Janelle Protects Democracy By Practicing It

Janelle outperformed the top of the ticket by 4.2 points by building a cross-partisan coalition that included thousands of Trump/Stelson voters. How was she able to do this? Trust. For over 30 years, Stelson worked as a local journalist and anchor who delivered the news in a factual and nonpartisan way. Voters knew and trusted her before she even entered the race because she had been in their living rooms speaking the truth for decades.

A Philadelphia Inquirer piece from last year shows how Stelson approached her race:

“I’ve been the trusted, nonpartisan voice,” she said. “If I haven’t been sitting in your living room doing a story on you in all that time, I’ve been in your living room on your TV, chances are.”Even her ex-husband, whom she called a “hardcore Republican” donated to her campaign, she said.

“It’s hard to go up against an entrenched incumbent,” she said. “But again, having so many Republicans and independents reach out to me the way they have been over the past several months lets me know this is possible.”

Scott Perry is an election denier, but Stelson understands that the way you beat election deniers is by building broad coalitions, and focusing on economic issues.

Last cycle, Perry’s extremism and absenteeism nearly cost him his seat, sneaking in by just over a point. This cycle, with Janelle leading the way, let’s finish the job.

Support Janelle Stelson

The new addition to this group is freshman congressman Rep. Adam Gray (CA-13), who serves as Whip of the Blue Dog Coalition. You may recognize Adam Gray from an episode of The Depolarizers earlier this year.

Rep. Gray is an electoral over-performer who knows what it takes to win over Republican and swing voters in the conservative-leaning districts Welcome prioritizes.

Throughout Gray’s political career – spanning from his time in the California State Assembly to this past election cycle when he flipped a district Trump won by 5 points – Gray has blended place-based politics, pragmatism, and patriotism to earn trust among voters of all backgrounds in a district known for its ties to Blue Dog Democrats.

In fact, Gray was the only Democrat in the 2024 election cycle to flip a district Trump also won, defeating Republican incumbent John Duarte by a margin of just 182 votes, and making it the 2024 cycle’s closest race in the country.

Support Adam Gray

Why Gray Can Win

Gray has always focused on getting things done for his constituents no matter which party they identify with. He’s also always prioritized a bipartisan approach to governing. He proved this during his time in the California State Assembly when he co-founded the Legislative Problem Solvers Caucus after finding the legislature to be too partisan and gridlocked.

The caucus, which aims to “encourage political leadership that puts the public good above partisan political ideology” is still thriving to this day, and it went on to include Democrats and Republicans from both the State Assembly and the State Senate.

That’s the kind of leader Gray is - committed to governing and delivering results for his community without the political drama that some politicians thrive on.

Gray is also the type of candidate who can differentiate himself by running as the authentic locally- focused centrist that he is.

Not only did Gray run 5.4 points ahead of Harris in the district, he also posted an impressive D+5.2 score according to Split Ticket’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) measure. These scores, which help measure candidate quality by comparing how a race “should” have gone compared to how the race actually went, suggest that Gray was an especially strong candidate in this district given the expected results and national headwinds.

The District

California’s 13th congressional district is centered in the San Joaquin Valley in the southern part of California’s Central Valley. It covers most of Merced County and portions of Madera, Stanislaus, Fresno, and San Joaquin counties. The largest and most productive agricultural region in the United States, the San Joaquin Valley gives this district a distinct cultural identity that is a stark contrast to the progressive politics California is known for.

With many of its residents employed in the agricultural industry, it’s not surprising that the district has a history of being represented by the rural-focused Blue Dogs and other moderate Democrats such as Jim Costa and Cal Dooley. In fact, one of the original co-founders of the Blue Dog Coalition represented this region in Congress.

Welcome Picks Over-Performers

Welcome has an excellent track record of finding the races that pundits and race-raters miss. In 2022, we targeted Colorado’s 3rd and California’s 41st — districts that election experts said were “safe” Republican seats. Welcome also identifies over-performers: in 2024, all of our endorsed candidates had a positive Wins Above Replacement score according to Split Ticket.

Our strategy is simple, but rarely practiced: find under-the-radar districts trending toward Democrats that are represented by extremist Republicans, and recruit centrist Democrats who can appeal to Republicans and independent voters.

Support Adam Gray

Welcome believes Adam Gray has what it takes to not only win re-election in CA-13 in 2026 but govern in a way that proves to voters that Democrats have the nuance, compelling vision, and leadership to move our Party and our country forward.

Let’s send him back to Congress in 2026.

The results suggest that the battle for House control will be intense and this cycle will shatter fundraising records. Let’s dig in.

More Competition, Fewer Deserts

The CCI report finds that competition has increased heading into the 2026 midterms. Following the release of the 2025 PVI scores, there has been a slight uptick in the number of competitive seats (a PVI between EVEN and +6 for either party), going from 100 to 112. That’s an encouraging sign, and it reinforces a key Welcome Party tenet: Democrats need to contest a big map. Particularly in a year like 2026, where Trump’s unpopularity could weigh on Republicans.

Republicans on Defense, Raising Strong

Incumbent Republicans in competitive seats are raising big in the first quarter, almost doubling their frontline Democratic counterparts. In districts rated as tilt or lean Republican, incumbents raised an average of $977,000 in the first quarter, while Democrats in similarly rated districts raised only $503,000.

Generic ballot polling is favoring Democrats, which means that Democratic incumbents in light blue districts could be safer this year, and the financial edge reflects that.

The strong Republican fundraising is likely driven in part by their incumbency advantage, particularly as business interests seek access to Republicans during their budget reconciliation push, which will contain tax provisions businesses are eager to capitalize on.

Among Challengers, Democrats Lead

As of March 31, there were 157 challengers who had filed and raised some amount of money in Q1. Of those, 34 raised at least $100,000 in the first three months of 2025, passing a key fundraising benchmark early on in their campaigns.

23 of those high fundraisers are Democrats and 11 are Republicans. With Republicans on the defensive, Democrats are contesting a relatively wide battlefield and raising enough to do it.

Setting Expectations

One key thing to remember this cycle is that Democrats have less “easy” wins then they did in 2018. There are 16 Democrats in Trump-won districts compared to just 3 Republicans in Harris-won seats. Back in 2018, Clinton won 23 districts that a Republican House candidate won, while Trump won 12 districts that a Democratic House candidate won.

Top Raising Challengers

When we look at the top fundraising challengers, Democrats have the momentum, with 9 of the top 10 fundraisers all hailing from the Democratic Party. The presence of so many $1 million plus quarters this far from the election suggests an engaged small donor base. However, Republicans with previous electoral backgrounds like Jim Desmond were still able to put up solid quarters.

Manny Rutinel had the strongest fundraising quarter for a Democrat in a non-special election, pulling in $1.19 million. He is running for the Hispanic-heavy, even PVI CO-08 seat created after the 2020 Census. This race will be among the most competitive in the country, with freshman Republican Gabe Evans defending after beating Yadira Caraveo by less than 2,500 votes. Evans raised $810,000 in Q1 - it’s rare to see an incumbent outraised this early.

Rutinel is a Hispanic state legislator with working-class roots and a background in environmental law. Million dollar quarters are common for powerful incumbent chairs, but Manny’s haul is unique for a challenger. Yadira Caraveo, who lost to Evans in 2024 is also running, but her fundraising was relatively weak and she has faced negative media scrutiny, leading to some skepticism that the DCCC will back her.

Welcome candidate Rebecca Cooke also put up more than a million dollars for her re-match against Derrick Van Orden in this R+3 Wisconsin district. Cooke was one of the strongest Democratic contenders according to the Split Ticket “Wins Above Replacement” (WAR) metric (D+7.3) and her fundraising shows why. Cooke was endorsed by Welcome in 2024 and again for this race and we’re excited to see her strong fundraising. She would bring a small business background to Congress and has focused on running moderate ads touting her bipartisan approach. Van Orden is clearly running scared, and is trying to deceive voters about his support for cuts to Medicaid and food stamps.

You can see Cooke at WelcomeFest June 4th.

Low Cash Incumbents

Several incumbents put up poor fundraising numbers despite representing districts that could be competitive, depending on the challenger and environment. Two of these incumbents stand out to us as a potential Lauren Boebert in the making. Recall that no forecasters expected Boebert’s race to even be close, but then, on election night she got a shock when Adam Frisch came within a few thousand votes of winning. The reason was simple: Boebert was far too extreme for the district and Frisch charted a moderate course. With Trump’s negatives quickly growing and Democratic strength in midterm elections, these districts with extreme incumbents could come into play.

Andy Ogles is a far-right Republican who represents Tennessee’s 5th congressional district. He denies the results of the 2020 election and is currently proposing a constitutional amendment to allow Trump to serve a third term. Ogles’ office was raided by the FBI related to campaign finance allegations, but the DOJ under Trump dropped the case. This scandal might explain why Ogles raised just $50,000 and has just $60,000 on hand for re-election in this R+8 district.

Cory Mills sparked negative media coverage recently with police investigating domestic violence allegations against him and a recent Congressional Ethics Committee allegation regarding illegal government contracts to companies owned by Mills. He may have even lied about his military record to get his Bronze Star. This has put a damper on his cash on hand, which sits at only $92,000 after raising $284,000 in the quarter.

Summing It Up

After the first quarter of 2025, it is clear that competition is growing and that the House battlefield will be broad. While Republicans may have a slight fundraising edge in some races, Democrats have the wind in their backs and are mounting a strong challenge. In order to make the most of their opportunity, Democrats must extend their map to contest a wide range of districts including those where extreme incumbents may make their district vulnerable. The wind is at their backs, but only if they choose to run with it. With additional candidates having launched in the last six weeks, the landscape will come into even greater focus by the time the next CCI is released.

Split Ticket launched in late 2021 as a hub of the most interesting mapping, modeling, and political forecasting in the online community known as #ElectionTwitter. It quickly became an invaluable resource, and its recent partnership with The Washington Post has yielded two pieces from co-founder Lakshya Jain that are key to understanding recent elections - and debunking harmful narratives.

Moderates win. And so do women.

More on the research in a minute, but quick related note: today is the final day of the quarter, which means you’ll be bombarded with text messages and emails from candidates needing to “meet this urgent deadline.”

When Democratic small donors are bombarded by text messages, there are few resources for them to understand which candidates are worth their money. Which leads to a misallocation of precious dollars to unwinnable races.

Welcome co-founder has made the case for fixing the broken political marketplace on CNN, WaPo, etc - and written about how there is a better way. Our growing community has contributed more than $500,000 to the most important, most overperforming candidates. And when Q1 fundraising is announced on April 15, the top data point for knowing who will win the House in 2026 is Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s Third. Here’s from this morning on what to watch for:

How are House candidates doing early in top-tier races?

Several Democrats launched campaigns against vulnerable House Republicans early this year, so we'll be watching to see whether they open strong and scare off other intraparty opponents. One candidate we'll be paying close attention to is Wisconsin Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who is seeking to avenge her close loss last year to Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden in the 3rd District.

You can learn more about Rebecca here, and can support Rebecca here on our Win The Middle Slate (click “customize” on the right to allocate across the slate).

Moderate Women Win

Remember the movie Moneyball about how small-market baseball teams outsmarted the big spenders?

The sober, creative analysis done at Split Ticket is a modern, political version of The Bill James Baseball Abstract that inspired the movement that revolutionized sports.

James popularized the concept of WAR - Wins Above Replacement, a measure of a player's overall value showing how many wins they contribute above the performance of the generic next-available player. Split Ticket does something similar for candidates, and it puts Rebecca Cooke - who ran a TV ad standing in the literal “middle of the road” - at 7.3 points above replacement, one of the highest of any challenger in the country.

This is one data point that helps answer one of the most pressing questions for Democrats: do candidates need to move to the left to mobilize the base?

The answer is no, something political science has long demonstrated.

A second piece from Split Ticket answers another question Democrats have asked in the wake of another presidential loss: do male candidates do better than female candidates in winning tough districts?

No. If anything, women do better.

Why Mods

In his recent piece on moderation, Jain analyzes 8 years’ worth of data and finds that every cycle, moderates outperformed. And the more moderate a candidate was, the better they did:

At Split Ticket, we have modeled the last 8 years of candidate quality in congressional elections via our wins-above-replacement metric, and thus have perhaps the most comprehensive database of candidate quality in the Trump era.

Although our database covers every race contested by both parties, we’ll limit our analysis to incumbents here for ease of classification¹ — while quantifying challenger ideology is quite difficult, it’s much easier to classify Congressional incumbents, as clearer ideological groupings begin to emerge in caucuses.

In each of the 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024 cycles, we found that the more moderate a congressional caucus was, the better its members did, on average.

On the other hand, as the chart below shows, extremists in the Freedom Caucus, like Scott Perry, underperform.

This is true of both parties. The Progressive Caucus underperforms the fundamentals. It’s no surprise that the candidates in districts Trump won by 2 points or more in 2024 don’t associate with the Progressive Caucus.

Instead, the top individual overperformers are from the New Dems and Blue Dogs:

• Adam Gray - New Dem, Blue Dog

• Jared Golden - Blue Dog

• Kristen McDonald Rivet - New Dem

• Don Davis - New Dem

• Tom Suozzi - New Dem

• Marcy Kaptur - No caucus

• Henry Cuellar - New Dem, Blue Dog

• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez - Blue Dog

In both parties, incumbents from the most moderate caucus overperform the most (Main Street Republicans by 2.3 and Blue Dogs by 3.9) while those focused on moving the party away from the center (Freedom Caucus and Progressives) perform below baseline:

Women Win

It’s hard to learn the right lessons from Presidential elections. They only happen every four years, which means each election takes place in an almost entirely different media and economic context. That’s why the research Jain conducts focuses on Congressional races, which happen more frequently and include far more candidates. Just because Harris and Clinton lost does not mean Democrats shouldn’t nominate female candidates in tough races. 

In The Washington Post, Jain runs through the data showing that there is no evidence that women perform worse as candidates:

Across the nearly 200 House races in which women faced off against men, the margins were almost exactly where they should have been, given each district’s demography, political lean, distribution of campaign cash and other “fundamentals.” And of this set, in the 69 battleground races the Cook Political Report rated as “in play,” the female candidates actually did 1.2 points better on average than the fundamentals suggested they should have.

Welcome candidates like Marie Gluesenkamp Perez defy the partisan expectations of their districts. The most impressive Republican overperformers, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are both women. The key to electoral success isn’t a candidate’s gender, it’s how they position themselves relative to voters. 

We’re excited to announce that Jain will be at the WelcomeFest, and speaking of moderate women candidates, Rebecca Cooke will be as well! 

Support Moderate Women to Win

Cooke is one of those moderate women overperformers - and was featured on our Women Win The Middle slate last Fall.

According to the Split-Ticket “Wins Above Replacement” model, Cooke overperformed the fundamentals of her district by a whopping 7.3 points. How did Cooke do it?  The New Yorker wrote a deep dive on Wisconsin featuring part of the answer:

Cooke believes that there is a problem with the national Party’s image, which was reinforced by Harris’s messaging choices.

“The Democratic Party brand is far left right now, when that’s not the majority of the country,” Cooke said. “We don’t have an agenda that really tells people what we’re going to do, how we’re going to make things better, and how we’re going to improve people’s lives.”

She went on, “There was a lot about joy, but there are a lot of people that aren’t feeling joy in their lives right now.”

It didn’t help to tell voters that the economic numbers were getting better when they weren’t feeling it. Nor, from the vantage point of her mostly working-class district, did Cooke think Harris’s courting of celebrities was wise. “Most people can’t afford to go to a Beyoncé concert,” she said.

Because of Cooke, Van Orden is now in a swing district. And this cycle, he’s on the ropes. 

Van Orden is the polar opposite of a moderate. He’s the type of extremist who puts what should be safe districts on the map:

He participated in the January 6th insurrection rally and said of his participation, "I went there to stand with them, to stand up for electoral integrity." He has been seen yelling and cursing at teenaged Senate pages after partying in his office where alcohol was spotted, drawing rebukes from members of his own party. Van Orden also wrote a book called the Book of Man: A Navy SEAL's Guide to the Lost Art of Manhood that included a story about exposing a man's genitals to female officers. He has missed a number of key votes, but did find time to vote against expelling serial liar and fraudster George Santos.

Support Rebecca Cooke Here

Our community has raised more than $500,000 for candidates like Rebecca, but far more is needed.

Understanding what works in campaigns is vital for democracy. Join Rebecca, Lakshya, and many others at WelcomeFest on June 4 in DC to learn how to put the best research into practice.