ICYMI, WelcomePAC recently announced its first round of endorsements for the 2026 cycle, three of whom (Gluesenkamp Perez, Golden, and Cooke) were also endorsed by Welcome in 2024.
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.
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.
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.
“Each district is unique, and I think what we really need is to be the party that welcomes diversity of every kind — including ideological diversity.”
- Rep. Adam Gray at WelcomeFest 2025
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