The New Red To Blue List Is Mostly Shit
Late last week, the Washington Post ran a pointless puff piece on the latest DCCC chair, Suzan DelBene, former chair of the corporately-funded New Dems. She's a perfect embodiment of the organization's past a failures and a fitting replica for New Dem predecessors Rahm Emanuel, Steve Israel, Cheri Bustos and Sean Patrick Maloney. Although she likes to describe herself as someone who grew up in financial hard times, she went to the Choate School and then Reed College, two of the most expensive elite schools in America and was soon working as a marketing director for Microsoft, where she became multimillionaire. After failing to beat a Republican incumbent in a swing district in 2010, she was handed an open blue seat two years later when Jay Inslee resigned, a race she spent $2.8 million of her own on. There may be no one in Congress less fit— by experience— to be DCCC chair. Instead of being elected by the Democratic caucus, she was handpicked for the job by Hakeem Jeffries. Unless there’s a blue wave, Jeffries will be very sorry for his selection.
Yesterday, the DCCC gave Sahil Kapur the scoop on their 2024 first batch of red-to-blue picks. It’s a list showcasing the DCCC’s lack of imagination, lack of uplifting values and lack of ambition. No one could have been happier at the release of the 17-district list than Richard Hudson, chair of the NRCC, DelBene’s Republican counterpart. Most of the candidates are from the corporate-friendly wing of the party and, unsurprisingly, many have been endorsed by DelBene’s New Dems. There are some decent candidates; but most of them aren’t good candidates and, should they win, are likely to be terrible members of Congress. DelBene was on the lookout for fiscally conservative Democrats like herself.
We’ve spent a lot of time since 2022 looking at two California DCCC faves, Rudy Salas and Adam Gray, straight out of the sewer of neoliberalism, who DelBene endorsed again. Both were state legislators who ran and lost in nice blue districts because their constituents knew they had horrible voting records both in terms of policy and personal corruption. Nothing could have made David Valadao and John Duarte happier than to know the DCCC is putting Rudy Salas and Adam Gray (who helped kill single payer in California) up against them again.
Establishment Democrats like DelBene have so little faith in what the party is supposed to stand for that they count on a lesser of two evils approach to elections. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t— especially when the Democrats’ candidate can be painted as the greater evil. Let’s look at those two Central Valley congressional districts. Biden beat Trump in CA-13 by better than 10 points— 54.3% to 43.4%. The partisan lean is D+7. Republican John Duarte beat Gray 67,060 (50.21%) to 66,496 (49.79%) in one of the lowest turn-out races in the country. The DCCC is running him again. This guy:
CA-22 had a disastrously similar situation. Biden won the district by an even wider margin— 55.3% to 43.3%. The partisan lean is D+10, even more favorable— significantly more favorable— for a Democratic candidate. But the candidate— again a corrupt corporate Democratic state legislator— Rudy Salas, flopped in an even lower turn-out election— 52,994 (51.5%) to 49,862 (48.5%). This guy:
Yep, Salas did even worse than his Sacramento colleague Gray… and both were heavily funded by the DCCC and House Majority PAC. Gray’s campaign was bolstered with $6,628,853 and Salas’ campaign got an indefensible $10,098,851. Two shitty candidates in nice blue districts— with plenty of money— were judged to be the greater evils. So the DCCC wants to run them both again. Are Salas and Gray exactly the kind of garbage candidates the DCCC recruits and supports? If you don't know the answer to that, you haven't been reading DWT very long. Gray and Salas might be the worst but almost all of these candidates are a version of them.
Here’s the full DCCC Red-to-Blue list (so far)... along with a notation of which candidates have been endorsed by the New Dems:
AZ-06: Kirsten Engel, endorsed by New Dems (Juan Ciscomani)
CA-13: Adam Gray, endorsed by New Dems (John Duarte)
CA-22: Rudy Salas, endorsed by New Dems (David Valadao)
CA-27: George Whitesides, endorsed by New Dems (Mike Garcia)
CA-41: Will Rollins, endorsed by New Dems (Ken Calvert)
CO-03: Adam Frisch (open seat)
IA-01: Christina Bohannan, endorsed by New Dems (Mariannette Miller-Meeks)
IA-03: Lanon Baccam (Zach Nunn)
MI-07: Curtis Hertel, endorsed by New Dems (open seat)
MT-01: Monica Tranel, endorsed by New Dems (Ryan Zinke)
NE-02: Tony Vargas, endorsed by New Dems (Don Bacon)
NY-03: Tom Suozzi, endorsed by New Dems (open)
NY-17: Mondaire Jones, endorsed by New Dems (Mike Lawler)
NY-19: Josh Riley, endorsed by New Dems (Marc Molinaro)
OR-05: Janelle Bynum, endorsed by New Dems (Lori Chavez-Deremer)
TX-15: Michelle Vallejo (Monica De La Cruz)
VA-02: Missy Cotter Smasal (Jen Kiggans)
I’ve spoken with most of the candidates and some already have records— for better or, like Gray and Salas, worse. What pisses me off most is when the DCCC puts its finger on the scale in a primary with more than one viable candidate, especially since the DCCC will always put the more conservative and more corrupt candidates. A good example is the OR-05 race, where the DCCC is still fuming that progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner beat one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, Kurt Schrader, in the 2022 primary. The DCCC will never admit it of course, but they sabotaged McLeod-Skinner then and are sabotaging her again now. After promising to not interfere in the primary, they have backed an anti-labor New Dem, Janelle Bynum, who is polling significantly behind McLeod-Skinner.
What’s strange about this is that the DCCC always claims to be poll-driven, yet several polls show McLeod-Skinner ahead the primary by 30 points. The DCCC’s own poll came out so strongly in her favor that they refused to release it and have tried to bury it. And that was after an independent poll conducted in November 2023 showed her with a 32-point lead over her closest Bynum. And it’s worth remembering that despite massive amounts of money dumped into the race by the GOP, Jamie outperformed other Democrats in the district, including the governor— by 7 points. In the face of $8 million worth of attack ads, she lost by just 7,299 and won both Deschutes and Clackamas counties, two swing counties that lean purple.
Yesterday, I spoke with Steve Voltaire, campaign manager for Jamie Mcleod-Skinner, who told me that “Americans believe in the inherent right to choose our leaders, ensuring those elected represent our interests. Taking this choice away from the people suggests a need for more faith in their ability to determine what's best for them. Our democratic values emphasize the importance of individual voices in shaping the direction of our nation, and restricting this choice undermines the very essence of our political system.” (You can contribute to Jamie's campaign here.)
Also, yesterday, just after the DCCC endorsements came out, I was part of a team interviewing Josh Riley. To prepare for the interview, I read his website and this OpEd he wrote a couple of years ago in which he mentioned working families having to work “harder to make ends meet,” that “Climate change poses an existential threat to humanity’s existence” and that “Inequality is exacerbated by a digital divide separating those with reliable Internet access from those without it.” Good start. But… he was endorsed by the New Dems, always a warning signal. After he spoke eloquently about raising taxes on the rich and on taxing accumulated wealth-- not exactly New Dem positions-- I asked him how he wound up endorsed by them. He talked about the need for working with conservatives to get things accomplished in Congress, although he described the most important plank in his platform-- innovative job creation-- something heavily championed by Ro Khanna and the progressive caucus. But... whatever. I'd count Riley as one of the few good candidates endorsed by the DCCC so far.