Want To Help Elect Progressives To Congress Next Year? Ignore The EMILY's List Entreaties For Money

Seema Mehta started her essay about 4 targeted congressional districts in California with a misleading description, asserting that EMILY’s List is “a liberal Democratic group.” It’s a pro-choice, pro-woman otherwise anti-progressive, super-establishment DC group that treats women of color with disdain and leans towards finding women candidates with rolodexes full of wealthy friends. EMILY’s List is part of what’s been wrong with the Democratic coalition. But to Mehta, just “a liberal Democratic group.”

Nationally, EMILY’s List claims to be targeting 46 Republicans, which isn’t true and is just one of their fundraising ploys. Unless hissing when one of these candidates appears on TV counts as targeting, there’s nothing that EMILY’s List will ever do to oppose most of them. Nothing at all. But after calling the EMILY’s List grifters a “liberal group” for a second time, Mehta named their California targets: Kevin Kiley, David Valadao, Young Kim Ken Calvert, all of whom “have wholeheartedly supported President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s agenda, and that flipping their districts is crucial to Democratic efforts to take power in the House.”

EMILY’s List, which is primarily about raising money to pay its officers’ large salaries, doesn’t name opponents it will back against Kiley, Valadao, Kim or Calvert. That’s because it has no candidates to run against them. But send them money anyway.

“People all across the country are feeling the pain. The chaos and cruelty has no bounds— from slash-and-burn cuts to critical programs for veterans and farmers, to voting to strip millions of health care, to their continued assault on our fundamental rights and freedoms,” said EMILYs List President Jessica Mackler [a former DCCC operative]. “In 2026, we must take back the majority in the U.S. House to create a federal check on Donald Trump.”

… [L]ast year, while the GOP outperformed expectations in much of the country, three of its incumbents in California lost,  which state Republican leaders blamed on the tightness of the districts as well as strong funding from Democratic leaders and donors. And Republicans will probably face headwinds next year because the party that controls the White House often sees setbacks in the congressional elections two years later.

“Next November … in the House, we have seats to win back, incumbents to defend and more pickup opportunities to play in,” former state GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson told reporters at the party’s convention in Sacramento this month. “The road to the House majority will once again come right through California.”

EMILY’s List had no role whatsoever in defeating the 3 losing Republican incumbents in California last year, Michelle Steel, John Duarte and Mike Garcia, nor in helping Democrat Dave Min win the open seat that Katie Porter gave up in an ill-fated, EMILY’s List-neutral run for the open US Senate seat. EMILY’s List endorsed several women with wealthy fundraising networks but the only one in a competitive race was multimillionaire Joanna Weiss, who came in a distant third. The “liberal group” endorsed the less liberal candidates among women in the primaries to replace Adam Schiff and Tony Cardenas. 

Don’t be fooled by lazy, conventional-wisdom journalists like Mehta. When it comes to a group like EMILY’s List there’s only one word that matters and its not “liberal”— it’s “grifter.” If you examine EMILY's List's expenditures you find that a significant portion is allocated to internal operations. During the 2023-2024 election cycle, the organization reported total expenditures of approximately $43.2 million. Of this, 46.06% (around $19.9 million) was dedicated to salaries, while only 11.64% (approximately $5 million) was contributed directly to candidates. Similarly, in the 2021-2022 cycle, salaries accounted for 39.99% of expenditures, with direct candidate contributions at 17.55%.