Washington Post: Vulnerable House Democrats unite to try to flip more House seats in Trump country
By Jacqueline Alemany
A handful of House Democrats who helped retake the majority in 2018 are uniting to fundraise for a slate of candidates running to capture Republican-leaning House districts in November.
The “Second Service Coalition” is the brainchild of New Politics, an organization dedicated to recruiting candidates with military and national security backgrounds, and will announce on Wednesday that it is endorsing seven House candidates around the country. During the 2018 cycle, New Politics raised over $7 million for its breakout class, pulling off some of the biggest wins of the cycle.
The group’s class of candidates this time around is part of the broader push to grow the community of former military veterans and intelligence officers serving in Congress — making them an increasingly robust force in electoral politics.
“I don’t think any of us who have been in national security and have served for many years all over the world with friends and allies — I don’t think any of us have a hard time talking about this or explaining our decision” to impeach Trump, Sherrill said in an interview. “As long as we are putting the needs and interests of the country first, we are very confident in how we talk about that, and we’re confident about voting on that as well.”
But, Sherill noted, her advice to the candidates endorsed by the coalition is to “be focused on whatever your district needs . . . and whatever it is in your district that keeps people up at night.”
The group is backing candidates in some of the most competitive House races in the country: Army veteran Dan Feehan is again bidding to flip a seat in southern Minnesota after narrowly losing to Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R) in 2018. Gina Ortiz Jones, who was narrowly defeated by incumbent Republican Will Hurd in 2018, has also thrown her hat back in the ring to flip Texas’s 23rd district now that Hurd is retiring.
Kim Olson, an Air Force veteran, is running for Texas’s 24th district; Zahra Karinshak is running to flip Georgia’s 7th Congressional District; Jackie Gordon wants to pick up retiring Rep. Peter T. King’s (R-N.Y.) seat; and Nikki Foster is aiming to unseat Republican Rep. Steve Chabot in Ohio’s 1st district.
The coalition’s collective support for impeaching Trump, a potential liability for Democrats in swing districts where Trump remains relatively popular with GOP voters, has not dissuaded Democrats from embracing their would-be colleagues.
“Our country needs public servants who know exactly what it means to serve something larger than themselves — leaders who know that our values and our country’s promise are worth fighting for, and that doing so means putting people over partisan politics,” Ortiz Jones said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to earn the Second Service Coalition’s endorsement, and to join this incredible group of leaders who fight every day for our shared values.”