Democrats

Democrats https://www.washingtonsun.com/democrats Democrats en-US Thu, 22 Oct 2026 14:41:41 GMT Rep. Joyce Beatty Is Trying to Reveal Trump’s Kennedy Center Communications https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/trump-kennedy-center-communications-joyce-beatty Torrie Herrington Her attorneys also pointed to a newly disclosed consultant report that they say undercuts the administration’s justification for the shutdown. Thu, 22 Oct 2026 14:41:41 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/trump-kennedy-center-communications-joyce-beatty Trump Kennedy Center

Beatty’s lawyers argued that Trump’s communications with Kennedy Center staff about renovations and the closure fall outside the scope of presidential communications privilege. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)

Rep. Joyce Beatty is asking a federal judge to force the Trump administration to turn over communications about the president’s management of the Kennedy Center, arguing that executive privilege should not shield his decisions as the institution’s chair because the storied arts institution is not a part of the executive branch.

In a court filing Tuesday, the Ohio Democrat’s attorneys said the administration has improperly withheld information about President Donald Trump’s role in the decision to close the performing arts center for two years. They also pointed to a newly disclosed consultant report that they say undercuts the administration’s justification for the shutdown.

Beatty’s lawyers argued that Trump’s communications with Kennedy Center staff about renovations and the closure fall outside the scope of presidential communications privilege because he was acting as the center’s board chair, not in his capacity as president.

“It would do a terrible disservice to the rule of law—to say nothing of disserving the search for truth in this important litigation about a national memorial to a slain President—to permit Defendants to hide the ball in this way,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote, referencing the administration’s “sweeping claim of executive privilege.”

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Beatty’s filing is the latest development in the lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s control of the Kennedy Center, including its efforts to rename the institution and close its main building for renovations.

The administration has invoked presidential communications privilege to withhold information sought by Beatty’s legal team. Her attorneys argued Tuesday that the administration has failed to adequately identify the specific communications it seeks to protect or establish that Trump personally invoked the privilege for each of them.

Beatty’s attorneys also argued that the privilege, which protects a president’s confidential deliberations, should not extend to the daily management of a performing arts institution that operates outside the executive branch.

The dispute has taken on new significance following the disclosure of a report prepared by real estate consultant JLL on Aug. 20. Beatty’s attorneys said the report, which was not provided to the Kennedy Center’s board, found that a phased renovation was feasible and appeared to contradict information presented to trustees.

The report was not disclosed to Beatty’s legal team until Oct. 19, after depositions had already taken place, according to the filing.

Beatty’s attorneys also cited a document in which JLL was told by Kennedy Center management that “Q3 2028 reopening is absolute; driven by Presidential mandate.”

The statement, they argued, raises questions about whether the two-year closure timeline was independently determined by the center’s consultants or dictated by Trump before the board considered its options.

The filing said Matt Floca, the Kennedy Center’s executive director, testified that Trump had decided on the two-year closure. Beatty’s attorneys argued that the newly disclosed JLL report was directly responsive to their discovery requests about renovation alternatives, scheduling and costs.

They also questioned why Floca did not disclose the report during his deposition, despite being asked about the consultant’s findings.

The administration has maintained that the board’s decision was supported by expert analysis. But Beatty’s attorneys said the evidence raises questions about whether the consultants’ work was independent or shaped by Trump’s preferred outcome.

Beatty’s attorneys argued that the board could have breached its responsibilities as trustees if it relied on a predetermined recommendation while ignoring evidence supporting alternatives.

The filing also renewed concerns about Trump’s threats to demolish the center if his name is not added to the building. Beatty’s attorneys said they need access to communications about those threats to determine whether the renovation plans could change based on the outcome of the separate dispute over the institution’s renaming.]]> Abdul El-Sayed Wants MAHA Voters https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/abdul-el-sayed-maha-voters-michigan-election Natalie Fertig Some of the Michigan Democrat’s proposals align with RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement. But El-Sayed’s nonnegotiables complicate his pitch. Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:05:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/abdul-el-sayed-maha-voters-michigan-election

Abdul El-Sayed’s platform includes several policies that align closely with MAHA priorities on food quality, pesticides and breaking apart monopolies. (Paul Sancya/AP)

MUSKEGON, Mich. — John Trocke is at a place he’s never been before: considering whether to vote for a Democrat. Specifically, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

The 42-year-old architect from Holland, Michigan, has been frustrated with the Trump administration’s failure to adopt the majority of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again platform.

“Republicans need to be spanked a bit in this coming midterm,” Trocke said. “I've become so disenchanted with the GOP that I've opened myself … to different possibilities.”

Trocke is one of a growing cadre of MAHA voters around the nation who say the Trump administration has failed to make good on the promises of the 2024 presidential race. He’s also part of a voting bloc that El-Sayed believes he can lure away from Republicans.

El-Sayed’s platform, which includes several policies aligned closely with MAHA priorities on food quality, pesticides and breaking apart monopolies in America’s food system, has interested Trocke, who already supported El-Sayed’s views on Iran and Israel.

“I think [RFK Jr.] has sold out his movement,” El-Sayed said in an interview with The Washington Sun on Monday. The former Wayne County health director added that he worked on and wrote about these issues before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president.

“I want to be talking about what we can actually do to take that mantle, [and] stand up against corporations,” El-Sayed said.

MAHA supporters never cleanly fit in either party. Kennedy, who himself was a longtime Democrat before 2023, helped Republicans expand their tent to include voters motivated by environmental and wellness causes, including anti-vaccine activists.

But the MAHA movement has been hot and cold on Republicans’ record. The administration began to phase out synthetic red food coloring and scaled back childhood vaccines, but the MAHA movement is still frustrated that President Donald Trump and Kennedy haven’t done more to go after food conglomerates and were deeply critical of Trump’s decision to loosen regulations on pesticides and other chemicals.

Whether that anger gives candidates like El-Sayed a shot at more votes depends on what these MAHA voters want to prioritize — and whether they’re willing to fully turn against Kennedy.

“RFK Jr. is kind of one of our iconic leaders,” said Rachel Atwood, an organizer in Western Michigan’s MAHA community who likes El-Sayed’s position on banning pesticides, but says she’s still likely to vote for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers. “Can [El-Sayed] win over MAHA voters based on dyes and pesticides when he has now … verbalized support of vaccine [mandates] and has attacked RFK Jr. for questioning them?”

El-Sayed has nonnegotiables. He’s adamant about vaccines and is a sharp critic of Kennedy’s. He accused the health secretary of being “bought by corporations” in his interview with The Sun, and promised to open an investigation into how the Department of Health and Human Services handled the recent cyclospora outbreak if appointed to the Senate committee overseeing HHS.

“Eight thousand Michiganders were infected, and possibly, probably many, many more,” El-Sayed said of the outbreak. “I really want to subpoena him and understand why this happened.”

El-Sayed’s position on vaccines was a deal-breaker for Atwood.

For Trocke, who is vaccinated and aligns more with the anti-pesticide side of RFK’s platform, El-Sayed could do more to soften his approach toward Kennedy.

“If he were to even express some magnanimous attitude towards RFK himself,” Trocke said, “I think that would be a positive thing, and would certainly be appealing to those of us who were in that RFK camp.”

El-Sayed told The Sun he is willing to work with the health secretary — between the subpoenas.

“Where we can work together to serve Michiganders, we will, and where I need to hold him accountable to serve Michiganders, I will,” he said.

If he makes it to Washington in January, El-Sayed said he would also reach out to HHS to probe Kennedy’s leadership.

“I know for sure that there are a lot of people who work underneath [RFK Jr.] who are so disaffected by him and his leadership style,” El-Sayed said. “I will be having those conversations.”

El-Sayed says the strongest policy overlaps between his health platform and the existing MAHA movement center on processed foods and monopolies. Monopolies in America’s food system would be his first point of attack if elected to the Senate.

But while health is a regular focus of El-Sayed’s campaign stops — his calls for single-payer Medicare received some of the loudest cheers of the night at a recent town hall in Muskegon — the Democrat’s stump speech doesn’t always champion the more MAHA-coded policies in his platform.

Tasha Schurgin, a longtime organizer with Michigan for Vaccine Choice, believes El-Sayed is simply throwing the MAHA community crumbs to gain their vote.

“If you're going to say, ‘Hey, I support the MAHA movement,’ you've got to really support it wholeheartedly. You can't pick and choose what you want to support,” said Schurgin, who lives in the greater Detroit area and considers vaccines her top issue. She is voting for Rogers, who she calls the lesser of two evils.

“By no means do I think Mike Rogers is a champion of the MAHA movement or vaccine choice,” she said. “But I don't also see him trying to capitalize on it and be a wolf in sheep's clothing.”

The Rogers campaign did not return a request for comment.

Atwood points out, however, that factions of the MAHA movement still have the potential to be swayed by El-Sayed’s policies.

Trocke falls into that category. He voted for Trump in 2016 but left the presidential race blank on his ballot in the last two elections. RFK’s support for Trump in 2024 nearly lured him back to vote for the president, but this year, he has already decided he will not vote for Mike Rogers.

He’s still undecided, though, on whether he will vote for El-Sayed or leave that part of the ballot blank.

“Policy statements are easy to print and produce,” Trocke said. “But I think it certainly appears to be a good step that he came out with something.”]]> DCCC Gets a $25 Million Credit Line https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/dccc-credit-line Kyle Chouinard The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said the amount is in line with its normal preelection plans, “adjusted for Trump inflation.” Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:00:29 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/dccc-credit-line A view of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington DC.

A view of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington DC.

The DCCC last established a $25 million credit line during the 2022 cycle, according to FEC filings. (Mark Alfred/The Washington Sun)

House Democrats’ campaign arm signed off on a $25 million line of credit — among the largest it's ever opened — early last week as the party stretches itself to take advantage of an increasingly favorable electoral environment.

Last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $46.5 million, according to its most recent report to the Federal Election Commission. That dropped the DCCC’s total cash on hand to $55.8 million, a decrease of around $20 million from the beginning of September.

The credit line could help the organization keep its pace heading into Election Day.

DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton told The Washington Sun that the “amount is in line with how much we normally do, adjusted for Trump inflation.”

“As is normal for every cycle over the last decade, we’ve taken out a line of credit to help manage our cash flow,” Shelton said. “It will ensure we can finish the cycle strong and win the largest majority possible.”

The DCCC won’t necessarily use all of its $25 million credit line, which it filed with the FEC on Tuesday. The committee put up “all current and future assets” as collateral.

The DCCC last established a $25 million credit line during the 2022 cycle, according to FEC filings. The organization ended up using $20 million of the credit line at that time.

In 2024, the DCCC fully utilized the $20 million credit line it established. Like this cycle, DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz similarly signed off on that credit line in mid-October, according to a 2024 FEC filing.

Earlier this month, the DCCC told donors that it needed to quickly raise $17 million by this Thursday to further expand its potential majority next year.

The pro-Democrat House Majority PAC is making a similar argument, pointing to districts that President Donald Trump won by up to 21 points in 2024 that are now within the margin of error in polling.

“Translating that potential into additional victories will require resources to reach voters and make the case against vulnerable Republicans in the final sprint to Election Day,” the House Majority PAC told donors in a private memo shared with The Sun.

In the Senate, Republican groups are using their cash advantage to try to protect the GOP’s majority. The National Republican Senatorial Committee also took out $20 million in loans last month, which it argued to Politico would supplement its “record-breaking resources.”

“We’re going to throw everything we can at protecting our Republican Senate Majority, and we’re going to win,” the group told Politico.]]> How Rough Is It for Republicans? Look at This North Carolina District. https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/north-carolina-ager-balkcom-midterms-race Alex Roarty, Christa Dutton, Will Hofmann The state’s once safe 11th District is slipping. “Based on early voting, it is a likely Democratic district,” a Republican strategist said. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 13:48:50 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/north-carolina-ager-balkcom-midterms-race Election 2026 House Democrats

National Democrats have been bullish on Jamie Ager’s chances for months. (Matt Kelley/AP)

North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District sits in a rural and conservative region of the state, has been held by a Republican for more than a decade and backed Donald Trump by a nearly double-digit margin in 2024.

And right now, it might be on the verge of turning blue in November.

Republicans are in serious danger of losing a once safe seat in the 11th District, according to more than a dozen interviews with local and national political operatives from both parties. They described the race between Democrat Jamie Ager and Republican state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom as teetering toward Democratic control for months, thanks to what one local Democratic official called a “perfect storm” of problems for Republicans both locally and nationally.

Republicans in the district suffered a blow over the summer when incumbent Rep. Chuck Edwards was forced to end his campaign under scandal. He was censured by Congress in early September following a House ethics investigation.

Conditions for the party deteriorated further this fall, as Trump’s poll numbers slid nationally and the Republican nominee for Senate in North Carolina, Michael Whatley, struggled to gain traction at the top of the ticket.

Some Republicans fear that with less than two weeks to go, the race is already lost.

“The bad environment in North Carolina, combined with a dead top of the ticket and a scandal with the incumbent made this a long shot to hold onto this cycle,” said one Republican strategist who works on House races, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “They probably knew that in September but fought it out as long as they could.”

In a sign of the party’s growing skepticism about their chances in the district, No Going Back PAC, a Trump-controlled super PAC, on Tuesday canceled future ad reservations in the district, a source familiar with the group confirmed to The Washington Sun. (The spending cut was first reported by Punchbowl News.)

Other Republican groups, like the National Republican Congressional Committee, are still slated to spend in the district over the next two weeks, but party operatives are increasingly skeptical that they can salvage a win. Balkcom’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment about the race.

“I actually think the rating in the 11th District should be likely Democrat, not lean Democrat,” said one North Carolina Republican strategist, given anonymity to speak candidly about the race. “Based on early voting, it is a likely Democratic district.”

At a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Tuesday, Trump suggested that both Balkcom and Laurie Buckhout, the Republican candidate for the 1st District, were going to have “close races,” requiring a “special call out” from the president.

The Republican strategist said they expected that Rep. Richard Hudson’s race in the central part of the state, considered a safe Republican seat, would likely be more competitive on Election Day, despite it being viewed as a safe seat for the GOP for most of the cycle. Hudson recently began spending on TV advertising, and the Democratic super PAC House Majority PAC has identified the race to donors as a potential target.

The GOP’s troubles in the 11th District are both a sign of how deeply Democrats might reach into formerly red terrain — Democratic operatives are increasingly confident about their chances in an array of seats Trump won by double digits — and a confluence of local factors that have made the seat uniquely tough for Republicans.

Edwards’ sudden departure left Republicans in a bind. The party had to quickly choose a new candidate after Edwards dropped out of the race following allegations that he was sexually harassing women on his congressional staff. It gave Balkcom little time — less than three months — to introduce herself to the voters across the district, which spans 16 rugged, mountainous counties.

“When we're out here talking to people, there are still people who are like, ‘Well, wait, what happened to Chuck?” said a Republican Party volunteer in western North Carolina who was given anonymity to speak candidly.

Margaret Ackiss, a member at large of the 11th District’s Republican Party who nominated Balkcom to run for the seat, described the fallout from Edwards’ scandal and late-stage dropout as resulting in a “sad state of affairs.” Balkcom’s path to winning would require balancing getting her name out in rural counties like Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Macon and Swain — the reddest parts of the region — while attempting to win unaffiliated voters near the district’s population center, Ackiss said.

“The outer rim of far western North Carolina, they have no idea who she is,” Ackiss said.

Democratic campaign operatives in Washington consider Ager one of their best recruits of the cycle. Ager has deep family roots in the district and styles himself as a “Mountain Democrat” not beholden to his party.

“The number one thing I think that’s made this competitive is Jamie Ager,” said Grayson Barnette, who is managing Ager’s campaign.

The GOP’s troubles, the national momentum for Democrats and Ager’s appeal have made local Democrats feel confident about flipping the seat.

“All of these things have just come together for a perfect storm for 2026, and that's what makes us optimistic,” said Beth Jones, Democratic chair of the 11th District.

National Democrats have been bullish on Ager’s chances for months, considering him more likely to win than many of the party’s other candidates in competitive races. One Democratic strategist gave Ager a “90%” chance of winning; another operative said they had already mentally put his race in the win column.

Some Republicans are holding out hope for Balkcom, saying that they think the race has tightened in recent weeks. Vice President JD Vance visited the district Monday to rally Republicans, in a boost to Balkcom.

“NC-11 is a Republican district, Jennifer Balkcom is a phenomenal candidate with deep local roots, and liberal Jamie Ager is a partisan Democrat whose radical tax-and-spend policies firmly align him with the Democratic Socialist extremists engaging in a hostile takeover of his party,” said Reilly Richardson, a NRCC spokesperson, in a statement. “Voters know Ager would make their lives more expensive and less safe, which is why they’ll turn out for Jennifer Balkcom.”

Some local Republicans still believe the district is a tough place for a Democrat to escape the party’s battered reputation, especially on cultural issues.

“What the Democrat Party stands for just doesn't align with the values that are deeply held by the people here,” said Merry Guy, chair of the District 11 GOP. “And I'm talking about some of those good old blue dog Democrats, too — their party has left them, and they know that.”

The district’s Republican representatives, though, have had trouble for years. Edwards’ predecessors faced scandals of their own. Former Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s time in Congress was plagued by multiple run-ins with the law and allegations that he sexually harassed college classmates. Cawthorn’s predecessor, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, was held in contempt of Congress for not complying with a subpoena from the House select committee, which was investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

If this district flips next month, the 2024 election results serve as foreshadowing. Nine counties in the district moved slightly leftward in 2024 as a majority of the state and country moved to the right.

“It's a Republican-leaning district, but it is an election year where that may get wiped out,” said longtime Republican political consultant Carter Wrenn. He added that the dominant factor in the race is Trump rather than either candidate’s strengths.

“It’s in Trump’s hands,” Wrenn said.

Right now, the trends are not in the GOP’s favor. The war in Iran remains unpopular, and rising gas prices are frustrating voters. Economic pressures in the 11th District are compounded by what’s been a slow recovery process after Hurricane Helene ravaged the district in 2024.

Republicans are also concerned that Whatley, their Senate candidate, will stunt the success of others downballot. Whatley entered the race with Trump’s endorsement but has consistently trailed in polls to former Gov. Roy Cooper.

“Michael Whatley will be an albatross on everyone below him on the ballot, and that could’ve been controlled if President Trump would’ve kept his thumb off the scale,” said Michele Woodhouse, a former Republican chair of the 11th District.
]]> A Major Democratic Super PAC Begs Donors for More Cash as the Map Expands https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/hmp-donors-memo-democrats-growing-map Elena Schneider House Majority PAC sees surprising new opportunities for Democrats, if they can afford to run at them. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 09:41:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/hmp-donors-memo-democrats-growing-map

The HMP memo said its polling found Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Missouri) in a tight race with Democrat Fred Wellman. (Jeff Roberson/AP)

The flagship Democratic House super PAC is urging donors to pony up more cash in the final sprint before the midterms, pointing to private polling showing a slew of deep-red House seats within the party’s reach.

House Majority PAC told donors in a private memo, shared with The Washington Sun, that recent polling “shows that with additional resources, even more expansion seats are within reach.” The memo included polling data from 13 districts that President Donald Trump won by 8 to 21 percentage points in 2024, all of which shows those congressional races now in margin-of-error fights.

The memo is the latest evidence of Democrats’ increasing bullishness about their chance to retake the House — and the financial constraints they’re facing to capitalize on it. Last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made a similar plea to donors, arguing that “we could be leaving winnable races on the table without further investment from the DCCC,” according to a copy of the memo seen by The Sun.

HMP is now making a similar donor pitch: “Our polling shows that Democrats can compete in these districts, but translating that potential into additional victories will require resources to reach voters and make the case against vulnerable Republicans in the final sprint to Election Day.”

Democrats have for months warned of a fundraising disadvantage against Republicans, saying in early September that the GOP’s financial edge could blunt Republicans’ deteriorating political environment. That disparity is felt most acutely when comparing the Republican National Committee’s $97 million cash on hand to the Democratic National Committee’s $4 million, when factoring in outstanding debt. Trump’s allied super PACs have spent nearly $200 million on campaign advertising since September, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, and the president said in a Truth Social post that he planned to spend $400 million on the campaign.

But House Democratic candidates have held their own in fundraising, frequently outraising their GOP counterparts. HMP, too, raised a record-breaking $230 million in the third quarter, but the PAC is pushing for more.

The polling described in HMP’s memo found Democratic candidates leading by at least 1 percentage point in six of the districts, offering up more evidence for the shifting House battlefield. That’s reflected in TV ad reservation changes, too. Last week, the House GOP-aligned super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund canceled its defensive spending for Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-New Jersey). On Tuesday, the DCCC added spending in three districts in Arizona, Ohio and South Carolina that Trump won handily in 2024.

The polling memo spotlighted several under-the-radar races.

Take Missouri’s 2nd District, which Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2024. The HMP memo said its polling found Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Missouri) down by 1 point to Democrat Fred Wellman, who outraised Wagner last quarter. On Tuesday, CLF went up with a $650,000 ad buy to boost Wagner, according to AdImpact. HMP is not yet spending in the race.

Another example comes in North Carolina, where the memo said it found Rep. Richard Hudson, the National Republican Congressional Committee chair, up by only 4 percentage points over his Democratic challenger, Richard Ojeda, a former West Virginia state senator and veteran. Hudson started airing TV ads earlier this month. Trump won Hudson’s district by 16 percentage points in 2024.

Of the districts polled in the memo, HMP is already spending in six of the districts, including Kentucky’s 6th District and Florida’s 13th District, both of which Trump won by double digits.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the poll finding in Missouri's 2nd District. The poll found Wagner down 1 point.]]> DCCC Jumps Into Three New House Races https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/dccc-jumps-into-three-new-house-races Elena Schneider The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is adding spending, as it drops $16 million in coordinated TV ads in the second to last week of the campaign. Tue, 20 Oct 2026 17:22:44 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/dccc-jumps-into-three-new-house-races AP25350664485300

In Arizona’s 2nd, where the DCCC is now spending, Rep. Eli Crane faces Jonathan Nez, the former Navajo Nation president. (Tom Williams/AP)

House Democrats are pouring money into three new congressional districts President Donald Trump won handily in 2024, pushing their party deeper into GOP territory in the final two weeks of 2026 cycle.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is adding TV reservations in Arizona’s 2nd District, Ohio’s 10th District and South Carolina’s 1st District — two of which Trump won by double digits last election.

The additional buys are part of the committee’s $16 million coordinated TV ad campaign this week, the details of which were shared first with The Washington Sun. The DCCC is now spending, in coordination with Democratic candidates, in 49 House districts, two-thirds of which are currently held by Republicans.

The DCCC’s expansion reflects the shifting battlefield for the House this month, as Democrats go further on offense while Republicans cut defensive spending to at least two of their members. Republicans, weighed down by high gas prices and an unpopular president, are lagging behind Democrats in public and private polling. Democrats average a high single-digit lead in polling on the generic ballot.

Last week, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with GOP leadership, canceled its spending for Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-New Jersey). CLF also cut its efforts to take out a pair of Democratic incumbents representing districts Trump won in 2024, while retrenching cash into 16 Republican-held districts across the country.

In Arizona’s 2nd, where the DCCC is now spending, Rep. Eli Crane faces Jonathan Nez, the former Navajo Nation president, in a district Trump won by 15 percentage points two years ago. And in South Carolina’s 1st, Democrats are making a play for the seat left vacant by Rep. Nancy Mace, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor. Charleston County Council member Jenny Honeycutt, the GOP nominee for the seat, is facing Nancy Lacore, a retired Navy vice admiral, in a district Trump won by 13 percentage points.

In Ohio, where two hotly contested statewide races dominate spending, Democrats are now wading into Rep. Mike Turner’s race against Democrat Kristina Knickerbocker, a nurse and veteran. Trump won the seat by nearly 8 percentage points in 2024.]]> Hakeem Jeffries’ Miami Trip Lands Cuban-Owned Bakery in Political Firestorm https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/hakeem-jeffries-miam-cuban-owned-cao-bakery-boycott-democrats-socialism-elliott-rodriguez Michelle Del Rey The bakery later apologized for hosting the Democrats and denounced socialism. Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:57:58 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/hakeem-jeffries-miam-cuban-owned-cao-bakery-boycott-democrats-socialism-elliott-rodriguez Hakeem Jeffries

Jeffries and Eliott Rodriguez, who is running in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, went to a bakery in Pinecrest, a Miami suburb, on Friday, meeting with one of the family business’s owners in what appeared to be a relatively routine campaign stop. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP)

A Cuban bakery in Florida has become the target of a conservative boycott campaign this week after it hosted a visit from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and a Democratic congressional candidate.

Jeffries and Eliott Rodriguez, who is running in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, went to the bakery in Pinecrest, a Miami suburb, on Friday, meeting with one of the family business’s owners in what appeared to be a relatively routine campaign stop.

Rodriguez, who is Cuban-American, posted a video on social media of the visit while standing alongside CAO Bakery co-owner Yvette Cao. In the footage, Cao gives Jeffries a “care package” of pastries.

Jeffries thanked her for hosting them and thanked Rodriguez for his commitment to “making this community, making Florida and making the country more affordable.”

But the reception ignited a firestorm of backlash from the Miami Cuban community, many of whom accused the bakery of supporting “socialism” by hosting the Democrats — a touchy subject among the city’s community of Cuban exiles who escaped the island nation’s communist government.

Several angry locals left comments on Rodriguez’s video stating they’d no longer patronize the business, while supporters said they’d exclusively purchase Cuban pastries from the bakery.

“I was a loyal Saturday morning customer until now,” wrote one commenter. “I will never set foot in any of your stores again.”

The backlash prompted an apology from Cao, who posted on the bakery’s Instagram account: “To the Cao community, I’ve read your messages and I understand why Friday hurts.”

She said hosting the candidates was not an endorsement.

“Cao stands with our Cuban American community for a free Cuba and condemns Socialism. That will never change,” she wrote.

Cao explained that Rodriguez’s campaign contacted the bakery the day before asking if they could stop by and greet the community.

“As a business, we don’t discriminate based on political views, but at the same time, I didn’t know it would turn into a press conference,” she said, adding: “Our family is here because of what our parents and grandparents gave up to be here. We know what they left behind, and everything we’ve built comes from the freedom this country gave us.”

Rodriguez’s opponent, Rep. María Elvira Salazar, posted about the controversy on X.

“Eliott Rodriguez brought the man who wants to lead the socialists in Congress into a Cuban bakery in Miami and, in one move, showed just how little he knows this community,” she wrote.

“He and his socialist friends turned a Cuban small business into a political prop and left the business dealing with the fallout. It is an insult to parade this ideology through a community built by survivors of socialism and embrace the very people who champion it.”

Polls have consistently shown there’s strong support for President Donald Trump in the Florida Cuban community.

That support handed Trump Miami-Dade County in the 2024 presidential election — the first time that it had flipped red since 1988.

Cuban restaurants and bakeries have long been places for politicians to campaign in Florida.

In June 2023, President Donald Trump stopped by Versailles in Little Havana. He was greeted by crowds of supporters who sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
]]> Alaska Is Becoming a Swing State https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/alaska-swing-state-peltola Alex Roarty This year’s tight races are part of a decades-long trend. “I believe it is turning purple. I can feel it,” Mark Begich told The Sun. Fri, 16 Oct 2026 09:40:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/alaska-swing-state-peltola

Alaska Democrats are cautiously optimistic about Mary Peltola’s chances against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. (Becky Bohrer/AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Mary Peltola is widely perceived — at least in Washington — to have a real chance at winning her marquee U.S. Senate race here because of her talent as a politician and a brutal national political climate for Republicans.

But there’s an overlooked factor boosting her campaign ahead of November’s election.

After being a firmly Republican state for most of its existence, Alaska has slowly but steadily moved left in recent elections, becoming more supportive of Democratic candidates at every level of elected office. By 2024, the state was more politically similar to right-of-center battlegrounds like Ohio and Iowa, where Democrats are often at least competitive statewide, than to the conservative strongholds like Wyoming and Idaho it used to resemble.

And unlike Ohio and Iowa, Alaska is continuing to move left: A Washington Sun analysis of presidential results found that from the 2000 election to 2024 election, Alaska shifted 20 points to the left relative to the national popular vote. That’s the fourth most of any state, trailing only Vermont, Colorado and Utah, according to the analysis.

From 2008 to 2024, it moved further toward Democrats than any other state, a 17-point shift. (The GOP performed especially well in Alaska in 2008 thanks in part to former Gov. Sarah Palin’s presence on the GOP ticket.)

The change is evident on the ground. In interviews with The Sun, more than a dozen party leaders, elected officials and political strategists described a state whose cities have become more progressive, whose state legislative battlegrounds have swung toward Democrats and whose top elected jobs — including one senator and governor — might soon be under the party’s control.

Democrats, cautiously optimistic about Peltola’s chances against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, are even more bullish about the prospects of the party’s de facto gubernatorial nominee Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.

It all leads to a conclusion that even some die-hard Democrats in Alaska are squeamish to admit after years and years of Republican dominance: Alaska might be becoming a genuine swing state.

“I believe it is turning purple. I can feel it,” said Mark Begich, a former Democratic senator. “It’ll probably take two more cycles to prove it.”

The state’s political evolution has big implications for its Senate race this year, which some party strategists are counting on to help Democrats gain the four seats they need for majority control of the chamber in 2027.

But, just as importantly, the transformation might offer a long-term lifeline for a Democratic Party with few viable targets in Senate races in the coming years, boxed in by a map filled with red states. And even though the state only carries three votes in the electoral college, its tiny sliver of votes could make the difference in tight presidential races when so many states are otherwise noncompetitive. The state’s White House result in 2024 was the 29th most friendly to Democrats, just behind Florida and Iowa, two states trending the wrong direction for the party.

Competing in Alaska might not be a question of something the party wants to do, but something the party has to do.

“If Democrats can’t consistently keep Alaska on the political battlefield, where else can they make that up?” said David de la Fuente, a political analyst with the Democratic think tank Third Way. “And it’s hard to make an argument for anywhere else.”
Dan Sullivan,Nick Begich,Julie Fate Sullivan (5115x3410, AR: 1.50)Initially, after being admitted as the 49th state in 1959, Alaska was seen as a state that would reliably vote for Democrats. But an oil boom in the 1960s on the state’s north slope transformed Alaska’s economy and its politics, bringing with it immense wealth and a wariness of the Democratic Party’s environmental agenda. Alaska last voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in 1964, when it backed Lyndon B. Johnson.

Trump won Alaska by 13 points in 2024, well short of the 25-point-plus victories George W. Bush racked up in the 2000s, but a double-digit victory nonetheless.

Alaska Republicans maintain that even if the margins are smaller than they used to be, the state remains reliably conservative at the federal level, in large part because of the incompatibility of the national Democratic Party’s environmental policies and the state’s economic needs.

“Alaska's future is heavily dependent upon our ability to effectively advocate for resource development in our state,” Republican Rep. Nick Begich said in an interview. “And the Democrat Party, for whatever reason, has not been supportive of resource development in Alaska for many years. And they've proven that as a core component of their national platform, they are not willing to support resource development in our state.”

Nick Begich, who also faces a competitive race this year against the Democratic-backed independent candidate Bill Hill, pointed out that Democrats like former senator Mark Begich and Peltola had won statewide general elections in Alaska before (in 2008 and 2022, respectively) only to lose their next election. It’s a sign, he said, that even if voters here are willing to give Democrats a chance, they’re rarely willing to stick with them after they’ve been in office.
Election 2026-Alaska (5184x3456, AR: 1.50)Even the most bullish Democrats say that even if the state is trending their way, it will always retain a distinct political independence. Alaska’s unique characteristics — its oil and fishing industries, native Alaskan population and rugged arctic climate — mean its politics are unlike any other state’s, often less ideologically driven and more focused on demanding basic material support for communities that would suffer without it.

It’s why the state elected an independent governor last decade and why the state legislature for years has had an unusual power-sharing agreement between Democrats and moderate Republicans, designed to exclude extreme voices in either party. It also explains how Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski won a write-in reelection campaign in 2010 after losing her primary to a tea party-backed candidate, drawing support from across the political spectrum.

Still, some Democrats have quietly touted Alaska’s emerging importance for years, especially after Peltola’s 2022 victory in the state’s at-large House seat. De la Fuente, the Third Way official, wrote an analysis in 2023 urging then-President Joe Biden to consider competing in the state during the next presidential election.

The state’s demographic profile — including a low share of white voters, relatively high union participation and low religiosity — aligned with the modern Democratic Party, he wrote at the time, and was a major reason the state had shifted to the left over the previous two decades. In his view, Alaska represented a much better bet for Democrats than states like Florida, Ohio and Iowa, which received considerably more attention as potential battlegrounds.

“I feel like the political data is telling a very strong story here, of this not being a fluke,” de la Fuente told The Sun.
APTOPIX Vance (6000x4000, AR: 1.50)Why Alaska has shifted politically is a subject of debate. The state’s electorate, on the surface, has not changed significantly since 2000, according to Census data.

Some political strategists point to the declining number of oil and gas jobs, which started last decade and intensified after the 2020 pandemic and proliferation of remote work. Others say Alaska’s unusual open primary system, implemented in 2022 in which the top four vote getting candidates move on to the general election, has contributed, helping Democrats nominate more moderate candidates they consider better aligned with the state.

But locally, Democrats point to two main factors: the evolution of politics in Anchorage and the priority local Democrats place on political pragmatism.

Anchorage, at a population of nearly 300,000 people, holds about 40% of the state’s total population. And at a local level, its politics have shifted left.

Mark Begich recounted that as a young Democrat running for a seat on the city assembly here in the 1980s, every level of elected office in the town’s eastern half — from governor down to local legislator — was represented by a conservative or Republican (the city’s assembly seats are nonpartisan). Now, east Anchorage is represented at every level of state government by liberals or Democrats.

Across the city, local politicos say a 12-member assembly that used to be evenly split ideologically is now almost uniformly liberal, save for one or two members.

“Anchorage growing up is part of the story,” said Eric Croft, chair of the state Democratic Party. “Anchorage is getting to be a medium-sized city that, like a lot of them, is getting more and more progressive.”

Anchorage, in other words, is following the same political path of a lot of cities across the country.

“People that are living in Anchorage want good schools for their kids and actually want parks and amenities,” said Jim Lottsfeldt, an independent political strategist. “And there's sort of been a maturation process of what we expect from our government and what we want as far as public facilities.”

To other Democrats, it’s hard to miss how the state’s leftward drift over the past 20 years corresponded with the rise of the tea party movement and, later, Trump — two ideologically driven movements they argue are at odds with the state’s pragmatic bent.

“I think Alaskans, given their druthers, would vote for a nice Chamber of Commerce Republican,” said Joelle Hall, emeritus president of the Alaska AFL-CIO. “A banker. A nice guy. A civically minded, slightly conservative guy. That's their drug of choice.”  

“That's not what's been offered to them lately,” Hall said.

In 2000, with George W. Bush on the ballot, Alaska voted 31.5 percentage points to the right of the country (Bush won Alaska by 31 points while losing the national popular vote by one-half of a point). In 2024, with Trump again leading the GOP ticket, the state voted just 11.5 percentage points to the right of the nation (Trump won Alaska by 13 points while winning the national popular vote by 1.5 points).

Democrats are emphatic that the quality of the individual candidate on the ballot is hugely important in Alaska. It’s why they don’t think that Murkowski, who has done more to separate herself from Trump than perhaps any other Senate Republican, will face a serious challenge from Democrats when she’s up for reelection in 2028.
Capitol Hill (4680x3120, AR: 1.50)It’s also why in-state Democrats are most skeptical about the party’s presidential chances in Alaska anytime soon. The party’s White House nominee usually has a different, more ideological profile than the types of candidates Democrats run in the state. Peltola’s views on energy development, for instance, would likely draw a fierce backlash from national Democrats’ progressive base.

Even progressives in the state say that Democrats run a different kind of campaign in Alaska than elsewhere.

“Those of us who are progressive have embraced bipartisanship,” said Zack Fields, a Democratic state representative who represents part of Anchorage. “And rather than talk about whatever crazy identity politics that has seized the national Democratic Party, we talk about bread-and-butter issues that affect families every single day. We talk about class size, we talk about energy security, we are just relentlessly pro-jobs.”

Fields said that if Democrats nationally embraced the approach he and his colleagues have taken in Alaska, they “would have 85% of the seats in Congress.”

But, he added, the state is often overlooked by the national party. It’s why its shift to the left this century has been largely ignored, even if it could help the party win a Senate majority this November.

“People in the Lower 48 are not aware of it,” Fields said. “If Alaska were the geographic distance to D.C. of West Virginia or another state nearby, there’d be all kinds of stories about it because it’s super interesting.”]]> The ‘Reach’ Seat Conundrum Facing Democrats https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/reach-seats-democrats-2026 Paul Kane History rarely offers chances to flip some seats, but temptation sometimes distracts from core races. Fri, 16 Oct 2026 09:31:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/reach-seats-democrats-2026 Pelosi and Maloney

Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney resisted the lure of “reach” seats in 2022, and won their key contests — except for Maloney’s. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP)

Here we go again.

It’s late in the campaign season and the party out of power feels a big jolt of momentum and starts hyping races that insiders call “reach seats,” the House or Senate races that seem safely in the hands of one party but once a generation seem to open up for the other side.

Last week House Democrats highlighted the opponent of Rep. French Hill (R-Arkansas) as “worthy of additional investment” because the political environment has broken so much against Republicans that the six-term incumbent could be defeated.

Hill, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, was one of a dozen Republicans targeted anew by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, despite his always large stockpile of campaign cash and representing a district that favored Donald Trump by double digits all three times he’s run for president.

Over the last 20 years each party can point to times that investing in “reach” seats paid off. For Democrats the 2006 and 2008 elections gave them historically large majorities that stretched from places like Boise, Idaho, through all of North Dakota and even a majority of Alabama’s House delegation. That paved the way for the passage of the Affordable Care Act and a Wall Street reform bill in 2010.

Big Republican wins in 2010 and 2014 gave them their biggest House majority since the 1920s, opening the doors to the 2017 tax cuts and a durable Senate majority that confirmed three conservative Supreme Court justices.

But recent history is filled with examples of the temptation to go bigger leading to the political equivalent of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

That’s what happened the last time Democrats chased after Hill, back in 2020, when their outside groups poured more than $3.5 million into a failed effort at that seat.

Hill won easily, by almost 11 percentage points, and nationwide Democratic hopes for gaining 10 to 15 seats or more crashed into an unexpected undertow. Republicans gained more than 10 seats on Election Day despite Trump losing the popular election by 7 million votes, a historic anomaly that happened only once before in the previous 14 elections.

“I do think they took their eye off the ball in some places,” Parker Poling, who was the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2020, told The Washington Sun.

Even when Hillary Clinton and Al Gore lost the Electoral College in 2016 and 2000, respectively, their popular vote margins of more than 500,000 and almost 3 million helped House Democrats win a few seats down the ballot.

Instead of a historically large majority in 2021, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had just 222 seats, and every vote became a bit of a cliffhanger.

Two years later Republicans fell victim to their own overly ambitious ways ahead of the 2022 midterms, pouring tens of millions of dollars into districts where wins turned out to be mirages.

Their lone reach seat victory came against Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York), who was chairing the DCCC that cycle. Pelosi told Democrats the day after the election that Republicans spent so heavily to go after Maloney that it helped preserve other Democrats.

“Our chairman took an arrow for us,” she said.
Election 2020 Arkansas House (1572x1048, AR: 1.50)When the dust settled, Republicans gained just nine seats, leaving them at the same exact skinny majority the Democrats had — 222 seats. It set the stage for a dysfunctional House for the next four years.

Senate campaigns also often take fliers on seats that seem well out of reach in normal times, but the payoff can be much higher given the reward is a six-year term that can help sustain a majority not just in the coming election but over the next two.

Without upset wins in Louisiana in 2002 and Montana in 2006, Senate Democrats wouldn’t have had sufficient votes to pass the ACA in 2009 — which has some party operatives dreaming of pulling off upsets in November in such traditionally conservative states like Kansas or Alaska.

Now, House Democrats are feeling confident about their standing in the traditional battleground seats: Of the 21 “toss-up” races, 15 are held by Republicans, according to one independent analysis, while seven more of their seats already “lean Democratic.”

“Democrats must build a durable majority heading into the 120th Congress so that the House can deliver wins,” Julie Merz, executive director of the DCCC, wrote in a fundraising memo last week.

She is trying to raise cash fast for a handful or more of these reach seats. By siloing them into their own financial category, Democrats are hoping to avoid losing focus on their core races the way they did in 2020.

Republicans rejected these Democratic moves as either attempts to trick them into spending money in places that they don’t need to, or just the equivalent of online trolling. The math in these seats, they say, simply doesn’t add up to Democratic wins.

“These seats are staying red, and Republicans are on offense across the map,” Mike Marinella, national press secretary for the NRCC, said.

In a reminder of the 2022 campaign, Democrats listed the seat of Rep. Richard Hudson (R-North Carolina), chair of the NRCC since early 2023, as a possible target.

Hudson won his district by almost 19 percentage points in 2024, as Trump won it by 16 points, about the same as his margin of victory in 2020.

Moreover, Merz’s memo also listed the seat of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) as a potential pickup opportunity, now that the onetime rising conservative star is retiring.

The temptation is there to try to win such a symbolic victory for Democrats after Stefanik’s midcareer transformation into a fire-breathing, MAGA-loving Trump acolyte.

Yet Democrats would be trying to win a seat that Stefanik, first elected in 2014 as a moderate, establishment-friendly Republican, won by almost 25 percentage points in 2024, when Trump carried the district by more than 20 points.

Trying for those seats almost sounds more exotic than Republicans in 2022 reaching for the Orange County, California, seat held by Katie Porter, whose progressivism irked many conservatives. Republican-aligned outside groups shoveled more than $10 million into trying to defeat her.

That’s more than double the $5 million those same Republican groups poured into trying to win a Rhode Island district that Democrats have held since 1991. Joe Biden had just won those seats by 10 points or more, just as he had done in Maloney’s seat.

Those races were close, but Democrats won. Meanwhile, Republicans lost several close races in the Midwest that were on much more friendly terrain, including three in Ohio that broke against them even as Republican Gov. Mike DeWine won reelection at the top of the ticket in a landslide.

Poling, who ran the NRCC in 2020, said she heard Democrats thought they could win a handful or more Republican seats in Texas alone.

“I just don’t see it,” she told The Sun, recalling the message she sent her staff to run their numbers again.

Democrats did not win a single close seat in Texas that year. They lost all 27 seats that The Cook Political Report rated as toss-ups in its final race ratings.

In fact, Republicans came within less than 32,000 votes of winning five other races, which would have won them the majority, a virtually unheard of concept given their candidate lost the presidential election.

Republicans got their trophy seat in 2022 by defeating Maloney, the first time a campaign committee chair had lost reelection in 30 years. His district, partially in the New York City media market, received an endless amount of ads, backed by more than $10 million from outside conservative groups trying to boost now-Rep. Mike Lawler’s upstart campaign.

In the end, Lawler won by less than 1 percentage point, less than 2,000 votes, and Maloney had the odd pleasure of being hailed for his stewardship of the DCCC and mitigating their losses but losing his own seat.

The next day he said the key to their national strategy was sticking to the plan.

“We resisted the temptation to chase shiny objects, and we were disciplined and focused, and we did the work. And I'm a big believer in doing the fundamentals,” Maloney told reporters.
]]> Pelosi’s Potential Successor Is Pushing the Limits of Super PAC Coordination https://www.washingtonsun.com/influence/scott-wiener-super-pac-california-congress-election Mark Alfred Spending records raise questions about Democrat Scott Wiener’s open coordination with Families for an Affordable San Francisco. Thu, 15 Oct 2026 09:34:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/influence/scott-wiener-super-pac-california-congress-election

State Sen. Scott Wiener has forged a close relationship with a supportive super PAC during his run for Congress in the California district Rep. Nancy Pelosi is vacating. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

In the race to replace Nancy Pelosi, the congressional campaign of California state Sen. Scott Wiener has forged an unusual arrangement with a federal super PAC: They are directly coordinated with one another.

The Wiener campaign and its coordinated super PAC, Families for an Affordable San Francisco, are pushing their relationship to legal extremes — sharing staff, a fundraising consultant, a pollster and a headquarters, according to a Washington Sun review of spending documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The super PAC has also spent money in coordination with the campaign on items seemingly unrelated to canvassing — a legally permissible activity usually involving on-the-ground voter outreach — including payments for a DJ at Wiener’s birthday party earlier this year.

A 2024 Federal Election Commission advisory opinion opened the door to super PAC-campaign coordination when it comes to paid canvassing activities, but federal election law typically does not permit campaign committees and super PACs to coordinate efforts beyond that.

Families for an Affordable San Francisco emerged on Oct. 20, two days before Wiener officially entered the primary for California’s 11th District. The super PAC, which may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, describes itself as a “coordinated campaign supporting Scott Wiener’s congressional campaign.”

Wiener placed first in the June primary and is facing Connie Chan, a fellow Democrat who sits on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in November’s election.

Pelosi, who has served in the House since 1987, endorsed Chan over Wiener.

The super PAC’s treasurer is Todd David, whose work with Wiener goes back over a decade. David was Wiener’s political director in the 2016 state senate race.
Scott.Wiener.1 (1830x1191, AR: 1.54)Wiener’s campaign committee pays David for “campaign consulting” while the super PAC pays him for “canvassing consulting.” David’s son Noah is listed as a member of the “campaign team” on the super PAC’s website and receives paychecks from the campaign while using an email address connected to the super PAC.

“We fully comply with Campaign Finance Law,” Families for an Affordable San Francisco spokesperson Sam Singer said in a statement to The Sun. “Any services provided to the Congressional Campaign that go beyond the scope of a Coordinated Canvass are paid for by the Congressional Campaign, an arrangement that fully complies with Campaign Finance Law.”

The Wiener campaign did not respond to a detailed list of questions about its relationship with the super PAC.

In a statement, the Wiener campaign said that while the candidate “supports overturning Citizens United and will fight to do so when he gets to Congress,” he would not put his campaign at a disadvantage in the race against Chan.

“At the end of the day, when the voters look at Scott’s record, they will see a fighter who has beaten powerful corporate interests over and over again to deliver some of San Francisco and California’s most impactful law,” Wiener campaign spokesperson Joe Arellano said in a statement.

The Chan campaign is demanding that Wiener release records related to his campaign’s coordinated activities.
Connie.Chan.California (3000x2001, AR: 1.50)“Scott Wiener found a loophole and drove an entire second campaign through it,” Chan campaign spokesperson Ian Krager said. “Wiener and his super PAC must immediately end any coordination beyond the narrow canvassing exception and publicly release every contract, time sheet and data-sharing record. Until then, he does not have an independent super PAC supporting him. He has a campaign without contribution limits.”

It is often difficult to determine where one Wiener committee begins and the other ends. The super PAC pays for the “Team Wiener” website, which lists 20 staffers under a banner reading “our campaign team.” At least five people are paid by both the campaign committee and the super PAC at the same time. Super PAC-funded emails promote the campaign committee’s merch store, which generates money for Wiener’s campaign.

The super PAC has raised nearly $900,000 through June 30, largely from unions and individuals giving large sums of cash that are too big for Wiener’s own campaign committee to legally accept. The super PAC is only allowed to accept unlimited donations so long as it adheres to campaign finance regulations. It maintains that all its spending and coordination are permissible under the FEC’s 2024 opinion.

The Memo

Since super PACs may raise unlimited amounts of money, federal election law generally does not allow them to coordinate with a congressional candidate in the way that Families for an Affordable San Francisco and Scott Wiener for Congress are.

Campaigns sometimes skirt this rule by employing an indirect method of communication known as “redboxing,” where a campaign publicly posts details about what it wants voters to hear or see, sometimes within an actual red box buried in a corner of its campaign website. Another political group, such as a super PAC, may then take that information and adjust their own messaging to voters accordingly — without violating federal coordination prohibitions.

Wiener’s campaign takes that approach, sharing a 2,085-word missive on its website that details what would-be voters need to “see” and “hear.” Families for an Affordable San Francisco’s website also hosts a welcome video of Wiener himself and shares the campaign’s Mobilize feed live. The Mobilize site hosts invites for over 100 events, each bearing the disclaimer “Paid for by Scott Wiener for Congress.” Some of the events are led by staffers on the super PAC’s payroll.

Families for an Affordable San Francisco shared a memo prepared by Andrew Werbrock, a campaign finance lawyer and a founding partner at law firm Olson Remcho, that details its interpretation of the 2024 FEC opinion: “[T]he FEC has found that certain types of communications do not qualify as ‘public communications’ and, therefore, do not result in coordinated communications, even if they are coordinated with a candidate.”

“Under that analysis, a PAC can conduct a canvass in coordination with a candidate without making a contribution, subject to” certain parameters, the memo said. Canvassing typically consists of paid canvassers or volunteers going door-to-door or working the phones, it said.

One of the parameters is that the super PAC “may not reproduce or redistribute the candidate's own materials. Such activity would qualify as an in-kind contribution to the candidate, subject to the federal contribution limits and source restrictions.”

Olson Remcho has been on both the campaign and super PAC’s payrolls; both paid the firm on April 16 for “legal services,” 10 days after the memo was prepared. It’s one of a number of shared vendors that include a fundraising consultant, Bedford Grove, and another consultant, KMM Strategies.

Federal campaign finance regulators are broadly viewed as toothless, and the restrictions on what campaigns can and cannot get away with have only loosened in recent years. Because of a lack of action by President Donald Trump, and more recently, the U.S. Senate, the FEC has not had enough commissioners to issue penalties, pursue audits or approve civil investigations since May 2025.

“The law on coordination is, you know, almost a joke at this point because of a series of rulings by the FEC and failures to pursue investigations,” said Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat who served as an FEC commissioner from 2002 to 2025, including four stints as chairperson.

“I wouldn't recommend it, but the FEC has not done a particularly effective job of policing this kind of thing,” Weintraub said of campaign-PAC coordination. “I cannot recall seeing very many instances of the super PAC and the candidate actually sharing space; it's not a good look for sure.”

Wiener's Birthday Bash

The pro-Wiener super PAC broadly characterizes its coordinated activities with Wiener’s campaign as “canvassing” even when there is little to no evidence of such.

Take, for instance, “Scott's B-Day Bash & Office Grand Opening.”

The May 15 opening of the Wiener campaign’s headquarters at 2055 Market St. in San Francisco coincided with the week of Wiener’s birthday, and the campaign promised a DJ “to keep the vibes going” and drag performances “to christen the space.” It delivered on both, per photos and videos of the event posted to social media.

In party invitations and jointly posted Instagram updates, neither the super PAC nor Wiener’s campaign mentioned canvassing as part of the party. But when it came time to pay the DJ, the party was described as a canvassing event by the super PAC.

The DJ, Chloe Young, is also a salaried employee of the super PAC. The super PAC paid Young $825 for “DJ services for canvassing office event.” The campaign later paid the super PAC $275 for “campaign event entertainment” — exactly a third of the cost of the DJ.

This 2:1 split is consistent among other expenses jointly incurred by the Wiener campaign and super PAC.

The campaign reimbursed David $255 for “Campaign event security,” while the super PAC reimbursed David $510 for security for a “canvassing event” on the day of the birthday party.

On the June 2 primary, the super PAC spent $1,338.52 at Costco for “food and beverage for canvassing.” The campaign later paid it back $446.17 for “office supplies” — a 2:1 split down to the penny. Rent for a campaign headquarters is also split 2:1.

Conflicting payment descriptions are also present among staffers supporting Wiener.

The super PAC paid Rebecca Kee $3,000 for “canvassing consulting,” but her profile on the Team Wiener site until recently listed her role as “Events, endorsements, and rapid response across the campaign,” according to federal records. Wiener’s campaign paid her $5,250 in “campaign consulting” over the same weeks, and the PAC paid her another $750 for “project management consulting.”

A key parameter of Olson Remcho’s memo is that “The PAC must either recruit, employ, train, and direct the canvassers itself, or retain a vendor to do so.”

Jose Luis Gandara, a super PAC employee and the campaign’s “Policy Lead & LGBTQ Outreach Manager,” has led several GOTV canvasses, according to invites reviewed by The Sun that were labeled “Paid for by Scott Wiener for Congress.”

If super PAC staff were being paid to service campaign events, and the campaign did not reimburse the super PAC at fair market value, then the super PAC would be making an illegal in-kind contribution, per federal regulations.

Families for an Affordable San Francisco has raised nearly $900,000 in support of Wiener’s candidacy through June 30, per FEC records. Most of that money came from two union super PACs, which each gave $250,000 and individuals, including Andrew Chatham, the vice president of engineering at Waymo.

On June 29, the super PAC paid EMC Research $49,600 for "canvassing polling data." In September, the campaign updated a July filing to include a $24,800 debt — half the cost of the poll. No filings show that debt as being paid per the most recent reports; the campaign has reimbursed the super PAC nearly $10,000 to date.

Paying another committee’s bills can effectively be a loan, which would count as an impermissible contribution. Wiener himself has said he opposes the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC that opened the door to super PACs and their raising unlimited amounts of money. He has also dinged Chan for accepting super PAC support from a former rival.

Saikat Chakrabarti, a self-funded multimillionaire who placed third in the primary, has urged his supporters to vote for Chan, a fellow progressive, over Wiener, who is viewed as more moderate.

A few super PACs are supporting Chan. They are contributing six figures each to bolster her run, including SF Solidarity PAC, which is funded by Chakrabarti, who also serves as its treasurer.]]>