House Democrats are turning to a group of late-added candidates in increasingly Republican territory, despite a record showing that such efforts rarely result in victories.
Since 2018, no Republican-held seat added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” programme in September or October before election day has been won by a Democrat, according to an analysis of the committee’s results.
Of the 28 candidates added during the final two months of campaigns between 2018 and 2024, only three won. All three were running in Democratic-held open seats.
That compares with 73 victories among 203 candidates added to the programme during the four preceding election cycles.
Late House Democratic candidates face uphill battle
The DCCC generally adds more ambitious targets later in the campaign, after prioritising races it believes offer the strongest opportunities. The move can also help create a sense of momentum and encourage donors to provide additional funding.
Since the beginning of September, the committee has added nine Democrats to its Red to Blue list: independent Bill Hill in Alaska’s at-large district; Will Lawrence in Michigan’s seventh district; Mitchell Berman in Wisconsin’s first; Chris Jones in Arkansas’s second; Dwayne Romero in Colorado’s third; Eliott Rodriguez in Florida’s 27th; Teresa Benitez-Thompson in Nevada’s second; Blake Gendebien in New York’s 21st; and Justin Pearson in Tennessee’s ninth.
The DCCC also added six deep-red targets in early October.
Former DCCC staffer Cole Leiter, who worked for the committee during the 2018 and 2020 cycles, said it recruited and monitored candidates in difficult districts early in the campaign in the hope that political conditions would shift.
“That is an investment in the unpredictability of the map,” Mr Leiter said. “Most of these seats probably won’t flip, but one or two might.”
The late designations can give candidates access to last-minute funding while helping the party present itself as being on the offensive. They are also used in fundraising appeals, including a recent message from DCCC executive director Julie Merz warning that the committee “could be leaving winnable races on the table” without more money.
Meredith Kelly, another former DCCC staffer, said the designation could still be valuable even where the chances of victory were limited.
“Even if there’s ultimately not a massive success rate in those final editions, it is not a bad thing to make sure that those campaigns have any last-minute dollars that the designation can bring,” she said. “Just make sure that they have a surfboard in the water and have an ability to potentially take advantage of a really, really good night.”
Most of the newly added Democrats are financially behind their Republican opponents. Of the nine candidates added in the past two months, only Ms Benitez-Thompson, who is challenging Republican David Flippo, has reported more cash on hand than her opponent. Five face fundraising deficits of more than $1 million, based on Federal Election Commission filings.
The poor record of late additions is partly self-selecting: candidates added towards the end of a campaign are often in seats Democrats did not initially believe could be won.
Whitney Fox, who lost to Republican representative Anna Paulina Luna in Florida’s 13th district in 2024, said the delay in placing her on the Red to Blue list harmed her campaign. She was added in late September, shortly before Hurricane Milton devastated the Tampa area, making it difficult to raise money from the designation.
“I felt like it was too little, too late,” Ms Fox said.
Leela Gray, the Democrat challenging Ms Luna this cycle, was added to the programme in late August. Ms Fox said she had advised her on how to secure an earlier designation.
Even in favourable political conditions, reaching deep into Republican territory has proved difficult, while the House battlefield has narrowed considerably since 2018 because of gerrymandering.
The DCCC nevertheless believes the current cycle could break with recent history. National polling cited by the committee has shown Democrats with a double-digit lead in the generic ballot.
“Records are meant to be broken,” DCCC spokesman Viet Shelton said. “We’re on track to break them this year because across the battlefield, we’ve got amazing recruits and the enthusiasm to fire House Republicans for making life unaffordable is off the charts.”
