The Democratic Party is pushing for more conservative voices — with mixed success

Early in May, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced a slate of endorsements for candidates like Marlene Galán-Woods, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Arizona’s First Congressional District, which the party is betting has the best shot to unseat Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz.

The catch, however, was that Galán-Woods was a Republican up until 2018 and a supporter of the failed political projects of politicians like former Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. The explanation for the PAC’s involvement in the primaries was that this was a cold-blooded, calculated move aimed at giving Democrats the best possible chance of winning in November. Election results demonstrate a more complicated narrative.

The suite of endorsements was part of the DCCC’s “2026 Red to Blue” program, which has seen the organization take a more active role in the Democratic Party’s primary. While the DCCC has had a longstanding policy of supporting incumbents, including during primaries, these endorsements are rolling out in races where Democrats are vying to face off against a Republican incumbent, and they are demonstrating the party’s preference for a certain sort of more conservative Democrat.

While Galán-Woods may be the only prominent former Republican the DCCC has put its weight behind, she isn’t the only candidate running to the right of their opponents in primaries that the party has backed. For example, the DCCC endorsed Bob Harvie, vice chair of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners, in the open primary in Pennsylvania’s First District. Similarly, the DCCC endorsed state Sen. Joe Baldacci in the open primary in Maine’s Second District, who is running to the right of former state auditor Matt Dunlap and Jordan Wood, the former executive director of democracyFIRST, a bipartisan pro-democracy political organization.

The most high-profile example of this, however, came in California’s 22nd District, where the DCCC endorsed state legislator Jasmeet Baines, one of the state’s most conservative and business-aligned Democrats, in the jungle primary there, which is a type of primary were candidates from all parties compete and the top two vote getters move on to the general election. The endorsement came despite Baines underperforming her main opponent, Visalia school board trustee Randy Villegas, in fundraising.

The DCCC has not only endorsed moderates or more conservative Democrats in the primaries. The DCCC endorsed Democratic candidates Bob Brookes and Rebecca Cooke in their races and both are endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

As it stands, the DCCC’s 2026 endorsements are looking to have a more mixed track record in terms of primary success when compared to previous cycles. Harvie won handily in his primary, but Baines, in the California primary on Tuesday, was trailing her progressive opponent, Randy Villegas, at the time of writing, though the race was too close to call. Polling ahead of Maine’s June 9 primary indicated that the race is too close to call. In Arizona’s First, the single poll that was conducted back in February suggested that Galán-Woods started from behind her opponent, Amish Shah, though one survey from months ago is not likely predictive of the July 21 primary.

Compared to the DCCC’s 2018 Red to Blue primary endorsements, the current results are a sign that the endorsement from the DCCC may be less of a near-sure ticket to the general election than in the past. In 2018, the DCCC endorsed 30 non-incumbent primary challengers, and 28 of them won.

While centrist groups in the Democratic Party celebrated the DCCC’s ability to pick primary winners in 2018, these endorsee’s also saw more mixed success in the general election. Of the 88 candidates endorsed by the DCCC as part of the Red to Blue program ahead of the general election, including those endorsees that advanced from their primaries, just 43% won, about a 48% success rate. Of the 30 candidates who received DCCC endorsements in their primary race, 18 won.

Critics in the progressive wing of the party say that endorsements demonstrate a preference within the party’s apparatus for candidates who are more conservative than both the progressive wing of the party and the mainstream of the party.

For example, during her time as a Republican, Galán-Woods donated both to McCain’s 2016 campaign to the tune of $1,000 and in 2009 to the gubernatorial campaign of former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, for $140. Her husband became the co-chair of Brewer’s campaign in 2010.

During her term, Brewer would sign SB 1070, a state-level immigration enforcement bill, notorious for its section nicknamed the “show me your papers” provision, which empowered police to arrest people they suspect of being undocumented immigrants. Critics of the law said that, aside from eschewing the presumption of innocence fundamental to U.S. law, skin color and race often became the determining factors in asking someone to prove their citizenship, despite vague provisions in the law prohibiting racial profiling.

Former Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, adopted SB 1070 as a model for his immigration platform in his 2012 presidential campaign, as part of what one Romney advisor called an “attrition through enforcement” strategy. The aim of this tactic was to make the lives of immigrants miserable enough that they would give up on their immigration proceedings and leave the country. Notably, Galán-Woods supported Romney in his 2012 bid (as well as McCain in 2008), though she said in an interview with The Arizona Republic that she now regrets supporting Romney. This is despite her insistence that her values haven’t changed in the intervening years.

“I have always been pro-choice, pro-democracy, pro-climate. My values have never changed. What changed was the Republican Party,” Galán-Woods said at a recent debate.

A person familiar with how the DCCC makes determinations on who to endorse also cited Galán-Woods’ endorsements, which include Democratic aligned organizations like EMILY’s List and the Latino Victory Fund, and the campaign having raised some $1.6 million this cycle.

“This designation signifies that we believe this candidate — and this campaign — are the one best positioned to flip the Republican-held district, thereby helping us win back the Majority so that we can get back to fighting for working people,” the person familiar with the DCCC’s deliberations told Salon. “When we do engage in a primary, it is only after a full assessment of the race, including local, state and national endorsements, momentum on the ground, fundraising and polling. We work closely with local stakeholders, community leaders, and activists to ensure the candidates have built as broad a coalition as possible.”

The Galán-Woods campaign has also highlighted controversial votes Shah took in the state legislature, and that she may not be the only former Republican in the Democratic primary in Arizona’s First District. The Arizona Agenda has reported that Shah may have voted for Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, citing Democratic sources who claimed Shah may have voted in that primary in a move called “crossover voting,” which describes voters in one party voting for the candidate they believe is weaker in the other party’s primary.

Shah has called this claim “absolute misinformation” and said that ” I voted for Hillary Clinton, I voted for Joe Biden, I voted for Kamala Harris,” on journalist Brahm Resnik’s 12News show. Shah’s campaign did not immediately respond to Salon’s request for comment.

In response to a request for comment from Salon, Galán-Woods’ campaign manager, Jonathan Miller, said that “no candidate in this race has built the local support Marlene Galán-Woods has.”

“Twelve labor unions representing Arizona’s grocery workers, teachers, and first responders, statewide officeholders from the Attorney General to the Secretary of State, dozens of local elected officials, and over 1,700 in-district donors have all united behind Marlene because they know she is the strongest Democrat to defeat whoever emerges from the MAGA Republican primary and deliver for working families,” Miller said.

The DCCC’s endorsements have also proven to serve as a signal early in a politician’s career in national politics that the party might later consider them to run for higher office or for a leadership position.

For example, Govs. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., both received the DCCC’s endorsement in 2018, as did Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., the party’s nominee for Senate in New Hampshire this year. Many of the DCCC’s picks have also flopped in races for higher office, like former Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., who lost both a Senate and gubernatorial bid in California, as well as former Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who lost one of the most expensive Senate campaigns ever in Texas in 2024, and former Rep. Debbie Murcasel-Powell, who lost a bid for Senate in Florida in 2024.

It’s not just in House races where the party is putting its thumb on the scales either. On the Senate side of things, leadership-backed candidates like state Rep. Josh Turek, D-Iowa, have received support from establishment-aligned groups and eventually won the primary. While Turek is not a conservative in the same way Galán-Woods was, he was running as the perceived moderate against a progressive opponent, state Sen. Zach Wahls.

In other high-profile races, establishment-backed Senate recruits running in the rightmost lane in their primaries have struggled to succeed, as in Maine, where Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign due to oysterman Graham Platner’s popularity there and in Michigan, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, is surging past his more moderate opponents.

These endorsements express more than just the party’s preference — they also act as a signal for other establishment-aligned groups to drop money in the race, at least according to Ravi Mangla, the national press secretary for the Working Families Party, which backs Villegas in California.

“The DCCC endorsement can unlock outside spending for one candidate and chill it for another,” Mangla told Salon.

For example, in California’s 22nd district, pro-Israel groups like the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent some $500,000 against Villegas, and the Blue Dog Action PAC and the group New Democrat Majority also launched ads against Villegas. Similarly, in Iowa, VoteVets spent $4.5 million to support Turek in the primary there.

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The promotion of more conservative politicians within and by Democratic leadership has proven to be a hot-button issue, especially since Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign prominently featured former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in their campaign messaging in 2024. While the Cheney appearances were considered politically savvy by many political insiders, others questioned whether associating with the Cheneys was a winning move for a Democratic candidate.

Crobin Trent, a Democratic strategist and the executive director of A Fight Worth Having, a group that supports progressive Democrats, told Salon that in his view, “The leadership of this party is far more comfortable with a moderate Republican than with a Democrat who wants to change the system. They think America would be in great shape if it weren’t for Trump. They’ve got this misguided idea that their problem is messaging, not personnel. It isn’t how Democrats brand themselves. It’s what they’re willing to do to turn this country around.”

Trent compared the current maneuvering from the DCCC to former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s recruitment strategy in 2007 and to the role superdelegates played in the 2016 presidential primary, saying, “Over and over they choose moderate Republicans and corporate Democrats, even after losing again and again.”

“They intervene to elect people whose ideas don’t match their own base and keep down the ideas voters actually want,” Trent said. “This endorsement is exactly that, a former Republican in a primary, centrist Blue Dogs over the progressives and populists who represent the base. It’s the same leadership that drove us off a cliff, lost more than a thousand seats during the Obama years, and handed Trump and MAGA the House, the Senate, and the White House more than once. They couldn’t have been more wrong, and they keep doubling down. There’s no sign they can change, so what’s left is to replace them.”