Even in the heat of DSA Summer, Democratic centrists are feeling cool.
Ahead of several primaries in Michigan, Missouri and Washington state that will help define the direction of the party, the Blue Dog Coalition is throwing its weight behind working-class champions — and in some cases, crossing over with the party’s progressive wing.
“Most voters in America are working class, and most voters in America are not socialists,” said Phil Gardner, senior adviser at Blue Dog Action. “So we think there should be a part of the Democratic Party that is advocating for the working class without socialism.”
The Blue Dogs’ leadership PAC will endorse six additional candidates next week, bringing their total endorsee list to 12 — and in some cases overlapping with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) endorsements as they seek to find Democrats with cross-faction appeal in districts President Donald Trump won in 2024.
The list, reported first by POLITICO, includes Zach Dembo in Kentucky’s 6th District; Sam Forstag in Montana’s 1st; Blake Gendebien in New York’s 21st; Leela Gray in Florida’s 13th; Jo Mendoza in Arizona’s 6th; and Brian Poindexter in Ohio’s 7th.
Forstag, a union leader and smokejumper, and Poindexter, a union ironworker, have leaned on their working class bona fides to garner support from both progressives like Sanders and centrists like the Blue Dogs.
Two other Blue Dog-backed candidates — Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania’s 7th District and Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s 3rd District — also have Sanders’ support.
“It does not need to be a zero-sum game,” said Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) in an interview Tuesday evening. “The point here is about loyalty to place. It’s not about a flight to the left. … When we show up as normal people living in the same water as everybody else in our districts, in our communities, we win.”
Gluesenkamp Perez is locked in her own tense battle for reelection. If she fends off a progressive challenger to finish in the top two of her nonpartisan primary Tuesday night, she will punctuate a cycle in which all Blue Dog incumbents have survived their primaries.
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