As the Iran war grinds past the six-month mark, House Democrats are betting that candidates with military credentials will help them win back the majority — adding three veterans, including a former Navy admiral fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to their list of top recruits Thursday.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced five additions to its “Red to Blue” program on Thursday, giving candidates access to strategic guidance, staff resources, and more robust fundraising help. Details of the additions were shared first with MS NOW.
The veterans are Leela Gray, a retired Army brigadier general who is challenging Rep. Anna Paulina Luna in Florida; Zach Dembo, a former Navy JAG officer running in Kentucky; and Nancy Lacore, a former Navy admiral looking to flip a seat in South Carolina.
They are joined by Matt Dunlap, Maine’s state auditor, who is seeking to keep the state’s 2nd district — which President Donald Trump won by 10 points in 2024 — in Democratic hands, and Tom Perriello, who is running to flip Virginia’s 5th district. Perriello is a former member of Congress who lost re-election in 2010 after voting to pass the Affordable Care Act.
The five additions bring the total number of “Red to Blue” candidates for this cycle to 37.
Democrats have leaned on veteran recruits before, most notably in the 2018 wave that delivered the party a House majority. What is different this cycle is the Iran war itself: The conflict, now in its seventh month, has handed these candidates a live grievance they have the credibility to address.
Several have already made the case, leaning on their military experience to attack Trump and Republicans for the war’s execution. Gray and Lacore have drawn on MS NOW’s reporting about the deteriorating conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier entering its fifth consecutive month of combat operations against Iran, to lay into the administration.
Lacore said the carrier’s sailors are “paying the price for a war Pete Hegseth helped lead us into without a clear end state.” Hegseth fired Lacore as an admiral in 2025.
Gray, in an appearance on MS NOW on Wednesday, called the reports about the Lincoln “quite disturbing.”
“What makes me really concerned is that we went into this reckless war of choice without clear strategic objectives,” Gray said. “If I were a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I would demand answers on our operational readiness.”
Cook Political Report ranks all five of the recruits’ seats as either “likely” or “solid” Republican.
The additions suggest a bullish Democratic outlook heading into the general election, but also underscore the limits of the current congressional maps, where gerrymandering has left few traditional competitive battlegrounds intact.
In a statement, DCCC Chairwoman Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., called the five new candidates “proven fighters who are running strong campaigns, talking to every voter, and building coalitions across the ideological spectrum to power their victories in November.”
Financially, the candidates enter the general election on very different financial footing. Lacore has proved a prolific fundraiser, taking in more than $2 million through the end of June, according to federal campaign filings. She ended June with more than $400,000 cash on hand, compared to the $79,000 her Republican rival had available. Dunlap, fresh off a competitive primary, ended June with $229,000 on hand — far less than the $1.7 million banked by Republican Paul LePage.
House Republicans currently hold a razor-thin majority. Democrats need to net approximately three districts to flip control of the chamber.
The post House Democrats add five more candidates to ‘Red to Blue’ list appeared first on MS NOW.
