The Democrats Who Can Win Red America

Tim Miller’s candidates to watch (and maybe even donate to).

Jun 12, 2026

Hey guys—Tim here, grabbing the mic from JVL for today’s Triad. I wanted to put together something today in reply to one of the questions I get asked most often: Who are the candidates most worth supporting in this year’s midterms—the ones best positioned to chip away at MAGA dominance in red or purple states? No caginess here: I name names, and explain what to keep an eye on. Let me know what you think in the comments.

(Photo illustration by *The Bulwark* / Photos via candidates’ campaigns)

1. On Campaign Donations

I’m going to be blunt with you right from the start: Donating to political campaigns is a fool’s errand.

Most of the contributions are merely a cash transfer from your wallet to the bank that owns the mortgage on a political consultant’s beach house, with a few intermediary steps. Campaigns don’t put out PNL statements that tell you which department is delivering profits (votes). They often throw good money after bad because there’s no sense keeping money in the bank even if the campaign is doomed. And they waste gobs of your cash on pointless endeavors to keep their interest group allies happy (and quiet).

And a lot of the tools that are used to measure the effectiveness of campaign messaging are only slightly more sophisticated than a deck of tarot cards. I’d estimate that nine in ten elections are determined by the national political environment, economic trends, and the demographic makeup of the district—not by anything the campaigns themselves do.

There’s so much waste in political campaigns that at times it hurts my soul.

Think of all the good that could have been done with, for example, the more than half a BILLION that went into the losing presidential campaigns of Meatball Ron DeSanctimonious in 2024 and Tom Steyer in 2020. We could fund a year of the entire federal nutrition program for poor women, infants, and children (WIC) with the amount of money that losing political campaigns light on fire in a given presidential cycle.

In midterm elections, the story is similar. For the most competitive Senate and House campaigns, the law of diminishing marginal returns for advertising kicks in quicker than any consultant would want to admit. And now that the number of House swing seats has dwindled thanks to partisan gerrymandering, the unlucky residents of those districts will be treated all fall to punishing repetitions of the same six advertisements about the many evils of their aspiring representatives.

So when people ask me which candidates they should support with their limited resources, my natural instinct is to tell them to treat themselves to a spa day or send it to the local food bank instead. But that answer is understandably unsatisfying.

The stakes of this year’s midterm elections are high. Pro-democracy Bulwarkers want to do everything in their power to contribute to MAGA’s defeat, even if it’s on the margins and some of that effort is wasted. I get it.

So I began to take the question seriously: Where could people’s time and resources be best used in the coming months?

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2. The Criteria

My answer is premised on the notion that I believe this could be a massive wave year for the Democrats, thanks in large part to Trump’s many self-owns over the past six months. In a wave year, surprising things happen. Back in 2018, the Democrats won House seats in places like Oklahoma City and Charleston. In 2006, I was working for Republican Jeff Lamberti’s “competitive race” in Des Moines, and we lost—like every single other Republican challenging a Democratic incumbent that year. Meanwhile, down the road in southeast Iowa, Jim Leach, a thirty-year (!!) incumbent Republican, got upset by Dave Loebsack, a random professor whose campaign was so nonexistent that he had to be nominated by a special convention because he failed to get the required number of signatures to be on the primary ballot. Loebsack stayed in the seat for the next fourteen years before retiring in 2021.

I want to help you find that professor. Someone who doesn’t have all the resources that they need from the national party committees. Or, in a handful of cases, a candidate who will be well funded but will need every penny to help the Democrats succeed in parts of the country where they have been struggling in the Trump era.

As for the Senate, Democrats need to win multiple seats in states Trump won by double digits. The races in North Carolina, Maine, Texas, and Ohio will get all the attention and money. But there are some others on my radar where the Democrats might have a chance to expand the map.

The rule of thumb I set for identifying these races were as follows:

They had to be at least R+5 in Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voter Index (PVI)—a calculation of the 2020 and 2024 presidential candidates’ performance in a given state or district compared to the national average—and be places where Democrats have generally struggled to win in the recent past.
The Democratic candidate had to be legit and either a) they’re endorsed by someone I trust, or b) they just caught Ansley’s and my attention because we like the cut of their jib.
Bonus points if the Republican is particularly disgusting.

That’s it.

What follows is the first batch of candidates we are monitoring.1 This does not include candidates in any states where the primary is still ongoing (with a few exceptions that I explain below). If you have a primary candidate you are really jazzed about, good on ya. But putting money into a Dem-on-Dem fight doesn’t really do anything in service of our liberal democracy—unless one of the options is that Nazi lady in Texas and luckily she was already defeated. Also, this list is not a ranking—though I do love to rank things—but for once I’m going to try to embrace the egalitarian spirit of the left.

3. The List

Chris Jones (AR-02)

Cook rating: Solid R (R+8)
2024 Result: French Hill (R): 58.9%, Marcus Jones (D): 41.1%
Jones is a minister and literal rocket scientist (!) who has just enough political experience to be a legit candidate without the stink of “regular politician.” (He ran for governor against Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2022.)
The Republican nominee is incumbent Rep. French Hill, who has, at times, masqueraded as a Responsible Republican (for example, he voted to certify the 2020 election results and voted to create the January 6th Committee) but without ever meaningfully pushing back on Trump’s agenda.
Tim’s Rationale: Arkansas’s 2nd Congressional District is the state’s best hope for a blue pickup. This district, which includes Little Rock and Conway, has the best mix of normie, educated suburban whites and Democratic-leaning black voters in the state. It’s still Arkansas, of course, but in a wave year and a terrible environment for Republicans, I like Jones’s chances at least better than the Hogs’ odds of winning an SEC championship.

Jonathan Nez (AZ-02)

Cook rating: Likely R (R+7)
2024 Result: Eli Crane (R): 54.5%, Jonathan Nez (D): 45.5%
Nez is the former president of the Navajo Nation and led the community through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nez faces a rematch with Republican Rep. Eli Crane, who, per the New York Times, “emerged as the chief right-wing voice pushing conspiracy theories about the Trump assassination attempts.” Crane also referred to black Americans as “colored people” on the House floor. And when Crane introduced articles of impeachment against a judge who ruled against DOGE last year, Elon Musk maxed out his contributions to Crane.
Tim’s Rationale: Eli Crane is a complete loon, and Nez is a candidate tailor-made for his swing-state district, which contains the Navajo Nation.

Bale Dalton (FL-07)

Cook rating: Likely R (R+5)
2024 Result: Cory Mills (R): 56.5%, Jennifer Adams (D): 43.5%
Dalton is a former Navy helicopter pilot and public servant who most recently served as the chief of staff at NASA.
The Republican nominee is scandal-plagued Rep. Cory Mills.
Tim’s Rationale: Technically the Florida primary isn’t till August, but Dalton is the endorsed candidate of the DCCC and I’ve had the privilege of getting to know him over the years. Dalton is exactly the type of public servant we want in Washington: judicious, pragmatic, and committed to fighting for what is right. His opponent is a clown and fuckstick who has espoused conspiracy theories about the Trump assassination attempts, lied about his military career and finances, allegedly drunkenly “sucker punched” someone before running away while on a congressional delegation trip to Ireland, and allegedly physically abused one girlfriend and threatened another who had broken up with him after learning about the existence of the former. Even Nancy Mace called Mills a “disgrace.” (Pot, kettle, etc.) You can see my convo with Dalton here.

Sam Forstag (MT-01)

Cook rating: Likely R (R+5)
2024 Result: Ryan Zinke (R): 52.3%, Monica Tranel (D): 44.6%
Forstag is a union leader and smokejumper.
An eleventh-hour retirement announcement from Rep. Ryan Zinke cleared the field for his former staffer, Aaron Flint, who is now officially the Republican nominee.
Tim’s Rationale: Forstag is an extremely handsome smokejumper. I don’t know what smokejumping is to be honest, but after seeing some photos I am now interested. [Editor’s note: Smokejumpers are specially trained parachutist firefighters.] He was inspired to run by DOGE cuts that cost 360 Montana Forest Service employees their jobs—85 percent of the people doing this important work were making less than $20 an hour. In the primary, he modeled a path forward that I have been advocating for, uniting the “fighting mods” at the Bench and the populist-left AOC-types by focusing on areas of alignment against the MAGA right rather than obsessing over factional infighting. Montana is slowly purpling and Forstag would be a strong next-generation representative for the state. Also did I mention how handsome he is.

Cyril Jefferson (NC-06)

Cook rating: Solid R (R+9)
2024 Result: Addison McDowell (R): 69.2%, Kevin Hayes (Constitution Party): 30.8% (No Democratic candidate)
Jefferson is the mayor of High Point, North Carolina who has a strong record of results to run on and a willingness to meet voters where they are on the issues, including by prioritizing border security and public safety.
The Republican nominee is Rep. Addison McDowell, a former lobbyist and staffer of Sen. Ted Budd.
Tim’s Rationale: If there’s going to be a wave that sweeps in surprising Democrats, North Carolina seems as good a place as any. Roy Cooper is running maybe the best Senate race of the cycle, and Gov. Josh Stein won this district narrowly in 2024. Also, this district was remapped as part of North Carolina’s brutal gerrymander, so maybe karma can kick in for once.

Jamie Ager (NC-11)

Cook rating: Likely R (R+5)
2024 Results: Chuck Edwards (R): 56.8%, Caleb Rudow (D): 43.2%
Ager is a farmer and entrepreneur, who seems like the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer—or some very hot wings—with.
Republican nominee Rep. Chuck Edwards, on the other hand, not so much.
Tim’s Rationale: I got to meet Ager a few months ago and this dude is the real deal. He is an actual farmer—not a cosplay one—who is running the type of independent-minded, populist campaign that Democrats should be modeling elsewhere. His opponent, Chuck Edwards, is a creeper and Trump apologist who deserves an electoral beatdown.

Cook rating: Solid R (R+6)
2024 Result: Mike Flood (R): 60.1%, Carol Blood (D): 39.9%
Backemeyer is a career public servant who first felt the call to serve after 9/11. He served under both Republican and Democratic presidencies at the State Department, where he focused on counterterrorism and Middle East policy before taking posts on the National Security Council, as an adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, and as a deputy assistant secretary of state during the Biden administration.
The Republican nominee is Rep. Mike Flood.
Tim’s Rationale: Backemeyer won a competitive Democratic primary in Nebraska’s 1st district. This district is a bit of a stretch goal, but it includes Nebraska’s biggest college town, Lincoln, and some of the suburbs of Omaha. Backemeyer is currently facing a spoiler candidacy from a left-wing independent who is trying to gain ballot access as a sort of Twitter leftist/Jill Stein type. Backemeyer needs support to hopefully drive that candidate out of the race and give the Democrats a chance at an upset victory.

Teresa Benitez-Thompson (NV-02)

Cook rating: Solid R (R+7)
2024 Result: Mark Amodei (R): 55%, Greg Kidd (no political party): 36.1% (no Democratic candidate)
Benitez-Thompson served in the state legislature and attorney general’s office and spent her professional career in social work.
The Trump-endorsed David Flippo won the Republican primary this week, defeating twelve other candidates, including Nevada Republicans’ preferred candidate, James Settelmeyer. Flippo is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who based his campaign on hardline positions on immigration and transgender issues. He’s also a longtime Las Vegas resident who only recently bought property in the district.
Tim’s Rationale: Benitez-Thompson emerged from a crowded Democratic primary after she received the coveted Teamsters endorsement. Her campaign is focused on affordability, and she reportedly has Democrats feeling optimistic about their chances of winning the seat for the first time ever.

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Zack Mullock (NJ-02)

Cook rating: Solid R (R+5)
2024 Result: Jeff Van Drew (R): 58.1%, Joe Salerno (D): 41.2%
Mullock is the mayor of Cape May, New Jersey, running on his record of results and independence.
The Republican nominee is Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who is pretty much the antithesis of the Bulwark ethos.
Tim’s Rationale: Jeff Van Drew deserves comeuppance for being a Democrat who became a Republican DURING THE TRUMP ERA! Plus, Mikie Sherrill’s win last year showed that some of the trends that led to a too-close-for-comfort result for Harris in New Jersey have shifted. And now that Trump has done to the country what he did to his casinos, it’s time for Atlantic City to go blue.

Brian Poindexter (OH-07)

Cook rating: Solid R (R+5)
2024 Result: Max Miller (R): 51.1%, Matthew Diemer (D): 36.1%, Dennis Kucinich (I): 12.8%
Poindexter is a city councilman and union ironworker who, like most Americans, didn’t go to a four-year college.
The Poindexter campaign has an embarrassment of riches in terms of the hits they can drop on Republican nominee Rep. Max Miller. A nepo baby and heir to a prominent Cleveland real estate family, Miller has been credibly accused of physical abuse by two former partners: former Trump White House aide Stephanie Grisham and Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno’s daughter Emily. His rap sheet also includes allegedly violating a restraining order; assault, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest; underage drinking, disorderly conduct, operating a vehicle without reasonable control, and operating a vehicle while impaired. Oh, yeah—and he helped organize Trump’s infamous January 6th rally.
Tim’s Rationale: Max Miller is an INCREDIBLY bad guy. The accusations against him make Graham Platner look like Andrew Egger. Plus Poindexter seems well positioned to appeal to Ohio’s working-class Obama–Trump voters. And maybe strong candidates at the top of the ticket (Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton) can help pull other Ohio Dems across the finish line.

Cook rating: Tossup (R+4)
2024 Result: Rob Bresnahan (R): 50.7%, Matt Cartwright (D): 49.1%
Cognetti, mayor of Scranton, was first elected as an independent candidate running against the corrupt local Democratic establishment with the unofficial slogan “Paige Against the Machine.”
Her Republican opponent, Rep. Rob Bresnahan, is one of Congress’s most prolific inside traders despite running in 2024 on a promise to ban congressional stock trading, which Cognetti is making a central part of her campaign.
Tim’s Rationale: Okay, I know this technically violates some of my rules—this race is not as much of a stretch as the rest of this list. But I can’t help but stan Cognetti. Just check out her launch ad and my interview with her from a couple of months ago. A model Democratic candidate.

Bobby Pulido (TX-15)

Cook rating: Likely R (R+7)
2024 Result: Monica De La Cruz (R): 57.1%, Michelle Vallejo (D): 42.9%
Pulido is a musician and actor who exudes South Texas pride.
Republican nominee Rep. Monica De La Cruz has mostly flown under the radar in her two terms in office, but one interesting note: She has been rethinking her 2024 support for mass deportations now that she’s seen the consequences—and political backlash.
Tim’s Rationale: Pulido is an OG Bulwarker, a Tejano music star, and he is made in a lab to show the Democrats how to win back working-class Latino voters.

Johnny Garcia (TX-35)

Cook rating: Likely R (R+4)
This district was redrawn in 2025, so the 2024 results are not an accurate reflection of the current district.
A self-described “old-school Democrat,” Garcia is a former law enforcement officer who’s putting public safety front and center in his campaign.
The Republican nominee is Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and conservative activist who received Trump’s endorsement. (Fun fact: De La Cruz is the brother of Pulido’s opponent, Rep. Monica De La Cruz.)
Tim’s Rationale: Democrats have to reclaim public safety as an issue, particularly somewhere like Texas, and Garcia has real credibility to do it. He just crushed the Republican PAC-supported neo-Nazi Maureen Galindo in the primary runoff. Plus, this race is a karma opportunity: The district was one of the GOP mid-cycle gerrymanders that has a decent chance of backfiring. Check out my conversation with Garcia during the runoff here.

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Mary Peltola (Alaska Senate)

Cook rating: Lean R (R+6)
Alaska has ranked-choice voting, and the top-four vote-getters in the primary advance to the general. The last Alaska Senate race, in 2022 for the other seat, was primarily a showdown between the more moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski and MAGA Republican Kelly Tshibaka, but here are the first-round results with all four candidates from that race: Lisa Murkowski (R): 43.4%, Kelly Tshibaka (R): 42.6%, Patricia Chesbro (D): 10.4%, Buzz Kelley (R): 2.9%.
Elected in 2022, Peltola was the first Alaska Native elected to Congress and first Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress since 1973. In Congress, Peltola was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition and was often willing to break with her party. She spent her pre-politics career in the fishing industry and has campaigned on a platform of “fish, family, and freedom,” while promising to put “Alaska first.”
Alaska’s top-four primary system means Peltola will face three opponents, but the general election will be a showdown between her and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Tim’s Rationale: This is another one that will get lots of national attention in the next few months, and for good reason. Hard to see the Democrats winning the Senate without Alaska. And Peltola is a fantastic candidate who deserves all of the help she can get.

Josh Turek (Iowa Senate)

Cook rating: Lean R (R+6)
The last Senate race in Iowa was in 2022, for the other seat. Here are those results: Chuck Grassley (R): 56%, Michael Franken (D): 43.8%.
Turek is a paralympic gold medalist and state legislator with a compelling personal story and a real command of the issues that are most important to Iowans—ag policy, water quality, health care.
The Republican nominee is Rep. Ashley Hinson, who has been an ardent Trump loyalist in Congress. (In public, at least. She was recently caught on a hot mic expressing some doubts about the Iran war despite voting against the recent war powers resolution.)
Tim’s Rationale: Iowa is the center of the electoral universe this November. If the Democrats have a true wave that gives them a workable Senate majority, an upset win in Iowa will likely need to be part of it. Check out my conversation with Turek following his primary win.

Dan Osborn (Nebraska Senate)

Cook rating: Likely R (R+10)
2024 Result: Deb Fischer (R): 53.2%, Dan Osborn (Nonpartisan): 46.5%
Osborn is a mechanic, former union leader, and Navy veteran running for the Senate as an independent for the second time, after losing to Sen. Deb Fischer in 2024.
This time, Osborn is facing off against Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.
Unlike in Osborn’s last run, as of right now, the Democrats have their own nominee, who according to her website, ran with the sole purpose of helping Osborn beat Ricketts. She’s currently trying to have her name removed from the ballot so that Democrats can unite behind Osborn, who is supported by most state and national Democrats.
Tim’s Rationale: Osborn outperformed Harris by 14 points in 2024, losing to Deb Fischer by just 6.5 points in a much better election cycle for Republicans. His opponent this time is Pete Ricketts, a nepo-billionaire who seems ripe to be defeated by a populist opponent. Watch my convo with Osborn from last year here.

David Jolly (Florida governor)

Cook rating: Solid R (R+5)
2022 Result: Ron DeSantis (R): 59.4%, Charlie Crist (D): 40%
Jolly, a former Republican congressman who is now a Democrat, was one of the OG Never Trumpers.
The Republican primary is effectively a two-way race between two awful choices, Trump lackey Rep. Byron Donalds and Groyper weirdo James Fishback.
Tim’s Rationale: While the Florida primaries haven’t officially wrapped up, I’ve seen enough. Jolly’s most formidable challenger dropped out of the race last week, setting Jolly up to coast to the nomination. And on the Republican side, it doesn’t matter who wins: Both choices are atrocious. Florida is a stretch, for sure, but I am always down to cheer on former Republicans who run for office as Democrats, particularly in red states. And who knows? Maybe Trump has done enough to put Florida back in play for a solid candidate like Jolly. It’s not as crazy as some would have you believe.

Cook rating: Lean R (R+5)
2022 Result: Mike DeWine (R): 62.4%, Nan Whaley (D): 37.4%
Acton is a physician who was appointed director of the Ohio Department of Health by Gov. Mike DeWine and worked with him closely to steer the state through the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Republican nominee is Vivek Ramaswamy, who, for those who don’t remember, is not exactly a Mike DeWine Republican, despite eventually securing his endorsement. Ramaswamy was a biotech entrepreneur, then a failed 2024 “America First” presidential candidate, then a failed DOGE leader.
Tim’s Rationale: Vivek sucks ass.

Cisco Aguilar (Nevada secretary of state)

The Cook Political Report doesn’t rate secretary of state races. The PVI for the state is R+1.
2022 Result: Cisco Aguilar (D): 48.9%, Jim Marchant (R): 46.7%
Aguilar is the current Nevada secretary of state.
As of publication, the Republican primary has not been called by the major national outlets. Three candidates are neck and neck: Jim Marchant, Shirley Folkins-Roberts, and Sharron Angle. The Nevada Independent has called the race for Marchant, a central figure in Nevada’s 2020 election denial schemes whom Aguilar beat in 2022.
Tim’s Rationale: Aguilar is the only incumbent on this list, but this race is important for democracy and any amount of financial support can make a difference. These secretary of state races often get less attention than gubernatorial races and can end up being decided by whichever candidate is able to spend more on advertising to raise their name ID. And this is the key race to decide whether an insane election denier will be in charge of a crucial swing state’s elections in 2028.

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