By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-08-20 21:51:35 | Updated at 2026-08-20 22:01:10
22 minutes ago
An early voting polling site at East Carolina University as North Carolina begins its midterm primary elections, in Greenville, N.C., on Feb. 12, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)—House Democrats’ campaign arm—added five candidates on Aug. 20 to its “Red to Blue” program, an initiative the committee uses to direct money, staff, and training to challengers it considers best positioned to flip Republican-held House seats.
The additions bring the roster to 37, with roughly two-and-a-half months left before the Nov. 3 election.
Three of the five are military veterans or former prosecutors. Leela Gray, a retired Army brigadier general, is running in Florida’s 13th District against incumbent U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).
Nancy Lacore, a retired vice admiral and chief of Navy Reserve, is running in South Carolina’s 1st District, an open seat that Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is vacating.
Zach Dembo, a former Navy officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps and a former Justice Department prosecutor who later advised Gov. Andy Beshear, is running in Kentucky’s 6th District. The district is currently held by Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), who won the state’s nomination for U.S. Senate earlier this cycle.
The other two have held office before. Matt Dunlap, Maine’s state auditor and a former secretary of state, is running in Maine’s 2nd District against former Republican Gov. Paul LePage.
Tom Perriello, who represented Virginia’s 5th District for a single term beginning in 2009, is seeking the seat again. He will face off against incumbent Rep. John McGuire (R-Va.).
Candidates admitted to Red to Blue receive strategic guidance, staff, training, and fundraising help from the committee. The DCCC says candidates qualify by clearing internal benchmarks for grassroots engagement, local endorsements, campaign organization, and fundraising.
“American families are struggling under the broken promises and higher costs caused by House Republicans, and they’re eager for leaders who will always put the well-being of their communities first, not rubber stamp Trump’s failed agenda,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement. “All of these candidates are proven fighters who are running strong campaigns, talking to every voter, and building coalitions across the ideological spectrum to power their victories in November.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) responded to some of those additions in statements.
“Out of touch Nancy Lacore is a poll-constructed fraud whose entire campaign is propped up by D.C. Democrats,” NRCC spokesman Reilly Richardson said of the South Carolina 1st District candidate. “South Carolinians know Lacore would be little more than a rubber stamp for Democrats’ radical high-cost, open-border, far-left agenda, which is why they’ll resoundingly reject her this November.”
They also responded to the addition of Perriello.
“Retread loser Tom Perriello has been rejected by voters before, and this November will be no different,” Richardson wrote in a separate release. “D.C. liberal elitists will waste time and money propping Perriello up, but Virginians know what he truly stands for: high taxes, open borders, and the most far-left, extreme elements of the Democrat Party.”
The additions follow the committee’s decision earlier this month to expand its Districts in Play target list to 58 seats, adding 12 districts that lean Republican.
