Democrats’ midterm weapon: Veteran candidates

Ortiz-Jones is among a new crop of candidates with military experience that Democrats hope will help them win the 23 seats needed this fall to take control of the House.

The 23rd is a competitive, mostly Hispanic district in a Republican-dominated state that the Texas Tribune described as “vast and idiosyncratic.” Voters were split county to county over President Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, while Hurd eked out a victory against a Democratic challenger in the House race.

As a veteran, Ortiz-Jones says she understands the concerns of the district’s 4,000 or so residents brought to the U.S. as undocumented immigrant children.

“While I am not a Dreamer, I know exactly what it’s like to have worked hard for something and to live in fear that it could be ripped away from you,” she told the Washington Examiner. “When I was a cadet at Boston University, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ applied to me, so I lived in fear everyday that if they found out I was gay they would take away my four-year ROTC scholarship.”

But both Ortiz-Jones and Hurd have called for new protections to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals law and questioned Trump’s proposed border wall. The race is rated a toss-up, according to the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., thinks Ortiz-Jones can win. She is among 19 veteran candidates who Moulton endorsed and who are being backed by his Serve America PAC.

His recruitment effort raised $2.1 million in the first quarter of the year and $1.4 million of that has gone to veteran candidates, according to a spokesman, and is focusing only on what Moulton sees as the strongest candidates among the roughly 55 Democrats with military experience who are running in the House midterm races.

“We’ve only endorsed about a third of them. We look for people who are extraordinary leaders who I am proud to support, people who are in key elections we believe they can win, and we always want to support the strongest general election candidate in a primary,” Moulton told the Washington Examiner.

Moulton says veterans “literally put their lives on the line for the country” and can generate the kind of respect to win in Republican-held districts, and his efforts have been making a media splash.

Kentucky House candidate Amy McGrath, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel backed by Moulton, broke out nationally with a campaign ad touting her experience as the first female Marine to fly in an F/A-18 Hornet in combat during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003.

“We need people who know how to work on a mission together, we have enough old, rich CEOs in Congress right now. What we need are people who can put their nose to the grindstone and get things done, and that’s the experience that I’ve had,” McGrath told the Washington Examiner. “We also badly need people who understand foreign and defense policy, who have worked in international relations.”

McGrath is heading into a tough Democratic primary fight next month in central Kentucky’s 6th District against Jim Gray, a businessman and the openly gay mayor of Lexington.

If she can beat Gray and his fundraising advantage, McGrath will face Rep. Andy Barr in the general election in November. Barr, a lawyer, has won two prior elections, but Moulton believes he is vulnerable and that the district can be flipped to the Democrats.

The Kentucky seat leans Republican, according to the Cook Political Report. But 32 House races nationally are now considered toss-ups — more than enough for Democrats to gain a majority — and fundraising filings released last week “spell danger for Republicans.”

Moulton, other Democrats and the progressive political group VoteVets all hope veterans can help with an election sweep. But Republicans say fielding candidates with military experience is nothing new.

“We’re glad that the Democrats are following our lead after many, many years of recruiting veterans to run for office,” said Jesse Hunt, the national press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “That’s something that has been part of the fabric of our party for some time now and as you can see there is a bevy of veterans serving on the Republican side in Congress.”

The party has fielded at least 11 veteran candidates in House races across the country and Democrats may also have to worry about defending their own seats against them.

Republican Andrew Grant, a Naval Academy graduate and former Marine intelligence officer, is challenging incumbent Democrat Rep. Ami Bera for California’s 7th District.

The district wraps around eastern Sacramento and Bera, a medical doctor, won it with just over 51 percent of the vote in 2016. It is narrowly divided between Democratic and Republican voters.

Grant may have an uphill battle because the Cook Political Report rates the 7th as likely voting Democrat this time, too. But military service could give him an edge.

The district has retained strong ties to the military after several large bases in the area were closed, Grant said. About 80,000 people in region are veterans or had some association with the facilities.

“When I mentioned the Naval Academy and Marine Corps, to that a lot of people said ‘OK, this guy has done more than just own his own business and it is not just some guy out here because he has an ego big enough to where he thinks he needs to run for office. He’s served and he knows what service means, all right,’” Grant said.