Biden alums could boost their House ranks in midterm elections

Miami Herald

3 days ago

WASHINGTON - As a senior attorney in the Commerce Department, Eric Chung helped implement the 2022 law known as the CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan effort championed by President Joe Biden to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing and scientific research.
But Chung left his civil service job in April, shortly after President Donald Trump called the law a "horrible, horrible thing" in a joint address to Congress and urged lawmakers to scrap the CHIPS program. (Last week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Senate appropriators that Trump is renegotiating some of Biden's semiconductor grants.)
"With elections, there are consequences and you expect some changes,'' Chung said. "But the idea of just going after a program that's so bipartisan ... for no apparent reason, just railing against it, certainly disappointed me, and I just couldn't watch it unfold."
Now Chung is running for Congress - he's one of at least four Democrats hoping to flip Michigan's 10th District - and he's highlighting his experience working on one of the Biden administration's signature legislative achievements.
He isn't the only one. As Trump tries to unwind much of his Democratic predecessor's agenda, a handful of federal employees who helped carry out the Biden administration's policy priorities are seeking House seats in 2026. They are mostly competing in battleground districts and are expected to face competitive primaries.
The list includes Michael Roth, a former official in the Small Business Administration vying to unseat New Jersey Republican Thomas H. Kean Jr.; Sanjyot Dunung, a former member of Biden's 2020 foreign policy working group running for an open seat in Illinois; and Cait Conley, who was director of counterterrorism on the National Security Council, then served at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and is now challenging New York GOP Rep. Mike Lawler.
And career diplomat and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink is considering a run in Michigan's 7th District, which is currently held by Republican freshman Tom Barrett. Brink resigned earlier this year, citing disagreements with Trump's Ukraine policy.
If successful, these Democrats would join other former Biden administration officials elected to the House, including freshman Reps. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, a former Biden Justice Department attorney, and April McClain Delaney of Maryland, a former deputy assistant secretary in the Commerce Department. Another Biden alumnus, Rhode Island Rep. Gabe Amo, came to Congress in 2023, after winning a special election for an open seat.
Other prominent Biden alumni have launched 2026 gubernatorial campaigns, including former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in New Mexico and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in California. The highest-profile member of the Biden team - former Vice President Kamala Harris - is also weighing a gubernatorial run in the Golden State.
Moving from an executive branch appointment to elective office isn't a new trend but the reckoning over Biden's mental acuity during his time in office, spurred by the recent publication of several books, has raised complicated questions about his legacy.
Amo, who worked in the White House as a senior adviser to Biden, was recently pressed about whether he saw signs of the former president's cognitive decline. The congressman told WJAR-TV in Providence that he saw Biden "execute the functions of that job in a way that I was supportive of, as someone there in the White House."
"I was proud of the work that I was able to do, and proud of the work that he did to usher in key advances for the American people," Amo said.
Several of the candidates seeking seats in 2026 said they were partly motivated to run after growing increasingly distressed watching Trump dismantle Biden's legacy.
Trump "is squandering America's blue star reputation,'' said Dunung, who worked on international trade and policies to strengthen small-business exports as a member of Biden's foreign policy working group during the 2020 campaign cycle.
"We are losing our good reputation around the world for being a trusted ally and a trusted partner,'' she said.
Dunung is running for Illinois' 8th District, which Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi - a child of Indian immigrants like Dunung - is vacating to run for Senate. While Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Solid Democratic, Trump significantly cut into his margins in the suburban Chicago district, from a 15-point loss in 2020 to a 7-point deficit last year, according to calculations by The Downballot.
Dunung, who describes herself as "a pragmatic workhorse," said she launched her bid for Congress partly as a reaction to what she called the "chaos ... and crony capitalism" of the Trump administration.
"I'm also about change from within our party, the Democratic Party," she said. "I think there are better ways to do things, and we need to prioritize efficiency. We need to prioritize getting results, not necessarily being beholden to special interests."
Both Dunung and Chung recently won endorsements from the political arm of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
Chung is also seeking an open House seat - Michigan's 10th District outside Detroit, where Republican incumbent John James is running for governor.
Chung initially intended to stay in his position at the Commerce Department even after Trump won.
"If any program was going to be safe in this administration, it should have been a program like (CHIPS),'' he said. "I was hopeful that we could work all together across the aisle. And as a career civil servant, your oath is to the Constitution, and your oath is to the country."
But Chung, who grew up in Michigan as the son of Vietnamese immigrants, concluded that he had to leave.
"I wasn't waking up every morning thinking I'd run for office,'' he said, "but when I saw that my community and basically every part of the American dream that I had experienced growing up in Michigan was in potential jeopardy, I wanted to do all I could."
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