03-08-2025
Democrats turn to ‘hellcats' military veterans to win mid-terms
The Democrats are turning to military veteran candidates to help them win back the House of Representatives next year, including a group that calls themselves the Hellcats
Democrats are already running in at least nine swing districts, but party officials are eyeing up more than 30 potential new veteran candidates for the House as part of a new strategy aimed at freshening up their image.
'We can't just have people who seem like tired old Democrats,' Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Marine, told the New York Times.
'It's a cycle when people are very frustrated with the Democratic Party – including Democrats.'
Democrats are trying to rebuild in the wake of Mr Trump's sweeping election victory, in which Republicans won both the House and the Senate.
The tactic to run military veterans reprises a strategy that helped deliver the House in 2018 and could be especially effective for making inroads into rural, Republican-leaning districts, according to Democratic political strategists.
Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger who is assisting with candidate recruitment for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that veterans made effective candidates because they didn't come across as part of a ruling elite.
'What Americans are really thirsty for right now are leaders, not just politicians,' he told The New York Times.
Among the military veteran candidates running for the Democrats are four women who have a group chat called the 'Hellcats' – named after the first female Marines who served in World War One.
JoAnna Mendoza, 48, a single mother who said she joined the Marines because there were 'no job opportunities' in her rural community, is challenging for a Republican seat in southeastern Arizona.
'The system isn't designed for people like me,' she said.
During Mr Trump's first term, the Democrats won the House in 2018 off the back of a slate of veteran and female candidates who had worked in national security, including Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Elissa Slotkin, who is now a Michigan senator.
The focus on ex-servicemen and women forms part of the Democrats' push to reclaim the mantle of being the party of patriotism – a message trumpeted by Ms Slotkin, who has emerged as a leading voice in the party since Mr Trump's return to office.
'We need to take the flag back from the people who are spitting on our democracy,' she said in a recent post on X.
It comes as Democrat lawmakers have turned on each other over the party's failure to stand up to the president's assault on US institutions from government departments, to universities and law firms.
Cory Booker, the New Jersey Senator, warned that history would remember members of his party's 'complicity in 'bending the knee' to Mr Trump.
'What I want to see more people doing is not doing what some law firms have done, bend the knee to Donald Trump…That to me is outrageous,' Mr Booker told CNN.
The Senator this week launched a fiery tirade against his colleagues on the House floor, bellowing that 'the Democratic Party needs a wake up call'.
In an effort to destabilise Mr Trump's agenda, Senate Democrats blocked more than 50 of the president's nominees from being confirmed on Saturday, prompting a furious backlash from Mr Trump.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, refused to vote to confirm the low-level appointments unless federal funds were released and Mr Trump agreed not to push more cuts to federal funding, sources told CNN.
As a result, just seven of the nominees were confirmed, while the remainder will not be voted on until lawmakers return from their summer recess in September.
The president responded by telling Mr Schumer to 'go to hell'.
'Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL!' he wrote on Truth Social.
'Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country. Have a great RECESS.'
