Democrats Have So Many Candidates They Could Go Broke. A New Group Might Have the Fix
The Democrats have an unusual problem in the 2018 midterms: they’re drowning in candidates.
An unprecedented surge of competitors running for Congress—many of them women, many of them first-timers—may actually complicate the party’s quest to retake the House. More candidates means more crowded primaries, and crowded primaries means Democratic candidates will spend precious time and money fighting other Democrats instead of Republican incumbents. Democrats risk being choked by their own enthusiasm as Republicans calmly glide towards the general elections.
Most grassroots groups have been so focused on recruiting and training progressive candidates that they haven’t given much thought to how those candidates might cannibalize one another’s campaigns. But Swing Left, an upstart progressive organization that is trying to flip the House in 2018 by directing volunteers and funding from safely blue precincts to nearby swing districts, is trying something a little different.