(The Daily Signal) – Democrats are looking to broaden their voter appeal by recruiting unconventional candidates and changing their image.
One example of the recent outreach is JoAnna Mendoza, a veteran with 20 years of military service and a former Marine Corps drill instructor with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats think she is someone who can relate to the working poor and genuine middle class as both a single mother and the daughter of a farmworker family.
“We’re seeing right now a lot of interest from people all over the country in stepping up for their country to run for office,” Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., told Politico recently.
Mendoza is hoping to take out one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the 2026 congressional midterms: Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz.
Ciscomani represents Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, a swing district if there ever was one. He won reelection by about 10,000 votes out of 431,129 cast in 2024. At the same time, Arizona went for Republican Donald Trump in the presidential election and for Democrat Ruben Gallego in the U.S. Senate race in the Grand Canyon State. Then-Vice President Joe Biden won the district in the 2020 presidential election.
Mendoza raked in $816,000 in the first quarter, along with the endorsement of the liberal group VoteVets. VoteVets is a significant player in elections, having spent $50 million last election cycle to support the candidates it endorsed. Mendoza has also been endorsed by the all-Democrat Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ BOLD PAC.
Democrats are also looking for new candidates with establishment connections. In Virginia, that could mean turning to Pamela Northam, the wife of former Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam, for the state’s 2nd Congressional District seat. In Pennsylvania, it means recruiting former Rep. Matthew Cartwright, who lost reelection in 2024 by a slim margin, and is widely seen as a formidable foe in a rematch with his successor, Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa.
Democrats have also been implementing some superficial, but noticeable, changes to their brand. Biden administration Secretary of Transportation and potential 2028 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., recently have grown beards, while Gallego already sports one. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, another prospective 2028 presidential hopeful, has taken to dressing more casually, even by California standards, by adopting jeans, losing his tie, and starting a podcast, to which he has invited conservative guests.
Democrats are in dire straits when it comes to popularity. A March CNN poll, conducted by SSRS, found the party with just a 29% favorability rating, a low that one has to go back to 1992 to match. The party has taken notice and is planning on spending $20 million to target one of the groups it is most failing to reach: young American men. But it remains to be seen whether superficial changes like facial hair can persuade the American electorate that the Democrats have more to offer.
Democrats have also attempted to embrace the social media game by posting memes on their official X account and sending their senior citizen members out to do TikTok trends.
