More Democrats Pegged for National Party Aid

By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff Wed Jun 18, 1:10 PM ET

A new round of Democratic challengers across the country will be getting financial and organizational support from the national party, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced today.

The DCCC announced Wednesday 14 Democratic candidates have been added to the "Red to Blue" list in the third round. The program name indicates their efforts to make districts change party hands and uses the color-coded political vernacular of "red" to signify Republican-held districts and "blue" to denote Democratic-held districts.

The DCCC's first round of candidates targeted open seats and the second highlighted Democrats challenging GOP incumbents.

The chosen candidates have met fundraising and other goals, according to the national party's standards, and are pegged for DCCC aid.

"With less than five months to make their case for change to voters in their districts, the Red to Blue program will give these candidates the financial and structural edge to be even more competitive in November," DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen, Democratic House member from Maryland, said in a statement.

In 2006, the "Red to Blue" program raised nearly $22.6 million for 56 campaigns, with an average of $404,000 per campaign.

All 14 candidates are in races CQ Politics has rated competitive.

Doug Thornell, DCCC National Press Secretary noted that these competitive races appear across the country, not solely in places that have been fertile territory for Democratic takeovers in the past. "Democrats are able to compete in every region of the country," Thornell said.

Just last month, Democrat Travis W. Childers shocked national political observers by overtaking a traditionally Republican-held seat in a Mississippi 1st district special election. Childers' win was the party's third special election victory in recent months, all in districts that were thought to be strong Republican territory.

But Republicans say the new roster of "Red to Blue" candidates are simply leftovers.

"The truth of the matter is that many of these B-list candidates have been running for months, but had been rejected for admittance into the Red-to-Blue program on several occasions because Chris Van Hollen and the DCCC doubted their viability," said Ken Spain, Press Secretary for the NRCC, in an e-mail.

Democrats are at a financial and mathematical advantage over Republicans in this year's House races. There are currently 27 Republicans serving in the House who will be retiring this year, compared to 8 Democrats. The DCCC also reported they had $45.3 million left to spend as May began, nearly seven times the $6.7 million cash-on-hand that the NRCC has.

In addition to the 14 "Red to Blue" candidates, the DCCC released Wednesday a list of 20 "emerging races." A Democratic source with close knowledge of the committee said these candidates "could very well be next in line" to become "Red to Blue" candidates, but for now, the party is closely monitoring them. The emerging list's intent is both to prompt others to support these candidates as well as motivate the campaigns themselves to further excel, according to the Democratic source.

The DCCC's New "Red to Blue" candidates: Ethan Berkowitz, Alaska At-Large

Paul Carmouche, Louisiana's 5th

Gerry Connolly, Virginia's 11th

Joe Garcia, Florida's 25th

Martin Heinrich, New Mexico's 1st

Ann Kirkpatrick, Arizona's 1st

Frank Kratovil, Maryland's 1st

Bob Lord, Arizona's 3rd

Betsy Markey, Colorado's 4th

Raul Martinez, Florida's 21st

Mike McMahon, New York's 13th

Glenn Nye, Virginia's 2nd