Democrats Add 8 Candidates to House Battlefield Program for Midterms

Democratic officials added eight candidates on Monday to a list of top contenders in congressional midterm battlegrounds, wading into a handful of contested primaries to make clear the party leadership’s preference in some of the country’s most critical districts. The additions by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to its “Red to Blue” program bring the number of candidates on the list to 20. The initiative primarily focuses on seats that party leaders believe they can flip . The designation typically offers candidates a significant fund-raising lift from donors. In at least half of the races where the party is elevating a candidate, there is a seriously contested primary. One of those contests is in California’s 22nd Congressional District, around Bakersfield, where Representative David G. Valadao, a Republican, has survived past attempts to oust him. The D.C.C.C. is elevating Jasmeet Bains, a doctor and California assemblywoman, over Randy Villegas, who has the endorsement of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s campaign arm. (Mr. Villegas lashed the D.C.C.C.’s move: “It is undemocratic to see D.C. elites putting their thumb on the scale,” he said in a statement.) In California, all candidates run in the same primary, and the top two advance to the general election, regardless of party. The party is also wading into Pennsylvania’s Seventh District in favor of Bob Brooks, who is president of a firefighters union. …