In 2018, a handful of House candidates came within a few percentage points of winning despite serious reservations from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that they had a shot. This time around, even as the candidates have launched new bids for office, the party committee is taking a hands-off approach.

That’s a departure from how the DCCC, which is responsible for electing Democrats to the House, has done it in the past. Heading into the 2006 midterm elections, the DCCC was faced with the question of how to deploy last-minute resources. Races that were deemed unwinnable got shorted, while the party pushed its chips where it felt it had the best chance to win. The DCCC missed badly in a significant number of races, and a handful of candidates who had been written off won their elections, or just barely lost.

Recognizing its mistake, the party committee got in early the next cycle behind those who had barely lost in 2006 — Larry Kissell in North Carolina and Dan Maffei in Syracuse, New York — and helped push them over the top.

In 2018, the DCCC similarly deemed a handful of races unwinnable, yet the candidates nearly won anyway. In Omaha, Nebraska, the party walked away from Kara Eastman, but she came within 2 percentage points of flipping that House seat. Again in Syracuse, the DCCC wrote off Dana Balter, spending just $300,000, but she fell just 5 percentage points short on Election Day. In Texas’ 10th district, Mike Siegel ran an aggressive race against Michael McCaul, the Republican currently serving in Tom DeLay’s former seat. The national party didn’t have the race on its radar, but Siegel, who put together a strong grassroots network and ran as an outspoken progressive, gave McCaul a scare, losing by a margin of 4 percentage points.

Unlike in 2008, the last presidential cycle to follow a Blue Wave, the DCCC seems to have little interest in 2020 in revisiting its assessment of candidates who fell just short. In Texas, the DCCC is courting a corporate lawyer with big-money backing to challenge Siegel in a primary. In Omaha, Eastman is running again, but the DCCC, whose recruit lost to her in 2018, has its eye on several other potential candidates. And in Syracuse, there’s been no shift in the DCCC’s distant posture toward Balter, who is running again, so far without the support of the party committee.

A DCCC spokesperson acknowledged that the party committee is not rallying behind candidates who fell just short in 2018 but said that they are not opposing them, either.

Eastman’s race in particular was a progressive flashpoint in 2018, because in the primary, the DCCC supported former Rep. Brad Ashford, who was broadly conservative and had a record as an anti-choice state legislator. The committee did spend some $300,000 on Eastman’s general election race, after opposing her during the primary, but that was far less than it invested in a typical race, and down the stretch, the party committee declined to help push Eastman over the top.

One potential candidate the DCCC is courting in lieu of Eastman is Gladys Harrison, the general manager of a beloved Omaha restaurant, Big Mama’s Kitchen. Harrison, who has never run for office before, has not yet formally announced but told The Intercept in late May that she was considering entering the race. Reached again last week about running, Harrison said “at this time I am not ready to comment.”

Local party officials, who closely monitor political developments in the district, said the DCCC was working to recruit Harrison into the race. “I know they’ve been reaching out to her, and they’re considering supporting her for Congress,” said Ben Gray, president of the Omaha City Council.

A spokesperson for the DCCC said they would “not confirm or deny” whether they have worked to recruit her.

Sam Barrett, who managed Ashford’s 2016 campaign, is now working for the DCCC. Ashford lost his primary bid to Eastman in 2018, and his wife, Ann Ashford, is now competing against her for Congress. (On Wednesday, Ann Ashford announced on Facebook that she had been endorsed by six former elected officials, including her husband.)



The DCCC also spoke with another potential candidate, Denise Blaya Powell, according to an active member of the local Democratic Party. Powell started a local organization called Women Who Run, but she is an Eastman supporter who donated to her campaign in March.



Crystal Rhoades, an Eastman supporter and the chair of the Douglas County Democratic Party, told The Intercept that she spoke directly with the DCCC about their efforts to recruit other candidates about a month ago. “The DCCC told me, ‘Well, we can’t win on Medicare for All; Omaha is an insurance town,’” she said. “And I said, ‘I know corporations are people now, but insurance companies don’t actually vote.’” Rhoades added that in a district like hers, the challenge is not peeling off Republican voters but boosting Democratic turnout.

Despite the $300,000 the DCCC spent on the general election, Rhoades said she felt the party committee did not really support Eastman. “The DCCC didn’t support Kara last time, even in the general, and anyone who says differently is lying because they did not,” said Rhoades. “Most support from the DCCC and those other national organizations comes in the form of independent expenditures, and they did nothing for Kara, and yet she still came in with less than 2 points as a first-time candidate for federal office in a district as tough as ours. That she did that with zero help from the DCCC is really a testament to her candidacy.”