Democrats running spooks for Congress This is the first of a two-part article.
Some two dozen Democratic candidates for Congress, running as challengers to Republican incumbents or as would-be successors to retiring Democratic incumbents, are drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus. This phenomenon, which the WSWS first analyzed and exposed in 2018 in our much-read series “The CIA Democrats,” is becoming an increasingly important factor in American official politics.
Eleven military-intelligence candidates were elected in 2018 as part of the Democratic takeover of control in the House of Representatives. Their numbers increased by one in 2020, as one of the 11 lost his bid for reelection, but two new military-intelligence Democrats were elected. This year, the size of the “caucus” could nearly double, even in an election in which the Democratic Party as a whole may well lose ground.
The influx of military-intelligence operatives into the ranks of the Democratic Party in Congress is now an ongoing political trend. There were 30 such candidates nominated by the Democrats in 2018, 11 of whom won. There were 35 such candidates in 2020, including the 11 incumbents, and 12 won, a slight increase despite the election being a poor one for the Democrats. In 2022, the total number of such candidates stands at 34: in addition to 11 incumbents, there are 23 more candidates drawn from the CIA, Pentagon and State Department.
These figures suggest that the influx of Pentagon and CIA operatives into Congress, by means of the Democratic Party, is not an accidental phenomenon, but the outcome of a definite policy, which has two components. First, the Democratic Party leadership is deliberately cultivating military-intelligence candidates and creating opportunities for them to run in Democratic-leaning congressional districts where they are likely to be elected. Second, sizeable sections of the military officers corps, the CIA and the State Department see the Democratic Party as their preferred vehicle for advancing the interests of American imperialism, to which they have devoted their own careers.
As was the case in our 2018 series and its follow-up in 2020, all the information presented here is gathered from publicly available sources, including Wikipedia and Ballotpedia, and particularly from the campaign web sites established by each candidate. Also considered are the published lists from the Democratic and Republican congressional campaign committees, identifying which campaigns they view as truly competitive and where significant party resources will be expended.
As before, we must point out that these Democratic candidates are far from seeking to conceal their role in unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or in the skulduggery of the intelligence world, dominated by political subversion, illegal surveillance and outright murder (whether by drone-fired missile or the old-fashioned knife in the back). They positively glory in it, with combat veterans posting photos of themselves in military gear, preferably in some foreign landscape. The intelligence agents are more discreet in terms of photographs and other information, as is to be expected, but no less celebratory in describing their “service.”
As a preliminary, let us review who is still in Congress from the initial intake in 2018, and who is not. There are two departures from the original 11.
Max Rose, who commanded an Army unit in several deployments in Afghanistan, was elected in 2018 in the 11th District of New York, which includes Staten Island and part of Brooklyn. He was defeated for reelection in 2020 by Republican Nicole Malliotakis. Rose is the Democratic nominee for the seat again in 2022 in a rematch with Malliotakis, with the district considered slightly more favorable to the Democrats than before because of redistricting.
Conor Lamb, a judge adjutant general in the Marine Corps, won a special election in early 2018 and then reelection in November of that year in the 17th Congressional District of Pennsylvania (western suburbs of Pittsburgh, Beaver Falls, Allegheny Valley). Reelected in 2020, he sought the Democratic nomination for the vacant US Senate seat this year and lost the primary in a landslide to Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. He will leave Congress at the end of this term.
The other nine were reelected in 2020 and are seeking reelection again in 2022. Four are considered heavy favorites to win, including Jason Crow (82nd Airborne, commanded Army paratroopers in Iraq) in Colorado, Chrissy Houlihan (Air Force captain) in Pennsylvania and Mikie Sherrill (Navy helicopter pilot) and Andy Kim (Pentagon adviser, headed Iraq desk at the National Security Council) in New Jersey. The five others are considered in some danger, with only slight edges over Republican challengers, including Jared Golden (Marine Corps, Afghanistan) in Maine, Tom Malinowski (State Department) in New Jersey, Elaine Luria (Navy commander) and Abigail Spanberger (CIA agent) in Virginia, and Elissa Slotkin (CIA agent, White House aide, Pentagon official) in Michigan.
In 2020, offsetting the defeat of Rose, two more military-intelligence candidates won seats, for a net increase of one in the ranks of this group. Jake Auchincloss won a nine-candidate primary in Massachusetts with only 25 percent of the vote, in the heavily Democratic Fourth Congressional District in the southwest Boston suburbs. He had been an Army captain commanding troops in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, and later led an elite reconnaissance force in anti-drug operations in Panama.
Also in 2020, former State Department official Sara Jacobs won a safe Democratic seat in San Diego opened up by the retirement of incumbent Susan Davis. Jacobs ran for and lost a contest for the Democratic nomination in an adjacent district in 2018, when she was profiled in the original series on the CIA Democrats. Jacobs should perhaps have an asterisk, since along with her years in the State Department under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, she is the granddaughter of billionaire Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, and therefore has access to unlimited campaign funds.
Both Auchincloss and Jacobs are expected to retain their seats easily in the November vote.
With the subtraction of Conor Lamb earlier this year, the number of CIA Democrats seeking reelection in the House is back to the original total of 11 going into the November 8 general election. This figure could be reduced somewhat or as much as double, depending on the outcome at the polls.
There are 23 new military-intelligence candidates running as Democratic nominees for Congress this year, a substantial proportion, nearly 10 percent, of the 252 available Democratic nominations. (There are 435 seats in Congress, but 183 Democratic incumbents are seeking reelection.)
The proportion is even higher if we set aside safe Republican seats and consider only those which the Democratic Party views as competitive. In these districts, numbering 56, there are 12 military-intelligence candidates, more than 20 percent of the total. Six of these are running in districts carried by Joe Biden in 2020, six in districts narrowly won by Donald Trump.
Twelve military-intelligence candidates in competitive seats Who are these 12, and where are they running?