Dem Candidates Form ‘blue Collar Brigade’ To Boost Fundraising

A group of blue-collar Democratic House candidates is teaming up to bring in some green.

Five House candidates with ties to organized labor are launching a joint fundraising effort Tuesday to help bankroll their campaigns and amplify a populist, progressive message they believe can win back working-class voters frustrated by high costs, according to details shared first with POLITICO.

They’ve dubbed themselves the “Blue Collar Brigade,” borrowing from a Time magazine headline on working-class Democratic candidates. The group includes Bob Brooks, a firefighter union chief running against GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania, and Randy Villegas, an educator and teachers’ union member who defeated national Democrats’ preferred candidate to take on GOP Rep. David Valadao in California. Both seats are top Democratic targets.

Other members include ironworker and former union organizer Brian Poindexter, who’s vying to unseat GOP Rep. Max Miller in Ohio, and union leader and former smokejumper Sam Forstag, who's running in an open district in western Montana — two blue-collar seats that President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024. Minnesota state Rep. Kaela Berg, a flight attendant and former leader of her local union who’s locked in a competitive primary for an open Democratic-leaning House seat, rounds out the roster.

They’re banding together to try to boost their combined fundraising and stay competitive in what’s on track to be the most expensive midterm cycle yet. These candidates, who come from atypical backgrounds, say they lack the access to deep-pocketed donor networks that their more traditionally connected colleagues and rivals can tap. Some of them are starting off the general election at significant cash disadvantages against their GOP rivals.

“As a union ironworker, my network of folks is very small. My very first call time, I called one of my fellow ironworkers and asked for $50, and he was laid off at the time,” Poindexter said in an interview. “That’s when I had the understanding of what we’re really up against when campaigns like my opponent can spend millions of dollars and here I am trying to represent workers in Washington and scraping together $50 bills. There’s a little bit of a difference.”

The coalition is rolling out a website and video on Tuesday to boost their shared platform of lowering costs, strengthening workers’ rights and rooting out government corruption by ending congressional stock trading and banning corporate PAC spending.

And they’re splitting the proceeds from a virtual fundraiser Tuesday evening that’s co-hosted by current and former leaders of the Communications Workers of America, Association of Flight Attendants, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Iron Workers and AFL-CIO unions. A trio of Democratic representatives with close ties to organized labor — Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Nikki Budzinski of Illinois and Val Hoyle of Oregon — are honorary chairs for the event. Some of those supporters said in interviews Monday they view the team up as a natural extension of the candidates' deep backgrounds in collective organizing.

“I want to see more labor candidates running and winning,” Deluzio said Monday. “When you’re a Democratic challenger and you’re someone who comes from the labor movement … you don’t have the same Rolodex as someone who can self-fund millions for their campaign. These folks are going to do the hard work to win their races, but they’ve got to raise money.”

Democrats are running a roster of plainspoken candidates with blue-collar backgrounds to prove their elitist-coded party can relate to Americans’ everyday economic struggles. Brooks has amassed one of the most ideologically diverse endorsement lists of any Democratic House challenger on the map; he was recruited by Deluzio, a progressive, and moderate-leaning Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and he received prominent backing from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in his four-way primary.

These candidates haven’t all been backed by the party apparatus — at least not at first. Villegas defeated the DCCC’s pick in a contentious primary that put Democrats’ ideological divides on full display, but now has the campaign arm’s support and has joined Brooks on its coveted “Red to Blue” list. Forstag, who narrowly emerged from a four-way primary, and Poindexter, who won by a wider margin in his, are now on the DCCC’s expanded roster of “districts in play.” The group hasn’t engaged in Berg’s race to replace Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), who’s seeking Minnesota’s open Senate seat.

“It’s important to actually center working-class candidates and invest in them and make sure that we are prioritizing working families’ issues. It goes to a broader lesson that we’re still learning from ’24,” Villegas told POLITICO. “These victories across the country are showing that we can't just offer people ‘not Trump’ or ‘not the Republican incumbent.’ We have to be willing to offer people a vision for something more.”

All five candidates have faced expensive primaries that have drained their bank accounts. For Brooks, Villegas, Poindexter and Forstag, it’s left them far behind their GOP foes in cash on hand. Berg’s primary is in August.

But they’re banking on voters’ frustration with the status quo to fuel their campaigns — and are hoping there’s power in union ties.

“Working-class candidates have such momentum right now in this economy and [at] this moment in our nation’s history,” Berg said. “Voters are looking now more than ever for candidates that have lived their struggles, who they can identify with, because we look more like them than the folks that are deeply connected or that are part of the establishment.”