Win the Middle 2026
Since 2022, Welcome has worked to perfect a formula for how Democrats can take on and beat MAGA incumbents in districts that the party’s formal machinery overlooks.
In 2022 we identified the top Democratic overperformers when we supported Will Rollins and Adam Frisch. In 2024, we invested in 9 candidates in Trump-won districts, all of whom over-performed the top of the ticket by an average of 5%. This slate included Reps. Jared Golden (ME-02) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03), both of whom won re-election in districts that Trump won, as well as challengers Rebecca Cooke (WI-03) and Janelle Stelson (PA-10) who ran far ahead of Kamala Harris and came within percentage points of victory.
In 2026, Welcome is expanding our slate, supporting a mix of 10 incumbents and challengers who can flip Trump-won districts and give Democrats control of the House of Representatives.
Identifying Winnable Races
Welcome has an excellent track record of finding the races that pundits and race-raters miss. In 2022, we targeted two races, Colorado’s 3rd and California’s 41st — districts that pundits and race-raters said were “safe” Republican seats. We recognized that the incumbents, Lauren Boebert and Ken Calvert, are embracing the politics of the extremist right, which don’t represent the interests or sentiments of their constituents.
Adam Frisch and Will Rollins are two moderate, pragmatic Democrats committed to welcoming people into the Democratic coalition – not to turning voters away with purity-test politics. With strong candidates like them, these districts became tightly contested battlegrounds. Frisch’s strong performance led Boebert to seek employment elsewhere in a more reliably Republican district, while CA-41 has become one of the most closely contested races in the country.
In 2024, we put together a group of advisers from the center-left and right. We solicited input from dozens of practitioners and analysts. We pored over national data and talked to on-the-ground experts to deepen our analysis of the races. We followed local media to determine which incumbents were getting out of touch with their districts.
We then built a slate of dynamic centrist incumbents like Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, as well as challengers like Rebecca Cooke and Janelle Stelson, who were running against extreme Republicans Scott Perry and Derrick Van Orden. Every candidate on the 2024 Welcome slate ran an thoughtful, constituent-first, moderate campaign, demonstrating how Democrats can win back voters who may have drifted away from the party over the last few years.
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It’s a fact: politicos understate the variance in politics. This leaves them vulnerable to missing districts that are outside of the traditional bounds of party competition, races like Boebert’s and Calvert’s as well as races like Alaska’s At-Large seat that Mary Peltola won, Jared Golden’s Maine district and Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez’s Washington seat.
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The theory that you can “mobilize” your way to victory has been a proven failure everywhere it has been tried. The path to victory is distinguishing yourself from the national brand of the Democratic Party and welcoming moderate Republicans and independents into the anti-authoritarian coalition.
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To pull moderate voters into the Democratic Party, we need a push in the form of extremist Republicans. That’s why we look for Republicans who are out of touch with their voters, pushing voters to consider moderate options. Rendering themselves even more beatable, extremists like Lauren Boebert have made the districts they represent ripe for disruption with their antics.
Incumbents
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Marie Gluesenkamp Perez
District: WA-03
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Jared Golden
District: ME-02
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Adam Gray
District: CA-13
Challengers
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Rebecca Cooke
District: WI-03
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About WelcomePAC
WelcomePAC launched in November 2021 to build a “Justice Democrats for the Center" by recruiting and backing brand-differentiated Democratic challengers with the capacity to defeat democracy-undermining GOP incumbents on their home turf. Operating in three geographies (CO-03, CA-41, Ohio), WelcomePAC identified districts where voters were not given an alternative - where Democrats were "Conceding Democracy" by not supporting credibly funded challengers. By elevating candidates and messengers who appeal to swing voters in center-right districts, WelcomePAC supported two of the most over-performing challengers and is now partnering with the team of the third challenger.
In 2022, WelcomePAC invested more than $2 million in three targeted geographies in its inaugural cycle informed by our perspective on the inefficiency of the Democratic marketplace and the ballooning value of each Congressional seat.
In 2024, WelcomePAC invested more than $8 million supporting a slate of nine pragmatic Democrats in conservative-leaning congressional districts across the country, including the three Blue Dog caucus co-chairs.
