NewDem Action Fund Endorses Two New Candidates In 2020 House Race

The NewDem Action Fund, the political arm of the New Democrat Coalition, endorsed two new candidates as part of their effort to flip Republican-held seats in the House of Representatives in 2020.

The fund announced on Friday that it would back the campaigns of Christy Smith in California’s 25th Congressional District and Jackie Gordon in New York’s 2nd Congressional District.

“The NewDem Action Fund started making big, strategic investments in strong challengers nationwide early this cycle,” said Congressman Ami Bera, chair of the NewDem Action Fund. “That’s how we’ll build upon our successes in 2018 to expand the Democratic Majority.”

Smith, who is serving her first term in California’s State Assembly, is running in a special election on May 12 to fill a vacancy left by former Representative Katie Hill, who resigned last year amid allegations of an extramarital affair with a staffer. Her campaign priorities include improving public education, lowering taxes, and making health care more affordable. 

Smith’s opponent, Mike Garcia, is a former Navy fighter pilot and businessman with no experience in public office. Garcia’s campaign website says he believes in “constitution, capitalism, and competition” and is interested in issues like heightening security at the U.S. border and lowering the national debt.

In 2018, Smith defeated Republican Dante Acosta in a close race for California State Assembly District 38, which encompasses the outer northwestern suburbs of Los Angeles.

Jackie Gordon is running to replace New York Representative Peter King, a veteran Republican who announced he would be retiring in 2021, at the end of his fourteenth term. King, the longest serving Republican in New York’s congressional delegation, has endorsed State Assemblyman Andrew Garbarino, a Republican, as his successor.

Gordon is an Army Reserve veteran and an educator running on a platform that prioritizes assistance to veterans, affordable health care, and improving access to quality education. She will face Patricia Maher, who ran for the same seat in 2014, in the Democratic primary in June. 

A member of the Babylon Town Council since 2007, Gordon has received endorsements from several national labor groups that include the United Auto Workers and the Amalgamated Transit Union.

The NewDem Action Fund also announced the addition of four new House candidates to its “Watch List” –– Hillary Scholten (MI-03), Jill Schupp (MO-02), Deborah Ross (NC-02), and Hillary O’Connor Mueri (OH-14). The fund was created by the New Democrat Coalition, a center-left alliance of 104 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives that supports economic growth, innovation, and fiscally-responsible policies, according to its website. 

In 2018, the New Democrat Coalition contributed $18 million to Democrats campaigning for the House of Representatives. Democrats regained control of the House that year, picking up a net total of 41 seats from the total number of seats they had won in 2016. It was the largest net gain for House Democrats since the post-Watergate elections of 1974.

“The NewDem Action Fund has a critical role to play in these races – by elevating strong candidates in the first place and by working with them and others to ensure they win in November,” Bera said.