It’s been a long year! This time in 2025, we didn’t exist. Now, we have an organization with 20 volunteers, partnerships with the American People’s Compact, Move to Amend, and a PAC dedicated to candidates with the courage to take action. Most importantly, we’ve begun to build a movement. The Courage for Democracy primary season started with more than 150 candidates, and as of last night, we have 25 Courage Candidates in the running for November’s general election.
As Executive Director of Courage For Democracy and Citizens’ Impeachment, here are my takeaways from our first primary season:
- The primaries are where we belong. We started there because we were looking for the people who were hungry for change – the folks that believed strongly enough in making things better that they were ready to declare their candidacy early. We found them before their campaigns had money, before they had volunteers, and asked just two questions: Will you publicly call for the impeachment of Donald Trump? And, are you ready to fight?
We got it right. The general election is where you choose your meal, but primaries are where you set the menu. This is where the planning happens, and where we can be closest to the local people who care deeply for their community and the issues affecting them. The wild thing is, no one is paying attention.
- We need to shine a spotlight on candidates early and often. Unless you’re in a top-10 swing district (and even then!), the media doesn’t report on who’s running in primaries, the total number of candidates, or even what their positions are. Almost no one puts serious money into primary races—in fact, local parties usually aren’t allowed to endorse a candidate until the primary is over, and most other groups refuse to. People have told me over and over that it’s too chaotic, there are too many people, the dates are spread out too far. What I hear from that is that there’s hard work to be done in these races, and no one else wants to do it.
Voter data shows that the public doesn’t even register these races are happening. But this is also the place where you can have the most impact on what happens in November. Many of our candidates won or lost by just a few hundred votes. Going forward, we’re committing even harder to making primaries more visible and compelling to voters, so they can really see where their vote makes a difference.
- When we went out looking for fighters, we found them. Impeachment is a scary word for the establishment, and we asked our Courage Candidates to not just support impeachment, but to commit to filing and forcing a vote on articles of impeachment on their first day. Hundreds of candidates across the country, from the reddest district to the bluest, in competitive races and long-shots, answered yes.
More than anything else, these fighters restored our faith in democracy. They reminded us that we don’t need to choose the lesser evil. We can vote for principled, savvy fighters that will go to the mat for us. But they won’t have a chance to contend unless organizations (that’s us) and voters (that’s you) throw our weight behind them.
- “Viability” is made-up. When establishment folks ask about a campaign’s “viability,” what they want to know is if they’re wasting their time by supporting this candidate. For us, the answer is always no. The establishment is afraid of a fight, but small-d democracy thrives on the competition of ideas in a public forum. And when you show up for honest conversations about what the American people deserve from our government, you end up with surprising results. 80% of our successful primary candidates are running in red districts that the Democrats have written off, and they’re closing the gap.
- You’ve got to play the game if you want to win. Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy has been turned inside out by the flow of big money into politics—county parties are hollowed out, and voters have been ignored. But our attitude is that you can’t forfeit the field before the game even starts.
So, we went in with an open mind, and had some really tough conversations in very red districts. And we’re so glad we did! In a midterm year like this, you just never know how the election will go. We expect to see some surprises.
- If you show up, wow, you have a good shot at winning. It’s truly great to have a few candidates on our roster like Chris Rabb and Melat Kiros who will almost certainly win their seats. We respect their willingness to take a bold stance even when they have the establishment behind them. But the people we’re most excited about supporting are the ones who are doing the work in districts that have been completely forgotten about by the establishment, like Elizabeth Lee (AZ-05, now within three points in polling!), Ashley Bell (NC-10), and N’Kiyla “Jasmine” Thomas and Alani Bankhead, who are out there contesting the Oklahoma and Montana Senate races. These are regular folks who are showing up for small-d democracy. If you’re not participating in that part of the process, you’ve already ceded so much ground, it’s not a mystery that a major party would be having so much trouble finding a majority.
So, here we are. When we founded Citizens’ Impeachment in 2025, we wanted to see members of Congress take a clear stance opposing this administration, and to get impeachment into the national conversation (or even in our own local conversations). Now, we’re helping to build a Congress that knows its own power and is willing to use it. We put courage on the ballot, and people are choosing it. When our candidates swear their oaths in January, we know they will carry out the promises that they’ve made to us and to the country.
But even more importantly than the upcoming Congress, what we’re building is the bench. Fantastic candidates like Jeromie Whalen (MA-01), Oliver Larkin (FL-25), Jillian Gilchrest (CT-01), Zeeshan Hafeez (TX-33), and Case Norton (GA-07) all put in the work and pulled their community together, but lost their primaries. This is just the beginning for them.
Courage for Democracy is going to make sure courage is on the ballot in 2026 and in every election cycle to come. Our candidates, successful or not in 2026, are your future county party leaders, school board presidents, city council members, state assembly stars, and so much more. They’re out here challenging incumbents and making sure their priorities have a place in the debates and media, and are picking up in public opinion polling. They’re getting involved because they care about the direction of this country, and want to lead it towards the promise of liberty and justice for all. You can join them, and us, in making real strides toward that future, by choosing #TeamCourage and supporting our work today.
