SUNRISE, Florida — Newly minted Democratic Senate candidate Alex Vindman kicked off his first-ever campaign event by asking veterans in the room to stand.
As a handful rose to their feet, he said they understood more than anyone why he was running to defend the country. Though Vindman is known nationally as the whistleblower who triggered President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, he’s also a longtime Army combat veteran. And he’s leaning into his military credentials to frame his campaign as a standoff between himself — “the patriot” — and GOP Sen. Ashley Moody — ”the politician.”
It’s part of a midterm trend nationwide and in Florida, as Democrats try to inch the state back to battleground status — and, more broadly, take back control of Congress. Democrats have actively recruited centrist candidates with military backgrounds, some of whom didn’t ascribe to a party until recently. In the Senate race and several House elections, numerous ex-military Democrats are jumping into politics for the first time.
After enduring several election cycles of stark defeats by Republicans, the noticeable shift shows Democrats have come into Florida this cycle with a strategy of focusing on candidate quality and message. It’s similar to 2018, when Democrats flipped the House during Trump’s first term. That Democratic class of 2018 included former Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill, Andy Kim and Elissa Slotkin — all of whom had national security and military backgrounds and now serve as senators or governors.
But testing the strategy in Florida — which has 1.4 million veterans, but has become a place where Democrats have lost significant ground — is another matter entirely.
“Honestly, Florida was not on our bingo card this cycle when we first started out,” said Emily Cherniack, founder of the New Politics organization that recruits and advises candidates with public-service backgrounds.
She acknowledged even the small number of races she saw as flippable in Florida would still be difficult to win. But she said the combination of strong candidates who could bring cross-party appeal, as well as outside factors — like ongoing cost-of-living concerns and Latinos’ worries about immigration enforcement — created an environment in which Democrats might have a shot.
Nationally and at the state level, there’s been an effort by Democrats to recruit the “best of the best,” acknowledged Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried. Numerous veterans have been jumping in, she said, out of concern that Americans would otherwise “destroy ourselves from the inside out.”
None of the eight Democrats in Florida’s delegation have military backgrounds, and the party has struggled to project patriotism amid negative voter perceptions. Florida Republicans Gov. Ron DeSantis, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, Sen. Rick Scott and six members of Florida's GOP House delegation are veterans, though two are retiring.
Republican Chris Hartline, a principal at P2 Public Affairs who worked on Scott’s reelection for governor in 2014 and in the Senate, said it can come across as inauthentic for Democrats to make a strategic decision to recruit certain kinds of candidates.
“Generally speaking, it’s a great thing when veterans want to run for office — people that have served our country and want to give back is a great thing,” he said. “When it becomes a strategic position from Democrats in terms of recruitment, it’s a reflection of the fact that they know they are weak on defense as a party and that they’re very sensitive to voters’ concerns about Democrats’ handling of national security, defense and geopolitical issues.”
Republican advantages on the issue also show up in polling: Voters report they trust the GOP more with national security matters, and more than 60 percent of veterans supported Trump in the 2024 election.
Darren McAuley, the senior medical officer for Florida’s Air National Guard and a third-generation combat veteran who’s vying to challenge GOP Rep. Laurel Lee, acknowledged Republicans had worked to cultivate their image as the party of military service and patriotism.
“It's incumbent upon Democrats to recognize that we can't cede that ground,” he said. “We can't cede that messaging, because Democrats have just as much of the right to patriotism, to pride in their country and to military service as anyone else.”
Democrats running this cycle said the principles they learned in the military didn’t match up with the country’s direction under Trump. McAuley, for instance, said as a former VA employee, he was driven to run because of how DOGE cuts affected VA employees and patients.
Democratic congressional candidate Earle Ford, who was in the Army's Airborne Infantry and is running to unseat GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, had a similar experience.
Ford had what he described as his “dream job” working for the IRS, auditing the ultra-wealthy. The team faced steep DOGE cuts, and Ford said the work opened his eyes to how "billionaires just take, take, take” and are “doing everything in order to have a few more billion dollars while people were suffering.”
“It just goes contrary to all the values that were instilled in me in my early days, and then also in the military,” said Ford, whose campaign recently said it raised $400,000. He continued: “I need to make sure I'm fighting for the country I love, to make sure we're protecting all these values and oaths that we swear.”
House Democrats’ campaign arm has targeted the seat he’s working to flip, and it has attracted a crowded primary. Luna, who won reelection by just under 10 points in 2024, is a conservative with a populist streak who’s also a veteran, having served five years in the Air Force.
Another Democratic candidate in that race, Leela Gray, was a no-party affiliated voter until 2024. The retired Army brigadier general said she became a Democrat because she was drawn to the party’s belief “in a strong society and a strong national defense.” She earned a law degree in 2024 and has been focused on helping veterans receive disability benefits.
Former NASA chief of staff Bale Dalton, who’s still in the Navy Reserve and faced numerous deployments, raised nearly $344,000 during the last quarter of 2025 to go up against GOP Rep. Cory Mills.
Mills, an Army veteran and Bronze Star recipient, has struggled with fundraising following a wave of allegations being investigated by the House Ethics panel. And Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin recently told POLITICO Democrats were bullish about House seats whose 2024 margins were 13 points or less. Mills, who received Trump’s endorsement this week, won reelection in 2024 by slightly more than that margin.
Dalton drew parallels in an interview between military service and current events, including the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the fatal shootings of Americans in Minnesota. He said leaders must be clear about the long-term plan of military operations and how they’d be funded, and said those who’ve done military service understand how important accountability is.
“Public service has been in my blood since I was 17 years old,” he said, “and I think this is the right way to continue that service, by providing faithful representation to the folks I grew up with.”
Several hopefuls interviewed credited their military service with showing them how to work with people from different backgrounds, a quality Cherniack said makes veterans good at problem solving. Voters, she added, are looking for candidates who have practical solutions to the high costs of groceries and electric bills, and who are “authentic, truth-tellers and straight shooters.”
Candidates with military experience can show that their service to the country started long before getting into politics, said Max Rose, senior adviser to VoteVets, a political action committee that recruits and supports Democratic veterans running for office.
“They haven't just said the right thing, they've also done the right thing, and they've put themselves in a situation where they could make enormous sacrifices in service to the country,” Rose said.
While Rose wouldn’t disclose how much VoteVets plans to spend in Florida, he said any candidate who gets an endorsement highlights that the group is “in it to win it.” VoteVets’ endorsements have included Vindman, McAuley, Dalton and Palm Beach commissioner candidate Curtis Calabrese, a Navy combat veteran.
Vindman in particular has attracted a significant amount of interest, raising $1.7 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign. He told supporters during his kickoff event Monday that communities were “under siege” and needed “somebody that’s going to fight for them.”
“Folks are seeing this country and this state in danger,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “And there's something to be said about folks that have served this nation, have signed up, pledged to defend it, against enemies — foreign and domestic — and that refuse to sit on the sidelines when they see a problem.”
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