Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tennessee) won his seat by 13.5 points in 2022 and didn’t face a serious challenge in 2024. This time, he faces a Democratic mayor who’s raising four times more money.
“Traditionally it’s not been a battleground, but we’re changing that in this cycle,” said the challenger, Chaz Molder of Columbia, Tennessee. “In this district the Democratic brand is damaged. My objective is to show that brand can always be repaired.”
National Democrats and Republicans alike are looking at the Ogles-Molder matchup as one in a tier of House races coming into play in this year’s midterms beyond the frontline toss-ups that attract most of the money and attention. Strategists in both parties say President Donald Trump’s unpopularity makes districts he won handily in 2024 look competitive in 2026 — many of them seats that are open or held by incumbents not used to running hard campaigns.
Democrats hope expanding the map will put pressure on Republicans to spend money in races that in other years would be safe, leaving them with less to spend on swing seats. The fate of districts that Trump won by five to 10 points in 2024 could also make the difference between a tight majority like the one Democrats achieved in 2020 vs. the wave they won by in 2018.
The number of true swing districts has dwindled in recent campaigns as partisan gerrymanders became more aggressive; the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates only 17 toss-ups this year. House races usually don’t have high-quality public polls this far in advance.
“Our goal has been to put as many Trump-district Republicans on defense as possible, so they never have the chance to go on offense,” said CJ Warnke, a spokesman for the House Majority PAC, the main unlimited-donations group supporting House Democrats. “If we’re fighting and winning one Trump +15 district, we are winning many Trump +5-10 seats.”
Republicans insist the Democratic effort will fall flat.
“House Democrats are trying to invade ruby-red Republican territory with embarrassing recruitment failures, empty bank accounts, and political hallucination. They can fantasize about ‘expanding’ the map all they want, but they’re operating on our turf, and they’ll be wasting their money defending their weak incumbents and stitching together their messy primaries,” said Mike Marinella, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Nonetheless, Ogles’s weak fundraising has alarmed Republican leaders. His campaign brought in less than $139,000 in the first three months of the year, with $85,000 on hand, compared with Molder’s first-quarter haul of $615,000 and almost $1.3 million in the bank, according to federal disclosures released last Wednesday. Cook revised its rating of the district in January from solid Republican to likely Republican. (Ogles has also been outraised by a challenger in the Republican primary.)
Ogles, whose campaign did not respond to requests for comment, is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations that he falsely reported a personal loan to his campaign to inflate its cash on hand. He did not participate in the Office of Congressional Ethics review that led to the committee’s investigation. Ogles acknowledged misrepresenting his college major after a Nashville TV station found other discrepancies in his biography.
In March, Ogles was condemned by Muslim and Jewish groups for saying on social media that “Muslims don’t belong in American society” and “they all have to go back.” In response to sexual misconduct allegations that prompted Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-California) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) to resign this month, Ogles called for their execution.
“Let’s hang ’em,” he said on a right-wing podcast. “Rapists should be hung, period. No questions.”
National Democratic groups have also begun to put resources behind a challenge to Rep. Cory Mills (R-Florida). In the wake of the Swalwell and Gonzales resignations, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said he would look into allegations against Mills, whom the House Ethics Committee is investigating for allegations including sexual misconduct and receiving gifts and special favors.
The investigation includes a Feb. 19, 2025, incident in which D.C. police were about to arrest Mills after a woman accused him of assault but backed off when the woman changed her account after appearing to talk with the congressman, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Police asked a Trump-appointed prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant, and he refused, according to the article, which was based on body-camera footage and documents.
Mills denied the assault claim.
Separately, in 2025 a Florida judge granted a protective order to another woman with whom Mills was involved after she alleged he threatened to disseminate sexually explicit photos and videos of her. He denied the allegations and said they were intended to damage him politically. His office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Mills raised about $75,000 in the first quarter and ended the period with $115,500 on hand. His Democratic opponent, Bale Dalton, raised $348,580 and had $464,400 saved. Cook moved the race from solid to likely Republican in January.
“People are really struggling, and they are really fed up with the government of any kind that is not laser-focused on these issues that are affecting them every day, and to see the continued corruption and grift that is coming out of some of our politicians in D.C. now,” Dalton said, recounting meeting people who told him he would be the first Democrat they ever voted for.
“They are fed up, and I’m fed up too.”
Dalton, a Navy veteran, received support from New Politics, a national group that recruits and promotes Democratic candidates from service backgrounds such as the military or teaching.
Today I’m launching my campaign for Congress in Florida’s 7th district. I’ve dedicated my career to serving this country – in combat zones, on medevac missions, and at NASA. I’m stepping up again because Florida deserves mission-first leadership, not self-serving politics. pic.twitter.com/ogRH872yMp
— Bale Dalton (@BaleDaltonFL) November 17, 2025
“Usually this would not be a race we would play in at all,” Emily Cherniack, the group’s founder and executive director, said of Mills’s district.
Both the House Democrats’ campaign arm and its allied super PAC began this cycle determined to expand the battlefield and recruit candidates who could compete in Trump districts, hoping to build a wave. Republicans argue the smaller sliver of toss-up districts compared to 2018 reduces the chances of a 30- or 40-seat swing.
Not all the Democrats’ ambitions have panned out. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee initially said it would target incumbents including Ann Wagner of Missouri, Greg Murphy of North Carolina and Mike Turner of Ohio, but those races haven’t shown signs of heating up. Cook still rates them as solid Republican.
Democrats have also coveted the St. Petersburg, Florida-area seat held by Anna Paulina Luna, but a clear challenger hasn’t emerged from the primary, and Luna has almost $1.4 million on hand. Florida’s districts could change dramatically as the legislature enters a special session to consider redrawing the lines in the middle of the decade, as Trump urged Texas and other Republican-led states to do, with California and other Democrats responding in kind.
Trump is determined to defy the historical pattern in which the president’s party loses congressional seats in the midterm. On Monday, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and James Blair, her deputy who’s taking a leave to lead Trump’s political operation, briefed consultants and operatives affiliated with the president’s flagship MAGA Inc. super PAC on data and strategy for the midterms. Trump is also scheduled to speak to donors and operatives at a Republican National Committee retreat in Florida on Friday.
“Even when you have a great president, they tend to lose the midterms,” Trump said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo that aired on Fox Business last week. “It doesn’t make sense to me. So we’re going to try turning it around.”
Democrats have expressed excitement about Republican-held seats in Iowa (2nd district), Kentucky (6th district), South Carolina (1st district) and Texas (23rd district) where the incumbents aren’t running for reelection.
They are also aiming for upsets against Nick Begich in Alaska, Jeff Crank in Colorado and Bill Huizenga in Michigan. Republicans point out that Crank and Huizenga outran Trump in their districts in 2024. In Crank’s district, 39 percent of registered voters are Republicans, compared to 19 percent who are Democrats. Even an eight-point swing to the left from 2024 would give the incumbent a six-point lead. Cook rates all three likely Republican.
In Arizona, Democrats are betting a former president of the Navajo Nation, Jonathan Nez, can upset Rep. Eli Crane. Crane, a hard-line Freedom Caucus member, won the seat from a moderate Democrat in 2022, and the district has shifted right, with a growing GOP advantage in voter registration. No statewide Republican has ever received less than 50 percent of the vote in the district, and Crane has more than $2.3 million cash on hand.
“Republicans are not the solution to all of your problems, but Democrats are pretty much the cause of all of your problems,” Crane said Friday at a Turning Point USA rally in Phoenix. “We can beat these guys. We absolutely can beat them back.”
But in 2024, Nez outperformed Kamala Harris and Sen. Ruben Gallego, without support from national Democrats. Across the rural district that covers more than half the state, an area larger than Iowa, Nez is campaigning by emphasizing the cost of living, three rural health care centers at risk of closing because of Medicaid cuts that Crane voted for, and Crane’s living outside the district’s boundaries (which is allowed in Arizona).
“My opponent should be worried,” Nez said. “If Eli Crane were to visit the communities he represents, I think he would be more connected to the folks here. We are seeing negative impacts from the votes he has taken.”
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