The federal workforce underwent an enormous overhaul the past two years since President Donald Trump moved back into the White House. Between massive cuts implemented under Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service and unprecedented political pressure at agencies such as the Justice Department, there has been a mass exodus of nearly 1 in 5 federal workers.
Now, three of them are returning to government, this time as members of Congress. Each ran as Democrats and flipped formerly Republican-held seats.
Former smoke jumper Sam Forstag, 32, is on track to win Montana’s 1st District. (His opponent has conceded, but the Associated Press has yet to call the race.)
Forstag, a former union leader for his cohort of federal workers, told The Washington Post that he was inspired to run after the drastic cutbacks by DOGE to U.S. Forest Service employees, which he experienced firsthand as a wilderness firefighter, a dangerous job in rugged terrain. He tried to get his congressman at the time, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Montana), on the phone to discuss his concerns, he said, but all he heard was “crickets.” He is now poised to take over Zinke’s vacated seat.
“There’s a lot of ways to sell off our public lands, and one of them is to gut the agencies,” he said, noting that the Forest Service lost nearly 20 percent of its workforce, about 5,800 employees. He said he personally experienced the impact of those cutbacks while fighting fires two summers ago, when he asked for additional help — a “hotshot crew” of elite firefighters — and was told more personnel would not arrive for two weeks.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Forstag said one of his top legislative priorities would be the bipartisan Protect America’s Workforce Act, which would restore union and collective-bargaining rights for federal employees.
Zach Dembo, who won Kentucky’s 6th District, is a former Justice Department attorney. He resigned last year over the alleged politicization of the department. In an interview after his win, Dembo said he would keep his campaign promise to investigate any corruption, no matter if it comes from Democrats or Republicans. “I think being a former prosecutor is a helpful skill set on any committee,” Dembo said.
And in South Carolina, the Republican opponent of Nancy Lacore, a former U.S. Navy admiral who was fired this year by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, conceded amid a narrow race that has not yet been called.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R) won the seat by nearly 17 points in 2024. Lacore has a one-point lead in the race for the state’s 1st District.
Lacore told The Post that as she spoke with voters on the campaign trail, they increasingly raised government corruption as a concern. She said she doesn’t own any stocks and considers preventing insider trading a top priority when she gets to Congress. Voters in her district also want to see an end to the war with Iran and an end to high gas prices.
“That power to declare war and send our servicemen and women into combat should be with Congress,” she said. “And I will make sure we are sticking with that.”
Other candidates who were formerly federal workers also nearly topped incumbents. Chris Backemeyer, who oversaw foreign aid in the Middle East at the State Department, conceded to Rep. Mike Flood in Nebraska’s 1st District, although the AP has not called the race. The Post counted 11 former federal workers in the running for House seats; others ran for state and local offices.
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