{"id":159927,"date":"2026-02-28T14:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T14:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=159927"},"modified":"2026-02-28T14:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T14:16:13","slug":"democrats-believe-scandal-and-weak-fundraising-put-these-red-seats-in-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=159927","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Democrats Believe Scandal and Weak Fundraising Put These Red Seats in Play&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.notus.org\/campaigns\/republicans-cory-mills-and-andy-ogles-red-districts-democrats-ethics-and-fundraising\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NOTUS<\/a>: &#8220;House Democrats think they can expand their 2026 midterm map to include a couple of typically safe red districts because the incumbents have twin vulnerabilities: weak fundraising and ethics issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Florida Republican Rep. Cory Mills faced allegations of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.notus.org\/congress\/cory-mills-iraq-bronze-star\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>stolen valor<\/u><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.notus.org\/congress\/rep-cory-mills-under-investigation-for-assault-police-say\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>domestic violence<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and shady business dealings this campaign cycle, and those issues appear to have deteriorated his campaign\u2019s ability to bring in cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Last fall, between October and December, Mills raised a mere $61,000 \u2014 incredibly low numbers from a candidate who had never struggled to raise well over $100,000, often more than $200,000, every quarter since his election in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">In that same time period, Bale Dalton, his Democratic challenger, a Navy veteran and former NASA chief of staff, raisedmore than $343,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">\u201cMy message is: Life is too expensive, and Cory Mills is too corrupt to fix it,\u201d Dalton told NOTUS in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Chaz Molder, the mayor of Columbia, Tennessee, and Democrat challenging Rep. Andy Ogles, senses a similar opportunity. Although the district also historically votes Republican, Molder raised well over $1 million in the last two quarters of 2025, compared to Ogles\u2019 $209,000 in that same period<strong>,<\/strong>&nbsp;as the congressman attempts to fend off an investigation into alleged&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/tennesseelookout.com\/2025\/01\/02\/u-s-house-ethics-board-calls-for-more-investigation-of-tennessee-5th-district-congressman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>campaign finance violations<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe are talking to everyone,\u201d Molder told NOTUS in an interview, \u201cbecause we understand we have to bring people together and bring voters to our side that have perhaps voted for Andy Ogles in the past, that are disappointed with their vote because they see what kind of ineffective leader he has been.\u201d&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NOTUS: &#8220;House Democrats think they can expand their 2026 midterm map to include a couple of typically safe red districts because the incumbents have twin vulnerabilities: weak fundraising and ethics issues. Florida Republican Rep. Cory Mills faced allegations of\u00a0stolen valor,\u00a0domestic violence\u00a0and shady business dealings this campaign cycle, and those issues appear to have deteriorated his&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159928,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159927\/revisions\/159928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}