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CAN A SQUAD OF PROGRESSIVE VETS STORM CAPITOL HILL IN 2026?  
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Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
October 25, 2025
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_ Fortunately, heading into the 2026 mid-term elections some military
veterans from working class backgrounds are trying to challenge big
money in politics with what Nebraska Senatorial candidate Dan Osborn
calls “paycheck populism.” _

Zachary Shrewsbury, a candidate for the 2026 U.S. Senate election in
West Virginia, speaks to a packed house at the "Fighting Oligarchy"
tour inside the Capitol Theatre in Wheeling, W.Va., on Aug. 8, 2025,
photo: Andrew Spellman/The Spirit of Jefferson

 

During the mid-term election next year, the Democratic Party hopes to
regain lost ground on Capitol Hill by running a new crop of 
“service candidates”
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and women whose campaign bios stress their past experience in the
military and national security agencies.

One booster of this approach is Elissa Slotkin, a business-friendly
Democrat who won a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan last year. She first
entered politics, as a successful candidate for the House in 2018,
after three tours of duty in Iraq as a CIA analyst and then working as
a top-level Pentagon official, whose responsibilities included
“ensuring Israel’s qualitative military edge.”
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In a candid interview with Politico
[[link removed]],
she urged Democrats to ditch their reputation for being “weak and
woke” and field more candidates, like herself, who have “goddamn
Alpha energy” and can “fucking retake the flag.” In pursuit of
this objective, her mainly male ex-colleagues in the House who served
in the military have created a  Democratic Veterans Caucus
[[link removed]]
(DVC), co-chaired by Representatives Ted Lieu (D-CA.), Pat Ryan
(D-NY.) and Chris Deluzio (D-PA).

The DVC wants to create “a pipeline for the next generation of
veteran and national-security-expert elected leaders.” Its favored
candidates will get much financial help from the wealthy donors behind
VoteVets, a DP-aligned Super PAC which showered $30 million on
candidates like Slotkin last year. (Slotkin has also benefited from
more  $650,000 in campaign spending by AIPAC
[[link removed]].)

The DVC is rightly concerned about MAGA threats like President
Trump’s “politicization” of the military and unlawful
multi-state deployment of the National Guard for domestic policing
purposes. According to Deluzio, a former Navy officer, it’s now a
very “powerful thing for us to organize, as Democratic veterans, on
some of those issues where we can’t reach compromise, and nor should
we. We should fight for our values where we can.” 

FAILING ITS FIRST TEST?

That “fight for our values” did not last long. In a vote taken
soon after the DVC was formed, a majority of its members--including
Deluzio—folded completely when House Republicans pressured them to
back a resolution
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honoring “a fierce defender of the American founding and its
timeless principles of life, liberty, limited government, and
individual responsibility.” 

The recipient of this official praise was a deceased non-vet from
Arizona named Charlie Kirk. In the same Orwellian language, Kirk was
lauded by 85 other House Democrats as a model citizen engaged in
“respectful, civil discourse,” who “worked tirelessly to promote
unity.”

Three DVC members voted “present” and two were recorded as not
voting at all on this mis-representation of Kirk’s “life and
legacy” as a right-wing bigot, 2020 election results denier, and
defender of January 6, 2021 rioters. Only 46-year old U.S. Rep. Seth
Moulton—now an announced primary challenger to 79-year old Senator
Ed Markey (D-MA) next year—and two others had the courage to vote
against the measure because of Kirk’s long history of being an
openly racist, misogynist, and homophobic immigrant basher.  

This revealing performance was the latest reminder that most
successful service candidates quickly become part of the bi-partisan
status quo i
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Washington. Whether elected as “moderate Democrats”
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or, more often, as MAGA Republicans, veterans on Capitol Hill rarely
challenge U.S. foreign and military policy. 

Instead, they regularly rubber-stamp ever-bigger Pentagon budgets.
They have voted, nearly unanimously, for $22 billion in military aid
for Israel, during its genocidal assault on Gaza. And too many have
been past supporters of privatizing
[[link removed]] essential
services from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which Ivy
League-educated officer class vets like Moulton or DOD Secretary Pete
Hegseth,
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rarely need themselves.

CAPTIVES OF CRYPTO

Another “service candidate” short-coming, in both major parties,
is a shared dependence on corporate funding. Consider, for example,
the recent career trajectory of Ruben Gallego
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an Iraq war vet from a working-class Latino immigrant background in
Arizona. As a House member, he was a defender of the VA and signed a
Sanders-Warren backed “End the Forever War”
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pledge, circulated by Common Defense, the progressive veterans’
group.

When the former Marine geared up for his successful run for the Senate
last year, he let his membership in the House Progressive Caucus lapse
(claiming that its dues had become too high!) After that drop out,
Gallego’s votes on anything related to US support for Israel’s war
on Gaza got progressively worse. 

Gallego ended up winning his Senate race with the help of wealthy
backers seeking less regulation of crypto currency; their
“independent expenditures” on him alone exceeded $10 million last
year. Total crypto industry spending on his campaign, Slotkin’s, and
others involved in tight 2024 races was $130 million.  

That industry investment paid off this year when Gallego and Slotkin
joined sixteen other Senate Democrats in voting for the “Guiding and
Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.”
As Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren warned
[[link removed]], this
Trump-backed legislation provides inadequate protections for consumers
and the banking system, while allowing tech companies to issue their
own private currencies and “take control over the money supply.”

A PAYCHECK POPULIST

Fortunately, heading into the 2026 mid-term elections, there are some
military veterans, from working class backgrounds, trying to challenge
big money in politics by ousting some of its most devoted servants.

With plenty of “alpha energy,” they are promoting what Nebraska
Senatorial candidate Dan Osborn calls “paycheck populism
[[link removed]].”  In five red or purple
states, they are appealing to blue collar voters (including those with
Trump voter remorse). They are trying to recruit a grassroots army of
volunteers and raise enough “small dollar” donations to beat
corporate Dem opponents in 2026 primary races and then well-funded
Republican incumbents in the general election.

Osborn, a Navy and National Guard veteran from Omaha, Nebraska, has
already proven it’s possible to become a viable candidate without a
professional-managerial class background. The former local union
president and Kellogg’s strike leader by-passed his state’s 2024
Democratic primary and ran as a labor-backed independent
[[link removed]].
To the shock and awe of many, Osborn garnered 47% of the vote in a red
state that Kamala Harris lost by 59 to 39 percent last November.

Osborn’s challenge to Republican Deb Fischer, a corporate-funded,
two-term Trump-loving incumbent, was initially given little chance of
success--even without a Democratic Party vote-splitter on the ballot.
When Osborn recently announced his second run for the Senate, as an
independent, the state Party again wisely and helpfully bowed out of
the race (although any Nebraskan could still grab its November, 2026
ballot line by entering and winning an otherwise uncontested
primary). 

Osborn’s new sparring partner is “Wall Street Pete” Ricketts, a
former governor and ultra-rich Republican businessman who voted for
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” in July. According to
Osborn [[link removed]], that second term
legislative triumph provided an “historic tax cut for the 1
percent,” while taking billions “away from social services and
healthcare for hard working people” dependent on Medicaid. 

On the campaign trail, Osborn is again blasting both major parties for
being “bought and paid for by corporations and billionaires.” 
And like other progressive, labor-oriented vets profiled below, he’s
highlighting the gross under-representation of workers in a
Congressional “country club full of Ivy League graduates, former
business execs, and trust fund babies.” 

A CITIZENS UNITED CRITIC

Osborn’s campaign did not go unnoticed in neighboring Iowa by
40-year old Nathan Sage. He’s a working-class veteran of the
Marines, the Army, and three tours of duty in Iraq who went to college
on the GI Bill. Before anyone else thought MAGA Republican Joni Ernst,
might be vulnerable at the polls in 2026, Sage declared his candidacy
for her Senate seat. 

Raised in an Iowa trailer park by a factory worker father and nursing
assistant mother, Sage began hammering Ernst even before her infamous
April, 2025 town hall meeting comment about federal budget cuts not
being such a threat to the longevity of the poor since “we all are
doing to die.” After a popular backlash about that, other Iowa
Democrats--holding current state or local elected offices— joined
the fray, making for a crowded primary field
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is now an open seat, because Ernst  decided not to run for
re-election,

None of Sage’s rivals for the nomination share his singular
orientation as a “voice for every Iowan who struggles to get
by.”  The former radio station news director and now small-town
economic development promoter is a fierce critic of big business. His
campaign platform [[link removed]] targets insurance
industry rip-offs, big pharma abuses, price gouging by private equity
owned healthcare providers, and VA privatization.

 “People understand that government's not working for us,” Sage
told us. “We're the richest country in the world, and over 60% of
our population lives paycheck to pay-check…We’ve got to get big
money out of politics, by over-turning Citizens United, so elections
are not just a pay-to-play scheme and more working-class people
actually have a chance to win.”  

A GAZA WAR FOE IN WEST VIRGINIA

Like Osborn, former Marine Zach Shrewsbury launched his second
campaign for the Senate, after losing to a different Republican in
2024. Like Sage, he decided to take the Democratic primary route. If
successful on that hostile terrain, he would be up against incumbent
Senator Shelley Moore Capito whose family, he says, “has ruled West
Virginia for decades like feudal lords passing power down like
heirlooms while our towns crumbled and our people suffered.”

Shrewsbury’s grandfather was a union coal miner but he grew up in a
Republican family. After military service abroad, he became an
organizer for Common Defense and got involved in progressive electoral
politics and then environmental justice campaigning in a state long
plagued by poverty and pollution. His current project is Blue Jay
Rising, which integrates voter registration and community engagement
with much-needed mutual aid initiatives.

As a Senate candidate, Shrewsbury will again draw on his military
background to speak truth to power about how billions of tax-payer
dollars that could be better spent at home have helped fund Israel’s
“illegal, immoral, and massive attacks on civilians and civilian
infrastructure…to drive Palestinians out of Gaza.” 

THE OYSTERMAN AGAINST OLIGARCHY

As part of her “war plan
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to elect more like-minded corporate Democrats next year, Michigan
Senator Slotkin has sternly advised candidates not to use the term
“oligarchy.” In Maine, one Marine Corps and Army veteran who
served in Iraq and Afghanistan, did not get that memo from party
headquarters.

When 41-year old Graham Platner,
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who works as an oyster farmer, announced his challenge to incumbent
Republican Senator Susan Collins, he declared that the enemy of the
vast majority of Americans “is the oligarchy.” Like Osborn, Sage,
and Shrewsbury, Platner is taking direct aim at the big money in
politics deployed by “the billionaire class” to thwart much needed
change. 

“Why can't we have universal healthcare like every other first-world
country?" he asks. "Why are we funding endless wars and bombing
children? Why are CEOs more powerful than unions? We've fought three
different wars since the last time we raised the minimum wage."

On his campaign website [[link removed]],
Platner has pledged to support Medicare for All, protect Social
Security, push for a "billionaire minimum tax," a regulatory
crack-down on polluters and "urgent action on climate change.”
"Nobody I know around here can afford a house," Platner says
[[link removed]].
"Healthcare is a disaster, hospitals are closing. We have watched all
of that get ripped away from us…”  

At a Labor Day Rally in Portland
[[link removed]], Platner
welcomed the endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders and told a cheering
crowd of 6,500 that “our taxpayer dollars can build schools and
hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza.” In a
social media post the next day, he doubled down on that message,
saying: “It’s not complicated. Not one more taxpayer dollar for
genocide.”

This did not go down well with 75-year old Senate Minority leader
Chuck Schumer. He strongly urged termed out Maine Governor Janet
Mills, a 78-year old ready for retirement from politics, to join the
Senate primary race. Despite a corporate Dem/Maine Republican Party
effort to discredit him, Platner is polling well against Mills so far
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He’s also drawing large and enthusiastic local crowds of people who
want to send someone to Washington who is not another geriatric
“moderate,” like the nearly 74-year old Collins (who embraces that
same label as a Republican).

THE UNION DEFENDER IN NORTH CAROLINA

Richard Ojeda began his twenty-five-year Army career as an enlisted
man and then went through officer training after completing college;
he retired with the rank of major. In 2018, Ojeda became the West
Virginia politician most supportive of the pay and benefit demands of
the twenty-five thousand public school teachers who staged an illegal
statewide walk-out. 

He spoke on the strikers’ behalf at many rallies and, inspired by
their “red state revolt,” decided to take his own populist working
class politics to Congress, via an uphill 2018 fight against a
right-wing Republican. After his defeat, Ojeda started a PAC called
“No Dem Left Behind,” to aid other candidates, like himself,
running in rural, conservative districts, with not much support from
the DNC. 

He moved to North Carolina, where he has now launched a political
come-back as a Democratic primary candidate in that state’s deep red
9th Congressional district. In his current campaign
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well-connected House Republican, Ojeda defends the rights of
immigrants and workers, supporting public education and Medicaid
expansion, rather than cuts, and rallying fellow vets against
DOGE-driven threats to VA jobs and services. 

On the veterans’ affairs front, Ojeda took an unusual step for a
political candidate. He collected 90,000 signatures on a petition
protesting Trump Administration attacks on VA patients and their
unionized care-givers. Then, he personally delivered it to agency
officials in Washington and demanded that VA Secretary Doug Collins
“reject the unlawful executive order by Trump which rips out
long-standing civil rights protections and opens the door to denying
VA care based on marital status, sexual orientation, religion, or even
voting for a Democrat.”

On the campaign trail, Ojeda finds encouraging signs that others who
once voted for Trump (as he did in 2016) are having second thoughts as
“they look around at the wreckage so far, the ICE kidnappings, the
censorship, and the economic pain.” More people, he believes, “are
realizing that they were pawns in the oldest con in the book—blame
immigrants, blame workers, blame anyone who doesn’t look or pray or
live the day you do.”

“People are waking up,” Ojeda says. “They’re fed up that
they’ve been lied to. They’re angry and they damn well should
be.  Our job now is to meet that anger with something stronger than
shame, because mocking people who got conned won’t win anything. The
only way to defeat a movement based on fear and division is to build
one rooted in courage and care.”

_Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon are the co-authors of a forthcoming
book called The Betrayal of Veterans: How the Broken Promises of MAGA
Republicans and Corporate Democrats Put Working Class Americans (and
all of us) At Risk. They can be reached at [email protected]._

* Veterans
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* populism
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* elections
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