Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) is seen as the Democratic Party’s most vulnerable incumbent in Congress’ upper chamber. He’s emphasizing combating corruption as he runs for reelection. via Associated Press
More than 80 Democratic members of Congress and candidates have signed on to a new pledge aiming to prove their anti-corruption bona fides, giving the party an opportunity to unite behind a message of combating President Donald Trump’s corruption.
The pledge, organized by End Citizens United, represents a shift in how Democrats talk about good governance compared to their approach under former President Joe Biden. It places less emphasis on politically polarizing battles over voting rights and more focus on limiting the role of money in politics, in a way that the party hopes can persuade deeply cynical independent and swing voters.
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It also provides the opportunity for candidates from both the party’s progressive and moderate wings to adopt a unified message and bypass the ideological squabbling that has defined the party since its loss in the 2024 election cycle and to separate themselves from the party’s still-toxic brand.
“Coming out of 2024, addressing corruption is a big priority for voters, but they don’t see any difference between the two parties,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United. “In previous midterm waves, whether it was 1994, 2006 or 2018, whichever party has managed to grab the mantle of anti-corruption has been able to triumph.”
The members and candidates are agreeing to support a ban on members of Congress from trading individual stocks; pledging to reject campaign donations from corporate PACs; and cracking down on so-called “dark money” by supporting legislation to reveal donors hidden by the existing campaign finance system and reforming the Federal Elections Commission.
The Democrats who have signed on span the party’s ideological spectrum, including both progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Blue Dog Coalition member Rep. Jared Golden of Maine. They include the party’s most vulnerable Senate incumbent in Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.), one of its top Senate recruits in Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.) and every member of the crowded Democratic primary fields in Iowa and Texas.
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Ossoff, in particular, has emphasized combating corruption as he runs for reelection in a swing state against a divided GOP field.
“Our fight is against deeply entrenched corruption and greed,” he said during a speech in July. “Corruption and greed that have so deeply rotted our system that it gave rise to this depraved man who has now plagued our public life for a decade.” (The depraved man, of course, is Donald Trump.)
One independent Senate candidate, Nebraska union leader Dan Osborn, has also signed the pledge.
Muller said the group will continue to roll out tranches of candidates who signed on to the pledge, and hopes to have more than 150 signatures by the end of the cycle. She acknowledged many Democrats won’t be able to abide by all three planks of the pledge, but said congressional leadership was broadly on board with the proposed agenda.
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“Leadership knows that cleaning up corruption is going to need to be one of the main planks of our midterm strategy,” she said. “It’s our job to push them to go further.”
Recent public surveys on who the public trusts more to combat corruption have shown the public split, with the GOP gaining a slight edge. That’s a reversal from most of Trump’s first term, when Democrats’ focus on the topic powered them to control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency.
But Muller now acknowledges the Biden White House and other Democrats erred by shifting their focus to voting rights following the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection as they unsuccessfully tried to sell Congress on a massive democracy reform package. Those issues tend to divide Americans by party, whereas talking about corruption and limiting the power of money in politics is generally a winner across party lines.
“We quit talking about it. It was a mistake,” she said. “What got us to H.R. 1 in the first place was a focus on the money in politics, the broken system that people desperately want us to fix.”
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Trump’s behavior in office is giving Democrats plenty of corruption to run against. Most recently, a New York Times report this week outlined how the United Arab Emirates’ ruling family deposited $2 billion into a cryptocurrency company owned by the Trump family as the Trump administration decided to allow the sale of valuable AI computer chips to the Gulf nation.
Trump has also used government resources to promote his golf courses, attended a dinner with owners of his cryptocurrency and accepted a gift of a $400 million plane to serve as Air Force One from the Qatari government. The plane would be turned over to Trump’s presidential library foundation after he leaves office.
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