The Midterms Weren’t Red vs. Blue, They Were Bought vs. Not Bought

This week, voters in red and purple states sent Democrats to the Senate who ran against corporate money. James Talarico won in Texas. Annie Andrews won in South Carolina. Adam Hamilton won in Kansas. All three took $0 in corporate PAC money.

More than 16 years after Citizens United gave corporations a free speech right to unlimited political spending, I believe Americans have reached a breaking point. A fundamental realignment is underway, and the midterms are the clearest evidence yet. The 2028 lesson is not to find the most “electable,” most “moderate,” or most anti-MAGA Democrat. It’s to nominate one who is boldly and proudly against corporate money. A candidate who is not bought.

I know because I’ve spent years reporting on it. I was the fifth hire at More Perfect Union, a news start-up that would focus on the working class issues the mainstream media so often ignored. We told working-class stories across all 50 states: minor league ballplayers living in abject poverty, corporate chains flagrantly breaking the law, baristas organizing their Starbucks one store at a time, each inspired by a video of the last. We filmed factory workers at Kellogg’s and John Deere, resident doctors, Hollywood writers. The struggle was the same in every state and county, and in every workplace. It wasn’t a blue one or a red one. It was a working-class one.

Abdul El Sayed’s slogan, “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and medicare for all” is the blueprint, and we must follow it.

It came into focus covering freight rail. In 2022, rail workers nearly shut down the US economy by refusing a contract with zero guaranteed sick days. President Joe Biden, the self-proclaimed “Union President,” brokered the deal rail workers had just rejected, then asked Congress to impose it on the 125,000 workers anyway. The Congress that did so had taken millions from the same railroads. In the 2020 cycle alone, rail PACs gave $3.7 million to congressional candidates.

That was the corporate Democrat playbook in one decision: Say you stand with workers, then side with the people who fund you when it counts. That’s the Democratic Party voters have been rejecting, and it’s the one we have to leave behind.

Now look at the midterms. Abdul El-Sayed won in Michigan, Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, Josh Turek in Iowa, and Jon Ossoff in Georgia, all at $0 in corporate PAC money. Mary Peltola in Alaska and Scott Colom in Mississippi, whose races are too close to call as I write, fit the same mold. Angie Nixon took no corporate money and came within 200,000 votes in Florida, a state considered solidly red. Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown won without this message, but I believe they’re the exceptions to the rule.

Abdul El Sayed’s slogan, “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and medicare for all” is the blueprint, and we must follow it.

Talarico, the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Texas since 1988, pointed out over and over in his campaign that "in America, we have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis." Andrews was proud to say that "I don't take a dime of corporate PAC money.” and differentiated herself from her opponent by saying, "Unlike Senator Graham, I will not sell out to big money or take any corporate PAC money." This is the same anti-swamp, outsider message President Donald Trump won on, only this one has spine.

Voters are sick of watching the cost of everything rise while we send billions overseas for new wars. They’re sick of being forced to work longer hours, adopt AI without guardrails, and produce more without seeing their paychecks go up, all while the US produces its first trillionaire.

Campaign finance is public record. Tools like the Political Integrity Index let anyone see which candidates are selling out to corporations and which have taken an integrity pledge to the people who elected them. To win the presidency in 2028, Democrats must take a bold stand against corporate influence over politicians and campaigns. To save our democracy, we must do as much.