These endorsements should not be read as a general-election endorsement of the Democratic Party. CIVPAC includes members with different views about which party should control Congress. But we are united in believing that, when Democratic primary voters have a choice between practical center-left candidates and far-left or DSA-aligned candidates, the practical center-left candidate is usually more consistent with CIVPAC’s principles.
The three races are different. Missouri’s 1st District is a safe Democratic district, where the central question is what kind of Democrat should represent the district. Wisconsin’s 3rd District is a competitive, Republican-held district, where Democratic primary voters should give serious weight to breadth of appeal and practical governing judgment. New Hampshire’s 1st District is a competitive open seat in a politically independent state, where the Democratic nominee will need to appeal beyond the activist base.
In each race, CIVPAC believes Democratic primary voters have a better center-left alternative to far-left or DSA-aligned politics.
CIVPAC endorses Wesley Bell, Rebecca Cooke, and Stefany Shaheen in their respective Democratic primaries.
These are not endorsements of perfect candidates. They are endorsements of the better choices in a party that should be trying to strengthen its claim to practical, institutionally serious governance.
Colorado matters because it is not New York. It is a state where Democrats have built real strength, where statewide victories are possible, and where the party has had room to present itself as pragmatic, modern, and broadly appealing. That makes the current primary choices especially important.
Democrats should be in a strong position nationally. President Trump and his allies have weakened the Republican Party’s claim to constitutional seriousness, institutional restraint, and responsible governance. In such an environment, Democrats should be expanding their appeal to independents, moderates, suburban voters, disaffected Republicans, and voters exhausted by politics as permanent combat.
Instead, too many Democratic primary voters seem tempted to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.
But politics is not only emotional expression. It is also coalition-building and governance.
That is why CIVPAC supports John Hickenlooper in the Colorado Democratic Senate primary. Hickenlooper is a serious, pragmatic, center-left Democrat with experience as mayor, governor, and senator. He is the kind of candidate who can help Democrats maintain a broad governing coalition and preserve credibility with voters who do not think like Democratic activists.
Julie Gonzales is a serious public official and deserves respect. But her challenge reflects a broader impatience with mainstream Democratic politics. CIVPAC does not believe Colorado Democrats should replace a proven statewide winner and pragmatic senator with a more ideological challenger at a moment when the party’s central task should be expanding its claim to the center.
The same concern applies in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District.
Diana DeGette is not a centrist Democrat. She is a mainstream progressive Democrat from a safe Democratic district. CIVPAC does not endorse her because she represents our ideal policy position. She does not. We endorse her because the primary choice is not between centrism and progressivism. It is between an experienced mainstream progressive and a democratic-socialist challenger whose victory would further strengthen the movement-left direction of the party in one of its safest seats.
That matters beyond Denver.
Safe Democratic districts are not politically isolated. They help define the national Democratic brand. When deep-blue districts choose candidates whose politics are more ideological, more urban, more confrontational, and more movement-driven, voters elsewhere notice. So do Republican campaigns and conservative media. The party cannot say it wants to win everywhere while allowing its safest districts to become symbols of a politics that travels poorly.
This is the same concern CIVPAC raised in New York. The problem is not that every movement-left candidate is identical or that every incumbent deserves protection. The problem is that Democratic voters in safe districts and primaries may be choosing candidates who intensify the party’s internal mood while weakening its national appeal.
That is a dangerous road.
A party serious about governing must tolerate internal variety. It needs candidates who fit different electorates. It needs some members who are more progressive and some who are more moderate. It needs new candidates, but not every new candidate is an improvement. It needs energy, but energy is not a substitute for judgment.
The Democratic Party should not make the same mistake that MAGA made in the Republican Party: treating moderation inside the party as betrayal. MAGA created the language of RINOs and loyalty tests. Democrats should not create their own version of that habit by treating pragmatic Democrats as embarrassments, obstacles, or insufficiently pure.
By “Blue MAGA,” CIVPAC does not mean that democratic socialism and Trumpism are identical. They are not. They represent different threats. They do have a core similarity: the habit of treating politics as a test of factional loyalty rather than as a practical exercise in persuasion and governance. The habit of assuming that the other side’s extremism justifies our side’s extremism. The habit of confusing activist enthusiasm with general-election strength.
Colorado Democrats should resist that temptation.
Hickenlooper and DeGette are very different candidates in very different races. But the common thread is the same. Both represent mainstream Democratic politics against challengers who would move the party further toward a more left-wing, movement-driven style. CIVPAC believes Democrats should choose the candidates who strengthen the party’s claim to responsible governance, not candidates who make the party easier to caricature.
President Trump has given Democrats an opening. He has reminded many voters why institutional seriousness matters. He has made some independents and moderate Republicans available to persuasion. He has weakened the Republican claim to constitutional conservatism.
Democrats can use that opening to build a broader coalition. Or they can squander it by allowing their primaries to become exercises in ideological self-expression.
That is why CIVPAC supports John Hickenlooper and Diana DeGette in Colorado’s Democratic primaries.
The country does not need a blue version of factional politics. It needs a stronger governing center.
CIVPAC has posted several new primary and runoff endorsements in Georgia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The races are different, but the standards are the same.
CIVPAC is looking for candidates who show practical judgment, respect for democratic institutions, willingness to govern beyond slogans, and some understanding of how policy actually works. We are trying to identify candidates who strengthen the governing center.
That sometimes means endorsing a Democrat. Sometimes it means endorsing a Republican. Sometimes it means making no endorsement.
Georgia Republican Runoffs
In Georgia, CIVPAC endorses Derek Dooley in the Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate and makes no endorsement in the Republican primary runoff for Governor.
The Senate runoff presents a clear comparative judgment. Derek Dooley is not a perfect CIVPAC candidate. He is new to politics and has not yet built a public record that allows a full assessment of his governing philosophy. But his opponent, Representative Mike Collins, represents a more confrontational and performative style of politics that CIVPAC has consistently rejected.
Dooley is the more plausible choice for Republicans who want to move Georgia politics back toward a responsible center-right tradition.
The Governor runoff is different. CIVPAC supported Brad Raffensperger in the Republican primary because he demonstrated institutional courage in defending the integrity of Georgia’s 2020 election. With Raffensperger eliminated, the remaining candidates do not present a clear CIVPAC choice. CIVPAC is not obligated to choose between unsatisfactory alternatives merely to appear balanced.
In Maryland, CIVPAC endorses Rushern Baker in the Democratic primary for Maryland’s 5th Congressional District and Representative April McClain Delaney in the Democratic primary for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.
In Maryland’s 5th District, the race to succeed Steny Hoyer includes several candidates with real strengths. Harry Dunn has a powerful January 6 story and deserves respect for his service. Harry Jarin also deserves respect for his public-service background and support for Ukrainian first responders. Adrian Boafo has the support of Representative Hoyer and a plausible continuity argument.
But CIVPAC’s endorsement is ultimately about who appears best prepared to serve effectively in Congress. Rushern Baker has the strongest governing-experience case in the field. His service as Prince George’s County executive gives him direct experience with budgets, administration, public safety, economic development, and the practical tradeoffs of governing.
Read the full Baker endorsement here: [CIVPAC Endorses Rushern Baker in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District Democratic Primary]
In Maryland’s 6th District, CIVPAC endorses April McClain Delaney over former Representative David Trone. This is not because the two candidates differ sharply on every major issue. They do not. Both are mainstream Democrats.
But in a race with limited policy distance between the leading candidates, CIVPAC gives weight to incumbency, continuity, and whether the challenger has made a persuasive affirmative case for replacing the incumbent. Representative McClain Delaney is the sitting member of Congress. She won a competitive general election. She has begun doing the job. In the absence of a compelling policy or performance-based reason to replace her, CIVPAC favors continuity.
CIVPAC also supports Kenyan McDuffie in the Democratic primary for Mayor of Washington, D.C.
CIVPAC does not ordinarily involve itself in local races outside its core geographic focus. But Washington, D.C. is not an ordinary local jurisdiction. It is the nation’s capital, a regional economic center, and a city whose governance affects many people who live and work throughout the Washington metropolitan area.
This race presents a familiar question: pragmatic governance or ideological ambition?
D.C. voters want more affordable housing, improved public safety, a local government that deserves their confidence, protection of home rule, and a strengthened economy that cannot take federal employment, downtown office demand, or private investment for granted. These problems require practical judgment, not slogans.
Housing is a central example. CIVPAC is skeptical of down-payment subsidies in supply-constrained housing markets because they can raise demand rather than supply and make homes more expensive for unsubsidized buyers. The stronger case for McDuffie is his greater emphasis on permitting reform, construction capacity, housing preservation, and working with private and nonprofit builders to expand supply.
CIVPAC also rejects threats of federal overreach against D.C. home rule. But opposition to President Trump should not become a substitute for judgment. The answer to federal overreach is not local overreach. It is steady, serious self-government.
These endorsements are not about party loyalty. They are about judgment.
In Georgia, that means supporting a Republican Senate candidate who appears more connected to a responsible center-right tradition while declining to endorse in a Governor runoff where neither remaining candidate meets CIVPAC’s standard.
In Maryland, it means supporting Democratic candidates who offer governing experience, continuity, and institutional seriousness.
In Washington, D.C., it means supporting a mayoral candidate whose approach is more pragmatic, market-compatible, and realistic about housing, public safety, home rule, and economic growth.
CIVPAC’s general view is that public policy should be economically sound, fair, respectful of individual freedom, politically realistic, and grounded in strong democratic institutions. These endorsements apply that standard across different races and different parties.
The country does not need more political performances aimed at ideologically extreme bases. It needs more serious governing.
There is a new idea circulating in Washington that cuts across ordinary partisan lines: the federal government should take an equity interest in major artificial intelligence companies so the public can share in the gains from AI.
The Case for Capturing the Gains from AI
The instinct behind the idea is understandable. Artificial intelligence is not being created in a vacuum. AI systems draw from the accumulated knowledge of society: public research, open scientific work, software, writing, images, data, language, law, medicine, engineering, and countless other forms of human knowledge. Much of that knowledge was created by people who will not be directly compensated when AI systems use it. Some of it was supported by government-funded research. Some of it came from public institutions. Much of it came from the creative and intellectual work of millions of people over generations.
So there is a legitimate question: if AI produces enormous private wealth, should the public share in some of that gain?
Yes. But government equity ownership is the wrong way to do it.
The Case Against Government Equity Ownership of AI
The first problem is that it is not obvious where the gains from AI will actually accrue. It is possible that a few AI companies will become immensely profitable and capture a large share of the value they create. But it is also possible that competition will drive the market price of AI assistance very low. If that happens, the companies that spend the most building AI systems may not capture anything close to the full social value of what they produce.
History offers a useful warning. The railroads of the nineteenth century created enormous economic value. They opened markets, reduced transportation costs, changed settlement patterns, and increased productivity across the economy. But that did not mean every railroad investor earned extraordinary returns. In many cases, competition, overbuilding, debt, and financial instability shifted the benefits away from the original investors and toward shippers, consumers, landowners, and the broader economy. Many of these railroads went bankrupt.
AI could follow a similar pattern. The largest gains may not remain with the AI model companies. They may flow to software firms, chip companies, cloud providers, manufacturers, hospitals, banks, law firms, schools, small businesses, workers, consumers, and investors across the economy. If AI becomes a cheap general-purpose tool, much of the value may be captured by those who use AI rather than by those who build the underlying models.
This matters because a government equity stake in selected AI firms is a narrow and speculative instrument. It requires the government to decide which companies are likely to capture the future rents from AI. It also requires the government to value highly uncertain firms, negotiate ownership terms, and then manage the conflict between being a regulator and being a shareholder.
This is not a small problem. The federal government should regulate AI in the public interest. It should be concerned about safety, privacy, national security, labor-market effects, competition, misinformation, energy use, and democratic accountability. If the government also owns shares in the firms it regulates, its incentives become muddier. Will policy be written to protect the public, or to protect the value of the government’s portfolio? Even if the answer is “the public,” the appearance of conflict will be hard to avoid.
There is also a simpler point: we already have mechanisms for capturing broad economic gains.
They are called taxes.
The Case for Capturing Some of the Gains from AI Through the Tax System
If AI produces extraordinary corporate profits, the corporate income tax can capture part of those gains. If AI increases the value of publicly traded companies, capital-gains taxes can capture part of those gains when shares are sold. If AI produces great fortunes, estate and inheritance taxes can capture part of those gains when wealth is transferred across generations. If AI raises productivity and wages, individual income taxes will capture part of those gains. If AI benefits a broad range of firms and industries, the tax system can follow the gains wherever they actually appear.
This is a much better approach than trying to make the federal government a venture capitalist.
The tax system is not perfect. In fact, some of the best arguments for public participation in AI gains are really arguments for repairing the tax system.
One obvious reform is limiting the step-up in basis at death. If AI creates enormous unrealized capital gains, those gains should not simply disappear for tax purposes when an owner dies. A tax system that allows large gains to escape both income taxation during life and capital-gains taxation at death is poorly designed. If this creates a record-keeping burden for small inherited portfolios, the limit on step-up in basis can be tied to estates above some significant threshold.
A second reform is preserving, and possibly modestly increasing, the corporate income tax. The goal should not be to punish business investment. AI will require large investments in computing, energy, chips, software, and talent. But if AI substantially increases corporate profits, it is reasonable for part of those profits to support the public institutions and infrastructure that make economic growth possible.
A third reform is tightening the estate tax. A serious estate tax is one of the few mechanisms we have for limiting the permanent concentration of wealth across generations. This does not mean confiscatory taxation. It does mean that very large fortunes should not be able to avoid taxation through increasingly elaborate planning devices.
One particular issue deserves more attention: the use of charitable structures that allow wealthy individuals and families to receive large tax advantages while retaining substantial influence over the assets. Philanthropy can serve public purposes. But an unlimited charitable deduction for self-governed or family-influenced charitable entities can become a way to avoid tax while preserving social power and control. This is not the same thing as paying taxes to support public purposes through the ordinary budget process.
Conclusion
If the public has a claim to the benefits from AI, the cleanest way to recognize that claim is not for the government to take shares in a handful of companies. It is to make sure the tax system captures AI-generated gains wherever they occur.
This approach has several advantages.
It does not require the government to pick winners.
It does not require the government to decide which AI company will dominate ten years from now.
It does not entangle regulators with ownership interests.
It does not assume that AI developers will capture all of the value they create.
It preserves market competition while allowing the public to share in broad economic gains.
And it fits ordinary public-finance principles. When economic activity creates large gains, the tax system should capture a reasonable share of those gains to support public purposes. When economic activity creates risks or external costs, regulation should address those risks directly.
This distinction is important. AI regulation and AI revenue policy should not be confused.
The government should regulate AI where public risks are real. It should address fraud, discrimination, privacy violations, national-security risks, cyber risks, misuse in elections, labor-market disruption, and the concentration of market power. It should consider whether copyright law, data rules, and competition policy need to be updated for the AI era.
But if the question is how the public should share in the economic upside of AI, the answer should be broad tax policy, not public ownership of selected firms.
CIVPAC’s general view is that public policy should be economically sound, fair, respectful of individual freedom, and politically realistic. A federal equity stake in major AI companies fails too many of those tests. It is economically speculative, administratively messy, politically tempting, and likely to create conflicts between regulation and ownership.
The better answer is less dramatic but more durable: preserve competitive markets, regulate AI directly where public risks are real, and fix the tax system so that AI-generated gains cannot escape taxation simply because they appear as corporate profits, unrealized capital gains, or inherited wealth.
AI may well transform the economy. If it does, the public should benefit. But the way to do this is not to make the federal government a shareholder in a few favored companies. The way to do it is to tax the gains wherever they actually appear.
Good public policy should be economically efficient, fair, respectful of personal freedom, and politically realistic.
That last phrase — politically realistic — is important. It is also easy to misuse.
Too often, people say a proposal is “not politically realistic” when what they really mean is, “I don’t like it, and I don’t want to explain why.” It becomes a substitute for argument. Worse, it can become a way of avoiding difficult tradeoffs.
That is not what political realism should mean.
Political realism does not mean surrendering to current public opinion. It does not mean splitting every issue down the middle. It does not mean that reformers should never advocate for ideas that are unpopular today. And it certainly does not mean that the most cautious, least offensive position is always the right one.
Political realism means asking whether a policy can attract enough durable public consent to be enacted, implemented, and sustained.
That is a higher standard than simply asking whether a policy sounds good to the people who already agree with it.
Abortion and the Limits of Absolutism
Abortion is a good example because the extremes are so visible.
A total ban on abortion, with no meaningful exceptions for rape, incest, threats to the life or health of the mother, or catastrophic fetal abnormalities, is not politically realistic in most of the country. It may satisfy a deeply committed pro-life minority, but it asks too much of voters who do not share that absolute moral framework.
At the other extreme, abortion on demand at any time in pregnancy, funded by the government, is also not politically realistic. It may satisfy a deeply committed pro-choice minority, but it asks too much of voters who believe the moral status of the fetus changes as pregnancy progresses.
Political realism does not tell us exactly where the law should be. It does tell us that a durable policy probably has to acknowledge competing moral claims. A society as large and diverse as ours cannot govern abortion well by pretending that only one side’s moral concerns exist.
That does not mean every compromise is good. Some compromises are incoherent. Some are cruel. Some are designed merely to survive the next election. But a policy that refuses to recognize the moral seriousness of the other side is unlikely to last.
What Is Unrealistic Can Change
Political realism also requires humility.
Some ideas that are unrealistic at one point in history become realistic later. Same-sex marriage is the obvious example. Gallup first measured U.S. support for legal same-sex marriage at 27% in 1996. Support reached majority level in 2011, and Gallup measured support at 60% in 2015, the year the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges.
That history matters.
If political realism had meant simply accepting public opinion as it existed in 1996, same-sex marriage would have been dismissed as unrealistic and therefore not worth pursuing. But advocates changed minds. They made arguments. They told stories. They appealed to fairness, family stability, and equal dignity.
In other words, they did not ignore political reality. They changed it.
That is the difference between political realism and political cowardice.
A politically realistic reformer may say, “The country is not there yet.” But the next sentence should be, “What would it take to get there?” Not every unpopular idea deserves that effort. But some do.
Many serious people believe a carbon tax is good policy but politically unrealistic in the United States. They may be right, at least for now. American voters do not like visible taxes. Energy prices are politically explosive. Opponents can easily describe a carbon tax as an attack on ordinary households, rural communities, and working people.
But that does not mean carbon pricing is inherently unrealistic. Other democratic countries have adopted carbon taxes or carbon-pricing systems. The World Bank reports that jurisdictions representing a substantial majority of global GDP have adopted some form of carbon pricing, including carbon taxes, emissions trading systems, or both, and about 28% of global greenhouse-gas emissions are covered by a direct carbon price.
So the question is not whether a carbon tax can exist in a democracy. It can.
The question is whether it can be designed and explained in a way that enough Americans can accept.
That means revenue use matters. Protection for low-income households matters. Border adjustments matter. The effect on domestic industry matters, but not simply because domestic firms deserve protection from competition. The larger issue is that a carbon tax loses much of its effectiveness if carbon-intensive production simply moves overseas and the United States imports the same goods from countries with weaker environmental standards.
A carbon tax that simply raises energy prices and leaves voters to wonder where the money went is probably doomed. A carbon tax paired with transparent revenue use, protection for low-income households, and border adjustments that reduce carbon leakage may still be difficult — but it is not fantasy.
Political realism should force better design. It should not end the conversation.
Social Security and the Politics of Arithmetic
Social Security is a different kind of example.
Almost everyone who looks seriously at the federal budget knows that Social Security cannot remain unchanged forever. The arithmetic does not care about campaign slogans. Longer life expectancy, demographic change, and benefit promises eventually require some combination of higher revenues, benefit adjustments, retirement-age changes, or broader fiscal reform.
And yet almost every specific proposal is politically dangerous.
Raise the retirement age? You hurt people in physically demanding jobs.
Raise payroll taxes? You reduce take-home pay and increase labor costs.
Trim benefits for higher-income retirees? You weaken the link between contributions and benefits.
Borrow more? You push the problem onto younger taxpayers.
So politicians often do what politicians do best: avoid the issue while accusing the other side of secretly planning to destroy the program.
Political realism here does not mean doing nothing. It means recognizing that reform has to be gradual, transparent, and probably grandfathered. It means giving people time to adjust. It means refusing to pretend that there is a painless answer.
Sometimes political realism is not about finding a popular solution. It is about finding the least unfair way to admit reality.
Immigration Reform and Mutual Distrust
Immigration is another area where political realism gets abused.
There is probably a broad political deal available in theory: stronger border enforcement, a more rational legal immigration system, and humane treatment for some long-resident undocumented immigrants, especially those brought here as children.
But the deal repeatedly fails because neither side trusts the other.
Many conservatives believe legalization will happen but enforcement will never follow. Many progressives believe enforcement will become harsh and permanent while humane reforms are delayed or abandoned. Both sides have historical reasons for suspicion.
The distrust is made worse by the way both sides talk about demographics. Some on the right have embraced paranoid claims that Democratic elites are intentionally trying to “replace” existing voters through immigration. That rhetoric is dangerous and should be rejected. But some progressive and Democratic commentators have also treated demographic change as politically or morally encouraging, and Democratic strategists at times assumed that a more diverse electorate would naturally benefit their party. That is very different from a deliberate replacement plot, but it helps explain why some voters hear demographic language as threatening. In a diverse country, demographic change should not be treated as a partisan weapon. Immigration policy needs public consent, and public consent becomes much harder when one side sees immigration as cultural displacement and the other side appears too comfortable with that perception.
Political realism requires acknowledging that distrust.
It is not enough to say, “Comprehensive immigration reform polls well.” Lots of things poll well in the abstract. The real question is whether voters believe the government will actually enforce the parts they care about and protect the people they think deserve protection.
That means sequencing matters. Credibility matters. Administrative competence matters. The details are not details. They are the policy.
Many people say they want affordable housing. Many of the same people oppose new housing near them.
That is not a minor obstacle. It is the obstacle.
A purely technocratic housing reformer can say, correctly, that restrictive zoning reduces supply and raises prices. But that does not make neighborhood opposition disappear. People worry about traffic, schools, parking, neighborhood character, property values, and simple change.
Some of those fears are exaggerated. Some are selfish. Some are real.
Political realism does not mean giving every homeowner a veto over new housing. That is how we got the problem. But it does mean recognizing that reform may need to be phased in, paired with infrastructure, handled partly at the state level, and framed around opportunity, property rights, and affordability rather than simply denouncing every opponent as a NIMBY.
Again, political realism should improve the policy. It should not be an excuse for paralysis.
Trade, Industrial Policy, and the Return of Hard Questions
Trade policy is another area where yesterday’s political realism may no longer be today’s.
A generation ago, the elite consensus in favor of free trade was very strong. It was not entirely wrong. Trade increases efficiency, lowers costs, expands markets, and raises living standards overall.
But the distributional effects were too often minimized. Some communities paid a very high price. Some workers were told, in effect, that the economy was better off even if they were not. That may be true in a narrow economic sense, but it is politically poisonous.
Trade also became the political face of economic disruption that was often driven at least as much by technology and automation. Factories did not just move overseas; they also became more productive, more automated, and less labor-intensive. Even if the United States had closed itself off from trade, many manufacturing jobs would probably still have disappeared. The timing and location of the losses might have been different, and trade clearly played a role in some communities, but the deeper force was not trade alone. It was the combination of global competition, technological change, automation, and changing consumer demand.
That distinction matters because blaming trade alone can lead to the wrong cure. If the real pressure is partly automation, then tariffs may raise costs without bringing back the world people remember.
Now the pendulum has swung toward protectionism and industrial policy. Some of that is understandable, especially given China, supply-chain fragility, and national-security concerns. But broad protectionism is not a serious answer either. It can raise costs, invite retaliation, protect inefficient firms, and reduce economic growth.
A politically realistic position has to hold more than one thought at a time.
We should defend the benefits of trade. We should take national-security vulnerabilities seriously. We should be cautious about industrial policy becoming a pork barrel. And we should stop pretending that workers harmed by trade, immigration, automation, or some combination of all three can be placated with empty retraining rhetoric.
That is not as satisfying as a slogan. But slogans are part of how we got here.
The Misuse of “Politically Unrealistic”
The phrase “politically unrealistic” can be useful. It can also be lazy.
It is useful when it forces people to ask hard questions:
Can this policy pass? Can it survive the next election? Can it be implemented competently? Can voters understand it? Can the losers be treated fairly? Can the policy survive contact with interest groups, courts, bureaucracy, and the budget?
Those are serious questions.
But “politically unrealistic” becomes lazy when it is used to avoid argument.
I have heard people dismiss market-based climate policy as unrealistic when they really object to energy taxes. I have heard people dismiss entitlement reform as unrealistic when they really do not want to identify who should pay more or receive less. I have heard people dismiss immigration compromise as unrealistic when they really do not want compromise. I have heard people dismiss basic-income proposals as unrealistic when they really do not want to rethink the welfare state.
Sometimes “politically unrealistic” means “voters will never accept it.”
Sometimes it means “interest groups will kill it.”
Sometimes it means “I do not like it.”
Those are not the same argument.
What CIVPAC Means
When CIVPAC describes public policy as politically realistic, the point is not that politics should be reduced to polling.
The point is that governing requires consent.
A policy that cannot be explained cannot be sustained. A policy that ignores obvious losers will create backlash. A policy that depends on voters being fooled will eventually fail. A policy that treats half the country as morally illegitimate is unlikely to produce stable government.
But political realism also requires courage.
It requires telling voters that some things cost money. It requires telling interest groups that they cannot have everything. It requires telling activists that intensity is not the same as majority support. It requires telling moderates that compromise is not always available, and telling reformers that good ideas still need political strategy.
Political realism is not an excuse to avoid hard arguments. It is a demand that we make them honestly.
That is the standard CIVPAC tries to apply.
CIVPAC will not always get the balance right. No one does. But the goal is to be clear about the tradeoffs, honest about the constraints, and open to changing our view when public opinion, evidence, or circumstances change.
“What is politically realistic?” should not be the end of the conversation.
We have begun issuing endorsements for the 2026 election cycle, starting with our recent endorsements in Georgia and continuing with our evaluation of Greg Stanton in Arizona’s 4th Congressional District. Additional endorsements will follow over the coming weeks.
Our goal is not to endorse the largest number of candidates, but to apply a consistent framework across a range of competitive races. We evaluate candidates based on the same principles that guide our policy positions: economic efficiency, fairness, personal freedom, and political realism—within the context of strong democratic institutions and a stable international order. In practice, this means placing particular emphasis on a candidate’s willingness to engage with tradeoffs, work across party lines, and operate effectively within existing political constraints.
We are proceeding methodically through a set of races identified from a variety of sources, including publicly available candidate lists and our own review of competitive districts. Our initial focus is on U.S. House races, where candidate quality and governing approach can vary widely and where elections can influence the overall direction of policy.
The order in which endorsements are issued is driven primarily by practical considerations. We are starting with candidates for whom sufficient information is available to make a clear assessment, including incumbents and well-established challengers. In many races, particularly those involving newer or lesser-known candidates, we will defer judgment until more information is available.
In some cases, we expect to endorse candidates in primary elections where there is a clear contrast between a governing-oriented candidate and a more ideological alternative. In others, our focus will be on the general election. We will also take into account the structure of each race, including the presence of independent or third-party candidates and the likelihood that those candidates can compete effectively.
We support efforts to expand voter choice and improve electoral competition, including independent candidacies where they have a credible path to success. At the same time, we believe it is important to consider the likely impact of each vote on the final outcome, particularly in races where non-competitive candidates may influence the result without a realistic chance of winning.
Our endorsements are intended to be transparent, consistent, and grounded in a realistic assessment of both candidates and electoral dynamics. We welcome feedback as this process continues and encourage readers to share their views through the feedback links on each endorsement page. We expect that our approach will evolve as we apply it across additional races.
We reject the increasingly common practice of supporting extreme candidates in the opposing party’s primary in the hope that they will be easier to defeat in the general election. While tactically tempting, this approach contributes directly to polarization and dysfunction.
At the same time, we recognize that voters—particularly independents—often face imperfect choices. In some cases, strategic voting may be appropriate: supporting the candidate who is most likely to produce a better governing outcome, even if that candidate is not an ideal match with my policy preferences. This differs from “sabotage” strategies: the goal is not to weaken the opposing party, but to improve the quality of the likely winner.
In open or semi-open primary systems, this logic may also influence which primary a voter chooses to participate in. Even for voters who typically lean toward one party, if their preferred primary is effectively decided while the other party’s contest is competitive, it can make sense to vote where the outcome is still in doubt—particularly when doing so may help a more moderate candidate prevail over a more extreme alternative.
Support for Bipartisan Problem-Solving
We place a high value on candidates who demonstrate a willingness to work across party lines.
Membership in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus is a strong positive signal. While not a guarantee of alignment with our views, it reflects a commitment to negotiation, compromise, and governing—qualities that are essential to a functioning democracy.
Ideological Alignment and Its Limits
We are less likely to support candidates closely aligned with highly ideological factions.
Membership in the Freedom Caucus is a strong negative signal. Alignment with more ideological factions on the left is also a negative factor, including candidates supported by organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America or the Working Families Party.
At the same time, labels are imperfect indicators. The fact that some members belong to both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus illustrates the limits of ideological labels and the importance of evaluating governing behavior.
Endorsements and Political Incentives
Endorsements provide useful signals about the coalitions a candidate depends on.
A Trump endorsement is viewed as a negative factor in our evaluation, reflecting alignment with a style of politics that we believe has contributed to increased polarization and institutional strain. That said, we also recognize political realities: in some districts, such endorsements may be effectively required for electoral viability. Our evaluations will take this context into account.
Similarly, endorsements from organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America or the Working Families Party are viewed as negative signals, reflecting alignment with policy approaches that we generally believe move away from economically efficient or politically sustainable outcomes.
Demonstrated Independence
We place significant weight on demonstrated independence.
Candidates who show a willingness to depart from their party leadership—particularly when it reflects a willingness to support moderation or bipartisan compromise—provide a strong signal of a governing mindset. While such votes can carry political risk, they are often essential to producing durable policy outcomes.
A Pragmatic, Case-by-Case Approach
No single factor determines our endorsements.
We evaluate candidates holistically, considering:
Their policy positions
Their demonstrated willingness to govern
The political realities of their district
The likely consequences of their election
In some cases, this may lead us to support candidates who are imperfect but represent a clear improvement over the alternatives. In others, we may decline to endorse at all.
A Note on the Current Environment
I have found it increasingly difficult to identify candidates in the House—and among those running for it—who consistently reflect a moderate, centrist approach. This is not a criticism of any one individual so much as a reflection of the incentives embedded in the current system.
Rising polarization has narrowed the space for pragmatism, while partisan redistricting has made many districts effectively noncompetitive in general elections. As a result, primary elections often become the decisive contest, where more ideologically committed voters play an outsized role. In those environments, candidates who emphasize moderation or compromise often struggle to gain traction, while more ideologically driven candidates can succeed.
I find this trend troubling and, at times, disheartening. A system that makes it harder for pragmatic, solutions-oriented candidates to emerge is one that struggles to produce effective governance. The struggle to bring moderation and reason into our politics can seem increasingly quixotic, but it has also become increasingly important.
Our Objective
Our objective is not ideological purity. It is progress—incremental, durable progress toward a more functional political system.
If enough voters and organizations reward cooperation, pragmatism, and good-faith governance, those behaviors will become more common.
That is the incentive structure we aim to support.
I have been trying to make sense of the recent use of tariffs by the Trump administration. The stated objectives shift from day to day—protecting American industry, punishing adversaries, raising revenue, or forcing concessions from allies. Sometimes the tariffs are imposed. Sometimes they are threatened and withdrawn. Sometimes they are increased, and then partially reversed.
At some point, it becomes difficult to argue that this is strategy rather than improvisation.
The details change, but the underlying issue does not. We have handed a great deal of authority over trade policy to the President of the United States. That authority was granted with an implicit assumption: that it would be exercised in good faith, with discipline, and with some degree of consistency.
That assumption now appears to be breaking down.
The Original Logic Behind Delegating Tariff Authority
The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate trade. Over time, Congress delegated a significant portion of that authority to the President. There were good reasons for doing so.
Trade negotiations require:
speed
flexibility
and a degree of confidentiality
It is difficult to negotiate complex agreements through a 535-member legislature. So Congress created mechanisms that allowed the President to negotiate and, in some cases, impose tariffs under specific statutory authorities.
The expectation was not that the President would act unilaterally without constraint. It was that he would act:
within a defined framework
with a clear objective
and in a manner broadly consistent with U.S. economic and strategic interests
In other words, the system assumed competence and good faith.
This Is Not Entirely New
It would be a mistake to pretend that this problem began in 2025.
Presidents of both parties have stretched the statutory authorities governing tariffs. Democratic administrations have also used trade tools—antidumping rules, targeted tariffs, and “national security” justifications—in ways that expanded executive discretion.
But there is a difference between:
stretching a tool and
using it as a general-purpose instrument of economic policy
What we are seeing now is not simply an extension of past practice. It is a step change in both scope and unpredictability.
Tariffs as a Tool vs. Tariffs as a Weapon
There is a legitimate role for tariffs.
They can be used:
to respond to unfair trade practices
to enforce agreements
or to address genuine national security concerns
But there is a difference between using tariffs as a tool and using them as a weapon of general economic policy.
When tariffs are applied broadly, unpredictably, and without a clear framework, they create uncertainty. Businesses do not know:
what their input costs will be
where to invest
or how long current conditions will persist
This is not a subtle effect. It is the primary effect.
Incentives Matter
If firms believe that tariffs will:
appear suddenly
change frequently
and be driven by short-term political considerations
then they will respond accordingly.
They will:
delay investment
shift production in ways that are not economically rational
or demand higher returns to compensate for policy risk
This is not a failure of the private sector. It is a predictable response to unstable policy.
Erratic tariff policy is, in effect, a self-imposed tax on investment—and one that falls most heavily on long-term planning.
The Problem of Using Tariffs for Everything
Tariffs are now being used—or threatened—to achieve a wide range of objectives:
reducing trade deficits
pressuring allies on unrelated issues
influencing domestic political outcomes
and reshaping entire supply chains
No single policy tool works well when applied to every problem.
Using tariffs this way blurs the line between:
economic policy
foreign policy
and domestic politics
It also makes it difficult for other countries to interpret U.S. actions. Are tariffs a negotiating tactic? A permanent shift? A political signal? Increasingly, the answer appears to depend on the news cycle.
The Erosion of Predictability
Markets can adapt to almost any policy, good or bad, as long as it is stable.
What they cannot adapt to easily is unpredictability.
When tariff policy becomes:
highly discretionary
personalized
and subject to rapid change
the result is not simply higher prices. It is a reduction in the willingness to commit capital.
Over time, that matters more than any individual tariff decision.
Congress and the Problem of Delegated Power
Congress delegated tariff authority to the executive branch for practical reasons. But delegation always carries risk.
It works when:
the executive branch operates within understood norms
and when Congress is willing to reassert its authority if those norms are abused
If neither condition holds, the delegation becomes something closer to an abdication.
We are now in a situation where:
the scope of presidential authority is broad
the use of that authority is increasingly aggressive
and congressional oversight is, at best, inconsistent
That combination should concern people across the political spectrum.
A System Built on Assumptions
The American constitutional system relies heavily on informal constraints:
norms
expectations
and assumptions about behavior
When those constraints weaken, the formal powers written into law become far more consequential.
Tariff authority is a clear example.
What was intended as a flexible tool for advancing U.S. interests can, under different assumptions, become a mechanism for imposing broad and unpredictable economic costs—both at home and abroad.
Conclusion
The debate over tariffs is often framed in terms of whether they are “good” or “bad.” That is not the most important question.
The more important question is how much discretionary economic power we are comfortable placing in the hands of any President—and what happens when that power is exercised without discipline or consistency.
If the assumptions that justified delegating that power no longer hold, then the structure of the system—not just the current policy—deserves a second look.
Click on the link to see CIVPAC’s position on the broader issue of Trade Policy.
I have not been posting much this year. Every time Trump, or members of his administration, take some bizarre position, they either reverse directions in a day or two or advance some even more bizarre position a day later that diverts my attention. Sometimes, I think he seems evil. At other times, I think he is just stupid. Often, he seems petty and vindictive. On many occasions, he appears to be cognitively impaired. But as I search for a unifying principle to explain his actions, and those of his administration, I keep coming back to the simple question: What would Vladimir Putin want?
Putin’s View of the World
Vladimir Putin has a world view stuck somewhere in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, in which Russia is a great power that shares the world stage with other great powers. In his view he should be allowed to control, either directly or indirectly, all of Eastern Europe, much of Central Europe and perhaps Western Europe, too. The United States can, in return for deferring to Putin in Europe, control the Western Hemisphere. China, in Putin’s mind, is entitled to control Asia and the Western Pacific.
Trump’s Apparent World View
Donald Trump seems to share Putin’s world view. His “peace” proposals for Russia’s war against Ukraine lean heavily in favor of Russia’s long-term objectives. His efforts to undermine NATO, by waffling about America’s commitment to the organization and to Europe’s defense, fit nicely into this interpretation. His saber rattling about Greenland and Canada, alienating our NATO allies, and his intervention in Venezuela, including a stated intention to run the country, are spot on in reflecting the kind of division of world power that Putin envisions.
The Make America Small and Mean Spirited Movement
The net effect of all of this is to take America from a respected world leader to a greedy regional power. It is the opposite of making America great. Sadly, Trump is not alone within his administration, or the MAGA movement in general, in following this path. JD Vance, who I once had high hopes for, has embraced this world view. Pete Hegseth has tilted America’s vast military power away from the support of our allies and toward an aggressive, and most likely illegal, attempt to impose Trump’s will within the Western Hemisphere.
The tilt towards Putin-friendly positions in foreign policy is fairly obvious, but it does not stop there.
Immigration
America, unlike Russia, has been a much admired country. This is in part because of our role in defeating the Axis powers in WWII (in which the Soviet Union, admittedly, played a role), rehabilitating post-war Europe with the Marshall Plan and successfully containing the Soviet Union until it collapsed under the weight of a bankrupt political and economic system. It is also because we used to embrace values that others admired: constitutional democracy, including freedom of religion, speech, and of the press, and the rule of law (including relatively limited corruption).
JD Vance has asserted that being an American is not, principally, about embracing these values but rather about a shared culture and history. By this line of reasoning new immigrants, even legal ones who have been here for a generation, can be viewed as less than fully American.
Almost all developed countries face a demographic decline that threatens their economic and political stability. America, because it used to be an attractive place to emigrate to, was far less at risk to this phenomenon than Russia. The Trump administration, through its campaign against illegal immigrants and by its anti-immigrant rhetoric, has signaled that America is not a welcoming place to new immigrants (legal or illegal). With that door closed we begin to look more demographically threatened, just like Russia.
Trade Policy
The benefits of trade are well established. Russia, by virtue of its aggressive military actions, has been repeatedly sanctioned and has had much less access to the benefits of trade. They have, for example, had to sell their oil at steep discounts to distant countries. Trump’s on again/off again tariffs have limited America’s access to the gains from trade, a sort of self-imposed sanction. Pushed hard enough, they could hurt America as much as Western sanctions have hurt Russia.
Civil Discord and the Challenges of True Democracy
Trump, through his rhetoric and actions, has enraged Americans on the right against their fellow citizens: through false claims about election fraud and exaggerated claims about the damage done by illegal immigration. He has enraged the left and the center, by the head spinning, more or less daily violations of political norms, including threats to use the military against U.S. citizens and his wholly unnecessary use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to intimidate whole communities. Through his outrageous and repeated lies and misinformation he has made civil debate increasingly difficult, since he has armed his supporters with their own set of Trumpian “facts.” I can only imagine the delight that this gives the likes of Putin and Xi, since it demonstrates the weakness of true democracy. Why should the Russian or Chinese people long for democracy when Trump makes American democracy appear to be a sham and does everything he can do to make democracy itself appear synonymous with chaos.
Climate Change
Climate change is generally thought to adversely affect the entire world. But the impacts are not uniformly harmful. Russia has vast territory, in Siberia, that is largely uninhabited and under-developed because it is too cold. Russia’s northern ports and sea lanes are often impassible because of ice. It does not take much imagination to see that Putin would applaud Trump’s denial of climate change and Trump’s efforts to undermine attempts to combat climate change. Maybe Trump’s seemingly nutty attitude toward wind turbines has an actual rational intent. Russia is also almost totally economically dependent on the export of oil and gas. What could be better, from Russia’s point of view, than to have America work hard to slow the transition away from fossil fuels?
Elections
For many years Russia, under Putin, has held sham elections in which the outcome is never in doubt. Trump, with his false, and often ridiculous, claims of voter fraud has created the impression among his supporters, and perhaps others around the world, that America is no different from Russia. I can only imagine the pleasure it gives Putin every time Trump repeats his malign claims about American elections.
The next time you encounter absurd behavior from Trump, you should ask yourself . . . What would Putin want?
At first, some of Trump’s proposed cabinet appointments seemed plausible; Marco Rubio for State, and Elise Stefanik for the United Nations. I have reservations about both of these appointments based on their weakness on American support for Ukraine, but that is part of Trump’s world view so we had to expect that his appointments would share it. His proposed appointment of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Tulsi Gabbard as National Intelligence Director, and Robert Kennedy as Secretary of Health and Human Services are appalling. Matt Gaetz is a distressing choice as nominee for the crucial position of Attorney General. My suspicion is that Trump was frustrated by the ethical qualms of his first two Attorneys General, Jeff Sessions and William Barr. These men may have had unimpeachable conservative credentials, but they failed the test of unquestioning loyalty to Trump. I suspect that Trump thought, for some reason, that Matt Gaetz would have lower ethical standards. Can’t imagine why he would have thought that. Tulsi Gabbard is thought of, in some circles, as a Russian dupe or asset. Those are pretty serious charges, which may or may not be true. Why would anyone who was suspected of Russian sympathies be nominated to the role of National Intelligence Director? Not surprisingly, Russia has already praised both the Gaetz and Gabbard nominations. Kennedy is notorious for spreading disinformation about vaccines. So does that make him the logical choice for Secretary of Health?
Why Would Trump Nominate These People?
I think part of the reasoning behind these nominations was simple payback. Gabbard and Kennedy allowed Trump to say that former Democrats supported him, so pay no attention to those notable Republicans who were endorsing Harris. I also think that all three of these nominations are meant to shake the tree of the federal professional workforce. I suspect that there are many senior and mid-level professionals in the federal government who will retire or resign from their posts rather than report to these people. The result could mean a rapid and voluntary evisceration of the “deep state” that Trump despises so deeply. I also think that Trump feels that by nominating some extremely outrageous people he can deflect attention from what would otherwise be controversial but not absurd nominations. He may be right about that. In addition, Trump may also be testing just how far he can push the Senate. Finally, all of these nominations will endear Trump to Putin. If the Senate says “no way,” as I sincerely hope they will, Trump can say to Putin that he tried.
Many Republican Senators may feel like caving to Trump because they fear being primaried during the next election cycle. I would remind these folks that a third of the electorate is centrist. If they cave to Trump on these absurd and dangerous appointments, they will face near certain defeat in the general election. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, they should do the right thing and reject these nominations. They could have avoided this dilemma by voting to convict Trump during the impeachment trial, but they chose the “safe” path. The point of having power is to use it when it matters. It mattered then and it matters now!
Trump 1.0 vs. Trump 2.0
Some of my friends held their noses and voted for Trump, because “the Democrats were so much worse.” They often said “how bad can he be, we already had four years of Trump.” To those folks I would like to note the difference between these nominations and Trump’s nominations during his first term: Jeff Sessions and William Barr at Justice vs. Matt Gaetz; Dan Coats vs. Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence; and Tom Price vs. Robert Kennedy for Health and Human Services. None of these first term nominations would have been my choice for these positions, but none of them are as bad as the current slate. I would hope that after the euphoria of success wears off, a feeling of regret will overcome the “how bad can he be” Trump supporters.
Other Nominations
As time goes on, I am confronted with other controversial nominations that deserve comment. Among these are: Mike Huckabee for Ambassador to Israel; Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy; Tom Homan as “Border Czar”; Lee Zeldin at the Environmental Protection Agency; Steven Witkoff as Special Envoy to the Middle East; John Ratcliffe at the CIA; Pete Hegseth at Defense; and Kristi Noem at Homeland Security. All of these nominations deserve a separate focus. Each is troublesome in its own way. Some do not require Senate confirmation. I will attempt to comment on them in subsequent posts.
If you have a reaction to what I have said above or have something that you would like to add, please comment at the bottom of this post.
