CIVPAC has moved its Florida U.S. Senate evaluation from the draft pool to publication and makes no endorsement among Republican incumbent Ashley Moody, Democrat Angie Nixon and No Party Affiliation candidate Neil Gillespie.
Moody is considerably closer to us on a number of economic and foreign-policy questions, including support for sanctions against Russia. But her Senate record raises serious concerns about congressional independence. She has supported a series of controversial Trump nominees, backed the administration’s exercise of emergency tariff authority and repeatedly declined to support congressional efforts to assert its constitutional authority over military action.
Nixon would provide a stronger partisan check on the administration, an important consideration given our increasing concern about executive power and the value of divided government. But her domestic agenda—including Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, national rent controls, tuition-free public college, a wealth tax and abolition of right-to-work laws—lies far to our left. Her positions on Israel and unanswered questions about Ukraine, NATO and broader American international leadership create additional concerns. Nixon’s own platform confirms many of these domestic and foreign-policy positions. Angie Nixon for U.S. Senate
The Democratic primary also demonstrates that this choice was not inevitable. Nixon defeated Alexander Vindman, who offered a substantially different combination of positions and whom CIVPAC would have viewed much more favorably. We mention that not to relitigate the primary, but because it helps explain the particular choices now before Florida voters. Washington Post
Gillespie’s rejection of conventional partisan politics initially merits attention from an organization focused on independent voters, but we have found too little of a developed policy program—and no clear indication of how he would caucus in the Senate—to recommend him as an alternative.
The result is an unusual but straightforward conclusion: Moody is closer on many policies but has not demonstrated the institutional independence we want from a senator serving under a president of her own party; Nixon offers greater institutional opposition to the White House but asks us to accept domestic and foreign-policy positions too far removed from our own; and Gillespie has not yet provided enough information for a comparable evaluation.
CIVPAC therefore makes no endorsement in Florida’s 2026 U.S. Senate election.
CIVPAC has published its evaluation of South Carolina’s 2026 U.S. Senate race and provisionally endorsed Democrat Annie Andrews over Republican Senator Darline Graham, Libertarian Kasie Whitener and Constitution Party candidate Mark Hackett.
This is not an endorsement without reservations.
Andrews is closer to our positions on reproductive freedom, immigration, evidence-based public health and congressional war powers. We also give substantial weight at this point to congressional independence and the value of divided government as a check on executive power.
At the same time, Andrews is to our left on much of domestic economic policy. We have reservations about the size and role of government implicit in parts of her agenda, including important unanswered questions about the design of her proposed public health-insurance option.
Our largest uncertainty concerns foreign policy. Andrews has made clear that she opposes open-ended wars and believes Congress should authorize sustained military action, but we have found much less from her on Ukraine, NATO, Russia, China and the broader international order.
Graham receives substantial credit for taking over the Russia and Iran sanctions legislation championed by her late brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, and helping carry it into law. But her limited foreign-policy preparation, her pledge to have President Trump’s back “100 percent,” and her vote against allowing an Iran War Powers resolution to proceed raise questions about congressional independence.
Whitener offers a strongly market-oriented and fiscally restrained alternative and has been unusually clear in challenging unilateral presidential war-making. Questions remain about what her noninterventionist approach would mean for NATO, Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel.
Hackett is clearer: he advocates ending U.S. support for Ukraine and Israel and withdrawing from NATO and the United Nations—positions fundamentally at odds with our approach to American foreign policy.
For now, the combination of divided government, congressional independence, reproductive freedom, immigration and public health tips our evaluation toward Andrews.
The endorsement is deliberately provisional. Andrews, Graham and Whitener are scheduled to participate in the October 11 South Carolina ETV debate, and we intend to review the endorsement afterward. In particular, we will be listening for clearer answers from Andrews on Ukraine and NATO, from Graham on congressional independence, and from Whitener on the practical implications of her foreign-policy philosophy.
This is not an endorsement based on broad ideological agreement. Reed remains substantially to our left on labor policy, taxation and the proper scope of government. We disagree with him on important domestic economic questions.
But Reed is unusually strong on several issues that have become increasingly important in CIVPAC’s 2026 Senate evaluations.
He has been a consistent supporter of Ukraine and of America’s alliances, brings substantial experience in national security, and has repeatedly defended Congress’s constitutional authority over war powers and presidential use of emergency powers. His record gives us considerable confidence that he views the Senate as an independent branch of government rather than simply an extension of the executive.
The alternatives did not overcome that advantage. Republican Ray McKay is closer to CIVPAC on some conventional economic issues, but his campaign has closely identified itself with President Trump and has provided relatively little detail on Ukraine, NATO and congressional independence. Independent Michael Bahry offers a more developed foreign-policy position, but his support for American withdrawal from NATO is fundamentally at odds with CIVPAC’s view of the United States’ international responsibilities.
On balance, Reed’s strengths on foreign policy, Ukraine and institutional responsibility outweigh our significant disagreements with him on domestic policy.
CIVPAC therefore endorses Jack Reed for reelection to the U.S. Senate from Rhode Island.
It was not an easy decision. In fact, we had been preparing to make no endorsement at all.
Republican incumbent Bill Hagerty is substantially closer to CIVPAC on many questions of taxation, regulation and economic policy. Bradshaw’s economic philosophy remains considerably to our left, and important questions remain about her views on Ukraine, NATO and America’s broader international responsibilities. Her current campaign focuses primarily on domestic priorities including education, health care, housing, voting rights, broadband, small business and environmental issues.
But Hagerty’s record raises a different set of concerns. He has opposed U.S. assistance to Ukraine, saying that he had opposed “every cent” of such aid and arguing that the United States should focus its resources at home. He has also generally supported President Trump on issues in which CIVPAC believes congressional independence deserves particular attention, including nominations, tariffs and presidential war powers.
The final consideration came from President Trump himself.
At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump urged voters to treat the 2026 election as a referendum on his presidency, telling them to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”
CIVPAC has decided to take that invitation seriously.
For CIVPAC, divided government is not an automatic reason to support the opposition party. Candidates still have to be judged individually. But when questions of congressional independence and executive power are already central to an evaluation, the composition of the Senate becomes an additional consideration.
After weighing those factors, CIVPAC has endorsed Marquita Bradshaw for the U.S. Senate from Tennessee.
Centrist Independent Voter (CIVPAC) has endorsed Jamie Davis for the United States Senate from Louisiana over Republican Julia Letlow.
The endorsement comes with significant reservations. CIVPAC disagrees with Davis on several domestic economic issues and believes voters should seek greater clarity about his positions on Ukraine, NATO, Russia, China, Israel, and Iran.
The endorsement gives substantial weight to other considerations, including Davis’s emphasis on congressional independence, his opposition to tariff wars, support for political reform and government transparency, and the institutional concerns raised by Letlow’s close alignment with President Trump. Letlow’s June 2026 vote against the Ukraine Support Act also figured prominently in CIVPAC’s assessment.
U.S. Capitol with the White House and Supreme Court in the distance, illustrating Congress’s constitutional role in checking executive power.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing construction of President Trump’s White House ballroom to continue raises an issue that extends far beyond the ballroom itself.
On August 31, the Court stayed a lower-court injunction that would have halted above-ground construction. Importantly, the Court did not decide that the President had legal authority to undertake the project without congressional approval. Instead, the five-Justice majority concluded that the government was likely to prevail in showing that the National Trust for Historic Preservation lacked Article III standing to challenge it. The Court expressly said that it was not passing on the legality of the project. (Supreme Court decision)
That distinction matters.
A presidential action can potentially exceed the President’s lawful authority and yet escape judicial review because no plaintiff who objects to it can establish the concrete and particularized injury required by Article III. Indeed, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, concluded in dissent that the ballroom construction was likely unlawful because Congress has expressly prohibited construction of buildings on federal grounds in the District of Columbia without congressional authorization. (Supreme Court decision)
We have seen versions of this problem before.
During President Trump’s first term, 215 members of Congress sued alleging that his receipt of benefits from foreign governments violated the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause. The D.C. Circuit dismissed the case because the individual legislators lacked standing to assert an institutional injury belonging to Congress. (D.C. Circuit opinion) Other litigation over the Emoluments Clauses ended without a definitive Supreme Court ruling on the merits. After Trump left office, the Supreme Court vacated judgments in two of the major cases and directed that they be dismissed as moot. (Congressional Research Service / Constitution Annotated)
Standing doctrine serves important purposes. Federal courts are not supposed to issue advisory opinions whenever someone believes a president has exceeded his authority. But the practical consequence is unavoidable: the judiciary cannot always be counted upon to police the boundary between presidential and congressional power.
Sometimes Congress has to do it itself.
That has implications for how CIVPAC evaluates candidates for the House and Senate.
Members of Congress are not simply representatives of a political party that happens to control or oppose the presidency. They are members of an independent constitutional branch. Appropriations, tariffs, war powers, oversight, confirmations, subpoenas and numerous other powers belong to Congress precisely because the Framers did not want them exercised solely by a president.
A candidate for Congress should therefore be willing to exercise those powers even when doing so means opposing a president of his or her own party.
That is becoming an increasingly important part of our endorsement decisions.
The difficulty is that genuine political independence has become uncommon in both parties. Members of Congress face enormous pressure from presidents, party leaders, activists and primary voters to treat loyalty to their party as more important than loyalty to the institution in which they serve.
When we have affirmative evidence that a candidate will resist that pressure, it should count heavily in the candidate’s favor.
Senator Susan Collins provides an example. We do not agree with every vote she casts. But she has demonstrated a willingness to defend congressional authority against a Republican president. She joined bipartisan legislation requiring congressional approval for presidential tariffs and opposed President Trump’s unilateral tariffs on Canada. (Collins on congressional tariff authority) On war powers, she has likewise maintained that sustained military action requires congressional authorization and, when the War Powers Act’s 60-day deadline was reached in the 2026 Iran conflict, voted to terminate continued hostilities absent further congressional approval. (Collins on war powers)
That kind of record matters.
When such evidence is absent, the calculation becomes more difficult.
If legislators of both parties normally support presidents of their own party, then electing members of the president’s party tends, as a practical matter, to weaken the legislative check on executive power. Electing members of the opposing party tends to strengthen it.
That does not mean CIVPAC should automatically endorse Democrats when a Republican occupies the White House, or Republicans when a Democrat does. Candidate quality, policy positions, respect for democratic institutions and the particular circumstances of the race still matter.
But other things being reasonably close, our burden of proof should change.
A congressional candidate from the president’s party should give us some reason to believe that he or she is prepared to be a legislator rather than simply a presidential ally. A demonstrated record of independence can satisfy that test. Mere assurances of independence should receive considerably less weight.
The Framers created three branches of government because they did not expect any one of them to be permanently trustworthy.
The courts cannot always intervene. When they cannot, Congress must be willing to be Congress.
Centrist Independent Voter has made its first endorsement of the 2026 general election, endorsing Senator Jon Ossoff for reelection to the United States Senate from Georgia.
This endorsement goes beyond ordinary disagreements over taxes, spending and social policy. During President Trump’s second term, Congress has repeatedly failed to defend its own constitutional responsibilities—from presidential appointments and war powers to tariffs and oversight of the executive branch.
Ossoff has demonstrated a willingness to resist those abuses. He opposed a series of deeply problematic Trump nominees, supported congressional limits on unilateral tariffs and unauthorized war, and has consistently supported Ukraine and America’s alliances.
Just as importantly, his independence is not entirely partisan. Ossoff has broken with Democrats on immigration enforcement and rejected several proposals associated with the party’s left wing, including Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, defunding the police and expansion of the Supreme Court.
Republican nominee Mike Collins has bipartisan legislative accomplishments that deserve recognition. But his votes on Ukraine, war powers and tariffs—and his own description of his role as helping Congress “have President Trump’s back”—raise serious doubts about the institutional independence required of a United States senator.
