Centrist Independent Voter has endorsed Senator Jack Reed in Rhode Island’s September 9 Democratic primary for the United States Senate.
Reed combines deep national-security experience with strong support for Ukraine, opposition to economically damaging tariffs and a record of practical bipartisan legislation. His judgment and institutional experience make him the strongest choice in the Democratic primary.
Centrist Independent Voter has endorsed Senator Chris Coons in Delaware’s September 15 Democratic primary for the United States Senate.
Coons has built the kind of record we would like to see more often in Congress: serious about American leadership abroad, willing to work across party lines and prepared to confront difficult fiscal and institutional questions rather than simply repeat his party’s preferred talking points.
He has been a strong supporter of Ukraine and America’s alliances, while supporting Israel’s security without treating support for Israel as an endorsement of every decision made by its government. He has also joined bipartisan efforts to address Social Security’s long-term finances and has opposed tariffs that raise costs for American consumers and businesses.
On immigration, Coons combines support for secure borders and enforcement with comprehensive reform and due-process protections. That approach is much closer to Centrist Independent Voter’s view than treating enforcement and humane immigration policy as opposing choices.
Coons faces three Democratic challengers, but none has made a persuasive case for replacing an experienced senator with his record of bipartisan and institutionally serious governing.
Centrist Independent Voter has endorsed Representative Maggie Goodlander in the September 8 Democratic primary for New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District.
Goodlander has served in Congress only since January 2025, but she has already demonstrated the institutional seriousness and willingness to work across party lines that Centrist Independent Voter looks for in candidates.
Her background includes service as a Navy Reserve intelligence officer, constitutional-law professor, Justice Department official and adviser to Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman. In Congress, she has worked on government transparency, Pentagon accountability, fiscal responsibility and ethics reform.
Goodlander also supports Ukraine, favors immigration reform that combines secure borders with a legal path for long-established undocumented residents, and has signed the Promise to America, whose principles include capitalism, fiscal responsibility, free speech, secure borders and continued American leadership abroad.
We do have an important disagreement with Goodlander over her vote to end $3.3 billion in annual direct military assistance to Israel. But she continues to support Israel’s security and American assistance for Israeli air defense. Her primary opponent, Paige Beauchemin, takes a considerably more restrictive position on American support for Israel and is also challenging Goodlander from the party’s ideological left on several other issues.
No candidate will agree with us on everything. Goodlander offers the stronger combination of experience, institutional judgment, political realism and bipartisan potential.
Centrist Independent Voter has endorsed Lisa Kinney in Wyoming’s August 18 Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Kinney served ten years in the Wyoming Senate, including two years as minority leader. What most distinguishes her for us is her record of working across party lines and her explicit interest in finding a small group of moderate members of Congress who can cooperate and exercise meaningful influence.
We do not agree with Kinney on everything. We have reservations about some of her tax proposals, and we have not found a clear statement from her on continued American assistance to Ukraine. Her explicit support for NATO is reassuring, but voters should watch for further clarification on Ukraine and related foreign-policy questions before the primary.
Those reservations do not outweigh her experience, independence and demonstrated willingness to work with Republicans. In a Congress increasingly organized around partisan loyalty, those qualities deserve support.
Wyoming voters now have CIVPAC-endorsed candidates in both House primaries: Lisa Kinney in the Democratic primary and Kevin Christensen in the Republican primary.
CIVPAC has endorsed Aly Richards in Vermont’s August 11 Democratic primary for governor.
Richards is the more practical and responsible choice over economist Amanda Janoo. Although CIVPAC disagrees with Richards on the appropriate size and role of state government, she has demonstrated an ability to build coalitions, turn policy goals into workable legislation and confront the costs and practical limitations of government programs.
The contrast is particularly clear on health care. Both candidates support government-guaranteed universal primary care, but Janoo proposes a substantially more expensive state-funded system supported by large income-tax surcharges. Richards has rejected that approach as economically and politically unrealistic and has emphasized preserving federal and insurance funding rather than shifting the full cost to Vermont taxpayers.
Richards also offers a more practical approach to Vermont’s housing shortage, workforce problems and stagnant population. Her emphasis on increasing housing construction, improving administration and adopting policies that can actually pass the legislature makes her the stronger Democratic nominee.
This endorsement applies only to the Democratic primary. CIVPAC will evaluate the general election separately after voters choose a nominee to face Republican Governor Phil Scott.
CIVPAC has endorsed Maurice Mercer in the August 11 Democratic primary for Alabama’s 6th Congressional District.
Mercer is a former Pelham City Council president with experience in business, small-business ownership and local government. His platform combines support for competitive markets and reduced unnecessary regulation with secure borders, humane immigration reform, accountable law enforcement and respect for religious freedom.
He is an unusually strong fit for CIVPAC. Rather than treating corporations, profits or law-enforcement officers as presumptive enemies, Mercer emphasizes competition, opportunity, constitutional rights and practical cooperation among government, business, workers and local communities.
Alabama’s 6th District is heavily Republican, and Mercer would face a difficult general election. That is not a reason to ignore his candidacy. Political organizations should help elevate thoughtful centrists even when their path to victory is narrow. Candidates such as Mercer can broaden their parties, improve political debate and offer voters a meaningful alternative to both right-wing and left-wing politics.
Minnesota voters face two important Democratic primaries on August 11. CIVPAC has endorsed Representative Angie Craig for the open United States Senate seat and state Senator Matt Klein in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District.
Angie Craig offers the strongest combination of legislative experience, political pragmatism and general-election appeal in the Senate field. She has repeatedly won a competitive congressional district and understands that Democrats must speak to rural, suburban and independent voters as well as the party’s most committed activists.
Our endorsement of Matt Klein is more comparative. We disagree with several of his economic and health-care positions, but his experience as a physician and state senator makes him the best available choice to succeed Craig in a politically competitive district. His principal opponents are substantially farther from CIVPAC on health care, immigration enforcement, economic policy and military assistance to Israel. His potential Republican opponent, Eric Pratt, is unopposed in the primary. We will revisit the race after the Democratic primary is over.
These endorsements do not imply complete agreement with either candidate. They reflect CIVPAC’s continuing effort to identify the most pragmatic and responsible choices available to primary voters.
Sometimes the centrist position is to say that the menu itself is inadequate.
CIVPAC is not endorsing in the Maine Senate race at this time.
That is not because the race is unimportant. It is very important. Maine could help determine control of the United States Senate. Susan Collins is one of the few remaining Republican senators with a reputation for independence. Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee, has become an embattled and highly controversial candidate. Even apart from the personal controversies, his policy positions make a centrist uneasy. And the possible Democratic replacements, if Platner withdraws, do not yet present an obvious centrist alternative.
That is precisely the problem.
This race poses a real dilemma for centrists. On ordinary policy and temperament grounds, many centrists may find Susan Collins preferable to the current Democratic field. She is experienced, institutionally minded, and comparatively moderate within the modern Republican Party. She has sometimes broken with Donald Trump in ways that matter.
But “comparatively moderate” is not the same as independent of today’s Republican Party. A vote for Collins is also a vote that affects Senate control, committee control, confirmations, and the ability of Congress to restrain or enable a Trump-dominated Republican Party. PolitiFact found that Collins voted with Trump’s position 94.6% of the time in 2025, while also noting that she was still among the less Trump-aligned Republican senators. Both halves of that sentence matter.
The Democratic side is not easier. Platner won the Democratic nomination, despite CIVPAC’s preference for Janet Mills in the primary, but he now faces serious allegations and controversies, which he denies, and major Democratic leaders have called on him to withdraw. Senate Democratic leaders have said the DSCC will not invest in the Maine race if he remains on the ballot. Maine Democrats have said that if Platner withdraws, he cannot choose his replacement; the state party would do so under Maine’s replacement process.
Legally, Platner cannot name his replacement. Politically, that is not the end of the matter. He is under no legal obligation to withdraw, and that gives him cards to play. If he tries to condition his withdrawal on influence over the replacement, I am not persuaded that the Maine Democratic Party will have the will to call his bluff. If it capitulates — especially to a successor in Platner’s ideological lane — it will likely lose a majority of the centrist independent vote.
That replacement process may produce a better nominee. It may not.
The names being discussed include figures with experience and ability. Janet Mills is a sitting governor and a conventional governing Democrat. Nirav Shah has a technocratic public-health and administrative profile. Troy Jackson has appeal to working-class populists. Shenna Bellows has experience in state office and a strong democracy/civil-liberties profile. But none of these alternatives, at least at this stage, clearly solves the centrist problem.
Mills may be the most conventionally centrist Democrat. Shah may be the most technocratic. Jackson and Bellows appeal more strongly to progressive voters, which is precisely why they do not clearly solve the problem from a centrist’s point of view. But “less bad” or “more plausible” is not the same as meeting an affirmative standard for endorsement.
That distinction matters to CIVPAC.
Our endorsements are not meant to be automatic partisan gestures. We do not endorse Democrats simply because of our concerns about Trump’s Republican Party. We do not endorse Republicans simply because a Democratic nominee is too far left. We are looking for candidates who show moderation, seriousness, judgment, respect for democratic institutions, and a willingness to govern rather than perform.
Sometimes a race does not offer that choice.
That is not merely a Maine problem. It is a system problem.
America’s winner-take-all elections push politics into two major parties. In normal times, that can be frustrating. In abnormal times, it can become dangerous. Voters are forced to weigh questions that should not have to be bundled together. Do I prefer this candidate’s policy instincts? Do I prefer the other party’s control of the Senate? Do I trust this person’s character? Do I trust that person’s party? Am I voting for a senator, a Senate majority, a check on a president, or a message to my own side?
The answer, too often, is all of the above.
That is why many centrists feel politically homeless. They may prefer Susan Collins to much of the Democratic field on temperament and some policy questions. They may also fear strengthening a Republican Senate in the Trump era. They may want Democrats to nominate serious, mainstream, pro-democracy candidates. They may also be unwilling to reward a party that elevates candidates who are unvetted, extreme, or unfit. They may want a politics of moderation, but find themselves offered a choice between party control and candidate quality.
That is not a healthy political system.
CIVPAC believes voters deserve better than this. They deserve serious candidates in both parties. They deserve primaries that test judgment, not merely ideological enthusiasm. They deserve parties that vet candidates before crisis. They deserve institutions that make room for independent-minded voters without forcing them into binary choices that distort their actual views.
The Maine Senate race is a reminder that centrism is not the same thing as splitting the difference. Sometimes the centrist position is not to “endorse the moderate Republican” or “endorse the least objectionable Democrat.” Sometimes the centrist position is to say that the menu itself is inadequate.
That is where CIVPAC is today.
We may revisit the race if the field changes. If Platner withdraws and Maine Democrats choose a replacement who demonstrates moderation, seriousness, judgment, and respect for democratic institutions, that candidate deserves evaluation. If Collins takes positions or actions that demonstrate genuine independence from Trumpism, that matters too. But at this point, CIVPAC is not prepared to endorse anyone.
That may sound unsatisfying. It is unsatisfying.
But honesty is better than pretending.
The Maine Senate race presents exactly the kind of dilemma that makes many Americans distrust politics: a comparatively moderate Republican tied to a party many centrists believe has become dangerous, and a Democratic field that has not yet produced a clearly acceptable alternative.
That is not a reason to stop caring. It is a reason to demand better.
Update: Shortly after this post was published, Graham Platner announced that he was suspending his campaign. That does not eliminate the dilemma described below; it moves it to the replacement process. The central question now is whether Maine Democrats will choose a nominee who can appeal to centrist and independent voters, or whether they will remain in Platner’s ideological lane.
If the replacement is chosen through a rushed activist convention, Democrats may have avoided letting Platner name his successor while still creating a process likely to favor his faction. That may prove to be all the capitulation he needed.
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.
