The leading super PAC supporting House Democrats in next year’s midterm elections announced on Monday the creation of a $50 million fund to better appeal to working-class voters, calling the task a critical part of any path to take the majority in 2026.
“We’re laying a marker down now,” Mike Smith, the president of the group, the House Majority PAC, said in an interview. “This is a priority.”
The group is calling the new investment its “Win Them Back Fund,” and it comes two years after the super PAC began the 2024 election cycle with specific funds for House seats in New York and California.
But Mr. Smith described the 2026 fund as fundamentally different. It is not focused on a specific geographic cluster of competitive seats but rather on appealing to a demographic cohort of working-class voters — white, Black, Hispanic and Asian — who all across the country drifted away from the party in 2024.
“Crafting and developing a credible working-class message — an economic-framed message — is the single best thing we can do as a party,” Mr. Smith said.
The Win Them Back Fund will begin by spending extensively on research before eventually mounting advertising campaigns in key districts, as well as potentially investing in influencers to spread the party’s message to less engaged voters.
The super PAC has included 14 House seats in its initial list of Republican-held seats that the fund will target, only two of which are in California, and none are in New York.
Mr. Smith said a number of House Democrats had outperformed the top of the ticket in 2024, including Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Representative Don Davis of North Carolina and Representative Jared Golden of Maine.
“The through line for those candidates and those races was an economic focus, working-class message that resonated with a broad spectrum of voters,” he said.
House Democrats, Mr. Smith noted, hold significantly more seats now than after President Trump’s first victory in 2016, despite the fact that he won the national popular vote last year for the first time.
“We have a story to tell and a game plan to replicate based on what we were able to do at the House level, what these candidates were able to do at the House level,” he said.
The $50 million figure is a significant investment for a super PAC, equal to about 20 percent of the $255 million that the House Majority PAC spent on the 2024 elections.
The 14 Republican representatives that the new fund will initially target are: Nick Begich of Alaska; Eli Crane of Arizona; David Valadao and Ken Calvert of California; Gabe Evans of Colorado; Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn of Iowa; John James of Michigan; Ryan Mackenzie, Rob Bresnahan and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania; Monica De La Cruz of Texas; Jen Kiggans of Virginia; and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin.
Some of those legislators occupy the most obvious competitive seats, such as Ms. Miller-Meeks. Others have trended heavily toward the G.O.P., such as Ms. De La Cruz’s South Texas district, where she sailed to re-election last year with 57 percent of the vote.
Interestingly, none of the three House Republicans holding seats in districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris carried last year are on the list. Those seats are in more suburban and exurban areas around Philadelphia, Kansas City and New York City.
“The Democratic Party brand needs to return to its roots,” the House Majority PAC wrote in a memo about its new investment.
