Record Number of CIA Operatives Running for Congress via the Democratic Party

Some two dozen Democratic candidates for Congress, running as challengers to Republican incumbents or as would-be successors to retiring Democratic incumbents, are drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus. This phenomenon, which the WSWS first analyzed and exposed in 2018 in our much-read series “The CIA Democrats,” is becoming an increasingly important factor in American official politics.

Eleven military-intelligence candidates were elected in 2018 as part of the Democratic takeover of control in the House of Representatives. Their numbers increased by one in 2020, as one of the 11 lost his bid for reelection, but two new military-intelligence Democrats were elected. This year, the size of the “caucus” could nearly double, even in an election in which the Democratic Party as a whole may well lose ground.

The influx of military-intelligence operatives into the ranks of the Democratic Party in Congress is now an ongoing political trend. There were 30 such candidates nominated by the Democrats in 2018, 11 of whom won. There were 35 such candidates in 2020, including the 11 incumbents, and 12 won, a slight increase despite the election being a poor one for the Democrats. In 2022, the total number of such candidates stands at 34: in addition to 11 incumbents, there are 23 more candidates drawn from the CIA, Pentagon and State Department.

These figures suggest that the influx of Pentagon and CIA operatives into Congress, by means of the Democratic Party, is not an accidental phenomenon, but the outcome of a definite policy, which has two components. First, the Democratic Party leadership is deliberately cultivating military-intelligence candidates and creating opportunities for them to run in Democratic-leaning congressional districts where they are likely to be elected. Second, sizeable sections of the military officers corps, the CIA and the State Department see the Democratic Party as their preferred vehicle for advancing the interests of American imperialism, to which they have devoted their own careers.

As was the case in our 2018 series and its follow-up in 2020, all the information presented here is gathered from publicly available sources, including Wikipedia and Ballotpedia, and particularly from the campaign web sites established by each candidate. Also considered are the published lists from the Democratic and Republican congressional campaign committees, identifying which campaigns they view as truly competitive and where significant party resources will be expended. (Read more from “Record Number of CIA Operatives Running for Congress via the Democratic Party” HERE)

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