BRITTANY GIBSON
POLITICO
Few House seats look more appealing for Democrats to flip than Arizona’s 1st District in 2024. Republican Rep. David Schweikert won his race by less than 1 percentage point in 2022, and the Democratic primary to take him on has already attracted seven candidates.
The field includes a Clinton White House alum, a former broadcast journalist and an American Red Cross executive. And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee views the seat as one of the best pick up opportunities for House Democrats to flip the chamber in 2024.
But not everyone in the primary is getting the same attention from the party committee. Only half of the field was invited to a recent week of candidate events hosted by the DCCC in Washington, dredging up old criticisms of the campaign committee’s favoritism in primary races.
“I was intrigued and disappointed,” said Kurt Kroemer, who was one of those candidates not invited. There are “wonderful, brilliant people that they’re meeting [in Washington], so that begets other things that begets other things that begets other things.”
The Democratic Party has long been criticized for how it operates in open races, both for backing candidates early and for not supporting candidates enough in previous cycles — all boiling down to accusations of unfair play, including in Arizona’s 1st district.
“They’re definitely playing favorites here,” said an Arizona-based Democratic leader familiar with the campaigns in the district who was granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics.
Two of the top three Democratic fundraisers in the race were also not invited, Conor O’Callaghan and Andrew Horne. Though both have also made personal loans to their campaigns.
