We’ve talked about the rising profile of Seth Moulton (MA-06) here before, and he is making military-veteran-candidate news again.

Moulton, according to the Lowell Sun News, rolled out a political action committee to help steer funds to Democratic challengers with military experience for next year’s midterms. We’re talking more than $600k so far. It’s called Serve America PAC.

The article points to a handful of races that the PAC plans to target. MN-01 caught my eye first because that was Tim Walz’s district–a rural, mostly white prairie district that Romney almost won and Trump easily did (Clinton only grabbed 38%). KY-06 is another reach. Moulton backs Amy McGrath there (discussed previously), but it’s an uphill climb. Romney and Trump both carried it with 56%.

West Virginia’s 2nd of three congressional districts will be even more unfriendly territory. Moulton supports Aaron Scheinberg to unseat Alex Mooney. Yes, it is the most blue of WV’s three districts, but that’s a relative statement. Romney won WV-02 with 60% and Trump by 66%.

Lower hanging fruit for Democrats can be found in NC-09. Serve America PAC backs former marine Dan McGready there to take on Pittenger, who’s been in office since 2013. Cook has the district at R+8 and Trump had 54%.

The best shot among the districts mentioned in the article might be in New Jersey. Longtime incumbent Rodney Frelinghuysen has not enjoyed good news cycles lately. NJ-11 is a purple district (Cook R+3 and Trump won by a whisker). The challenger is Mikie Sherrill, who has done some fundraising on her own.

We’ll keep our eyes on the PAC’s efforts–both as an interesting election phenomenon regarding the politics of military service and as a barometer of candidate viability.

Joseph Weber wrote a piece for Fox (online) that surveys the Democrats’ efforts to recruit military veteran candidates to take on Republican incumbents in the midterms next year. It addresses some of the important issues around political aspirants’ military service experiences, namely the power of issue ownership and a sensitivity to the fact that Democrats do not enjoy an equal chance of unseating GOP congressmen nationwide.

Steve Mistler wrote a story on the politics of veterans running for Congress this cycle, with an emphasis on the ME-02 race; check it out.

Republican Steven Palazzo (MS-04) is receiving criticism from a GOP challenger regarding his service record, or a perceived deficiency in it. Mississippi TV media is giving attention to Brian Rose, who seeks to unseat Palazzo in the 2018 GOP primary. Rose is offering documents he claims show that Palazzo “sought special favors to be assigned duty at Camp Shelby, rather than be sent to Iraq with the 155th battalion in 2004.” This is a solidly GOP district, so this intraparty combat is where the action is. It’s important to note that Rose is a combat veteran himself, which makes it easier for this line of attack.

Amy McGrath announced this week that she’s seeking the Democratic nomination to unseat Mitch McConnell ally Andy Barr. Her intro video is compelling. It starts with her early life attempts 20 years ago to join the armed forces in a combat unit and how she dealt with being stymied by policy at the time.

She’s not the only one hoping to be on the Democratic line next year, though. If she does prevail in the Dem primaries, she’ll need to make up ground where previous Democrats have failed. Barr won with 61% last year and the Cook rating has the district around R+9.

Fun fact! Within KY-06 is the Blue Grass Army Depot, where I was stationed for awhile in the USAF (unlikely spot for an airman, but there you go. Long story).

If you want to hear the audio from that interview a few days ago on CBS Radio’s ConnectingVets.com, it’s now available on their podcast.

With an attack helicopter as part of his campaign logo, it’s difficult not to notice this veteran candidacy. John James’ video introducing himself runs a bit long, but the military imagery is a big part of the case he is making for himself. He’s seeking the Republican nomination.

Last week’s WaPo Monkey Cage piece explained without visuals that Democrats are nominating military veterans in more difficult-to-win districts than Republicans are. Last week’s post here showed density plots to illustrate this, but I wanted to convey it a second way to show how the Republican veterans (red circles) are clustered more to the center than the Democrat veterans (blue circles) are.