Democrats running the toughest races in the nation are discreetly asking outside groups for a favor: Do not ruin their chances with swing voters by trashing President Trump.
Instead, frontline Democratic campaigns are using a clever tactic to navigate campaign finance laws and instruct allies on messaging in battleground districts.
“We do not need to have a conversation about President Trump,” reads a “media kit” on the website of Janelle Stelson, a Democrat attempting to flip a central Pennsylvania district that favored Mr. Trump by 5 percentage points in 2024.
The district is represented by Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican.
Candidates use media kits to legally provide outside political action committees with guidance on how to spend most effectively in their favor. The practice is known as “red-boxing.”
The messaging memos, which usually list political messages and the specific media markets that need to see them, are tucked into easily overlooked corners of campaign websites to clue in PACs on which talking points voters should hear.
Campaigns are prohibited from privately coordinating with outside groups on spending for or against candidates, but the Federal Election Commission does not crack down on campaigns releasing information publicly about their messaging strategies.
“It’s taken off tremendously now because so much of the money is spent by outside organizations,” Ray LaRaja, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told The Washington Times.
“You’re not supposed to coordinate, but to make sure that you’re not off-message, campaigns will red-box their themes and who they’re targeting,” Mr. LaRaja said.
Rep. Adam Gray, California Democrat, is seeking reelection in a San Joaquin Valley district where almost half of voters backed Mr. Trump under the previous electoral map in 2024.
As he faces the Republican nominee, former Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln, Mr. Gray is asking outside groups to focus solely on local issues rather than the national political battle.
“Under Mayor Kevin Lincoln, Stockton moved in the wrong direction,” reads Mr. Gray’s media kit. “This is not about national issues or national talking points. This should all be local in feel, tone, and content.”
Adam Frisch is director of electoral programs and finance chair for WelcomePAC, a pro-Democratic group that backs candidates in conservative-leaning congressional districts.
He ran against Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, in 2022 and lost by 546 votes — the closest House race of that cycle.
He told The Times that he advises candidates not to mention Mr. Trump.
“I tell people, ’Do not mention Trump ever. Do not mention MAGA ever,’” he said. “You show up and say, ’I know why some people voted for Republicans, and you are not wrong to do so, but I believe that you’ve been wronged every day since the Republicans have been in power.’”
This is not to say he doubts polls that show Mr. Trump losing support from groups that backed him in 2024, such as Hispanics.
“Is Donald Trump at 32, or 35, or 37% [job-approval rating]? I don’t know. But I will say this: He’s a lot lower in polls than he was a year ago and where he was two years ago,” said Mr. Frisch. “I doubt Donald Trump has gained support from any group or community.”
However, Mr. Frisch says Democrats’ unpopular brand is a reason not to lean into cocky, aggressively partisan talking points.
“The brand’s a mess,” he said. “The quicker the party gets away from being the party of, ’I’m going to make your life more righteous,’ to ’I’m going to make your life easier,’ the better.”
To win over persuadable voters, Mr. Frisch urges battleground Democrats to adopt a local focus and avoid talking about national political battles.
“I tell people you need to sincerely be focused on your district and not on either national party, because the people that are deciding elections, they hate everyone in D.C.,” he said. “They hate the Democratic Party, they hate the Republican Party, they hate politicians. … People want to see the sincerity of your independence from the party apparatus.”
Some vulnerable Democrats are cultivating a bipartisan image by asking groups to portray them as cross-aisle compromisers, despite the bitterly partisan environment in Washington.
Rep. Kathy Castor, Florida Democrat, has represented her deep-blue Tampa seat for almost two decades.
Pro-Republican redistricting has redrawn her territory to include more conservative, rural communities, forcing her to appeal to more conservative voters to remain in Congress.
“Kathy was one of only a few Democrats to break with her party and join Republicans to pass a ban on stock trading by Members of Congress. She is working across party lines,” her kit says.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a moderate Democrat who chose to run in Florida’s newly drawn 25th Congressional District rather than contest the reconfigured 23rd, is trying to win a seat drawn to favor Republicans that nonpartisan forecasters now rate as a toss-up.
His media kit, which is not accessible from his website homepage, stresses that “voters across FL-25 need to see ads on cable,” showing he will “put South Florida families ahead of partisan politics.”
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