What does it mean to be a Blue Dog in the year 2026?

Blue Dog Action co-founder and senior advisor Phil Gardner joins Blue Dog Radio for a conversation about a country exhausted by its politics, the revival of the Blue Dog movement, and what it takes to build a Democratic Party that is more connected to the places it represents.

Phil talks about managing Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s 2022 upset, helping rebuild the Blue Dog project alongside members like Jared Golden, what he looks for when evaluating congressional candidates, and why being deeply rooted in a community matters more than fitting neatly into a national political box.

We also look ahead to what the 2026 election might teach us, how newly elected Blue Dogs can avoid repeating the mistakes of past Democratic majorities, and why faith remains that we live in a country of builders, problem-solvers and people capable of changing course.

Four races in four very different corners of America and one Congress hanging in the balance.

In this episode of Blue Dog Radio, we take a trip through four of the country’s most closely watched congressional races.

We start in Southwest Washington with Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, then head to California’s Central Valley with Adam Gray, Northern California with Mike Thompson, and South Texas with Vicente Gonzalez.

Along the way, we look at the records they’re running on, the challengers trying to unseat them, and what these races say about the places that may help shape what comes next.

From mill towns and farm country to wildfire recovery, water, health care, border security and local infrastructure, this is a hyper-focused look at what representation means when the work is rooted in a place called home.

For more than 30 years, Bobby Pulido has been one of the defining voices of Tejano music. Now the Edinburg native, small-business owner and father of four is a Blue Dog endorsed candidate for Congress in Texas’s 15th District.

For this episode of Blue Dog Radio, we spent three days with Pulido in the Rio Grande Valley. Our time was spent riding through Edinburg with his father, Tejano legend Roberto “El Primo” Pulido, visiting local businesses, weddings, rallies, a Friday-night football game, and sitting down with Bobby at the beginning and end of the trip.

Pulido talks about growing up in one of South Texas’s most famous musical families, building a career that has lasted three decades, fatherhood, immigration and the border economy, affordability, fiscal responsibility, faith, and why a comfortable life in music eventually stopped feeling like enough.

He explains politics through a language he knows best.

If you write a song and people don’t like it, you don’t blame the audience.

You write a better song.

Zach Dembo is a Blue Dog endorsed for Congress in Kentucky’s 6th District.

His path to the race has taken him from an eighth-grade classroom in the Mississippi Delta to the Navy JAG Corps, federal civil-rights work, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On this episode of Blue Dog Radio, Dembo talks about his ninth-generation Kentucky roots, a student he still thinks about years later, what military and legal service taught him about responsibility, why he left the Justice Department, and how he thinks about trust in government and representation.

At the heart of the conversation is an idea Dembo returns to again and again: public service means being responsible for somebody else. In Congress, he says, that would mean answering to “770,000 bosses.”

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has spent decades adapting to change.

Bethlehem Steel once occupied a quarter of the city and drew generations of working families from around the world. The Steel faded, the city grew in new directions, and the work of keeping Bethlehem going changed with it.

For this episode of Blue Dog Radio, we start with Lou Jimenez, a lifelong Bethlehem resident, military veteran, firefighter, and president of Bethlehem Firefighters Local 735. Lou talks about his parents immigrating from Italy and Puerto Rico, the changing demands placed on the city’s fire department, his own experience with fire-service-related PTSD, rising housing costs, and what working people need from their leaders.

Then we meet Bob Brooks.

Brooks spent 20 years as a Bethlehem firefighter before becoming a union leader and eventually president of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association. He is also a Blue Dog endorsed candidate for congress in PA-07.

His connection to the job started even earlier: as a high school senior, Brooks stood outside and watched his family home burn to the ground. Years later, he became one of the firefighters answering those same calls.

Together, their stories raise a larger question about working-class communities across America: as our cities and economies change, who understands the people being asked to carry that change?

This is a conversation about Bethlehem, the firehouse, representation, and the people who keep showing up.

Florida’s 7th Congressional District is the kind of race that will take roots, credibility, service, and a candidate who actually fits the place.

On this episode of Blue Dog Radio, we talk with Bale Dalton, the Blue Dog-endorsed Democrat running in FL-07.

Bale is a Central Florida native, Naval Academy graduate, helicopter pilot, veteran, former NASA chief of staff, and someone whose life has been shaped by missions bigger than himself.

He talks about growing up in Central Florida, hunting with his dogs, fishing for redfish in the Indian River Lagoon, the Bible verse his mother tied to his birthday, the Navy service that brought his family to Sanford, the power of helicopter crews, picking people off rooftops after Hurricane Katrina, and what NASA taught him about what government can still do when the mission is clear and the work is serious.

The conversation also gets into the cost-of-living crisis in Seminole and Volusia Counties, the voters who feel ignored by both parties, the difference between public service and political performance, and why FL-07 is exactly the kind of hard but hopeful race that matters in November.

This is a conversation about place, responsibility, local leadership, and the Blue Dog bet: run candidates who belong where they’re running and good things will happen.

For this episode of Blue Dog Radio, we spent several days on the road with Rep. Adam Gray in California’s Central Valley.

Gray represents California’s 13th District, a place where water, agriculture, rural health care, ag technology, and community infrastructure are basic conditions that determine whether farms can plant, students stay, communities can grow, and families can build a future.

Recorded in Merced, this conversation follows Gray through the place that shaped him: the house his grandparents built, the family dairy supply business a few blocks away, the farm fields and water systems that power the Valley, and the institutions now being built to serve the next generation.

Gray talks about why water reliability matters, what people misunderstand about Central Valley agriculture, the promise of UC Merced and Merced College, and why he believes politics should use the word “work” more than “fight.”

At its core, this is a conversation about representation, loyalty to place, and the unglamorous work of getting things done.

Sacramento County District Attorney and congressional candidate Thien Ho joins Blue Dog Radio for a conversation about immigration, justice, public safety, redemption, and the long journey from a refugee boat in the South China Sea to a campaign for Congress in California’s 6th District.

Ho reflects on fleeing Vietnam as a child after the fall of Saigon, learning English through Bugs Bunny cartoons, growing up in California immigrant communities, and the sacrifices his parents made to build a life in America.

The conversation also explores Ho’s role in the prosecution of the Golden State Killer, his views on public safety and immigration reform, labor and infrastructure, corruption in government, and what he means when he talks about earning the opportunities this country gave his family.

At its core, this is a conversation about second chances and whether America is still a place capable of offering them.

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