Methodology

This site reflects the opinions of one person, including what values constitute being progressive, which organizations best express those values, and which candidates meet those criteria. While most candidates appear here based solely on their running for office, some may be missing — their website may be hard to find, may contain little information, or may have been non-functional when we checked it. Some candidates may also be emphasized or de-emphasized based on personal opinion or other factors.

The data behind this site — endorsements, candidate lists, and reference sources — is refreshed regularly throughout the election cycle. See the Recent Changes page for the latest updates.

Organizations

The organizations we track were chosen based on familiarity, experience, and a feeling that they share progressive values. There are many PACs (political action committees) that promote progressive candidates, but their rosters can be chosen for any number of reasons that aren't transparent. We tend to focus on organizations that are more action-oriented rather than purely electoral.

We do not weigh any one organization over another — all endorsements count equally. The more endorsements a candidate has from these organizations, the higher they will appear in the Top Candidates cards. Candidates with 6 or more endorsements receive a full featured card; those with 3 to 5 endorsements appear in the "Honorable Mentions" section below. Only one candidate per congressional district or Senate seat is shown in each section — the candidate with the most endorsements in that race.

Data Sources

Besides importing endorsement lists from organizations, we use several external data sources to determine which candidates are running in each district and to provide context about incumbents and races. Most sources are imported approximately daily, though timing varies.

Status of Primary Elections

The whole point of this site is to help you find the most progressive candidates for each congressional district — who may or may not be the incumbent. Incumbents have a large structural advantage in primary elections, so they are not emphasized here. Incumbents are not included in the Top Candidates cards.

After a primary election is held, we show progressive candidates who did not win only on the Thank You page, along with a list of the endorsements we had noted for them.

Progressive Scoring and Ranking

While some candidates are ranked based on the number of endorsements they have and pledges they have signed, others are ranked and displayed based on our own "progressive score" — a 0–100 rating based primarily on their stated positions on their campaign websites. We use a combination of AI-assisted and human evaluation to score candidates across ten issue areas, in roughly descending order of importance:

  • Economic Justice & Labor
  • Healthcare
  • Climate & Environment
  • Campaign Finance & Anti-Corruption
  • Housing & Cost of Living
  • Immigration
  • Criminal Justice
  • Foreign Policy & Military
  • Democracy & Voting Rights
  • Vision vs. Reaction (affirmative policy-led platform vs. primarily reactive framing)

The single most important factor is specificity. Naming a concrete, transformative policy earns full credit; vague aspirations earn almost none — no matter how many of them a candidate lists. “Medicare for All” scores high; “access to affordable healthcare” scores near zero. “Green New Deal” scores high; “all-of-the-above energy” scores near zero. This is why a genuinely progressive candidate can still receive a low score if their website speaks only in generalities — we can only credit what they actually spell out.

Sitting incumbents are scored differently. Because an incumbent’s website copy often reads more progressively than their record, we score them primarily on their voting record rather than their rhetoric — and when the two conflict, the record wins. A member who campaigns on a position but repeatedly votes against it is penalized for the contradiction, not given the benefit of the doubt.

Progressive scoring is not an exact science. Scores reflect only what we were able to find on a candidate's campaign website at the time of evaluation — a candidate with a thin or vague website may score lower than their actual views warrant. We only publish scores for candidates with the highest ratings, on the Unsung Heroes page. Lower scores are used internally to rank and filter candidates, but are never shown publicly — we have no interest in shaming a candidate simply for not hitting all the right progressive talking points on their website.

Featured Candidates for Upcoming Elections

At the top of the Top Candidates page, we show mini-cards for non-incumbent candidates whose primary election is coming up soonest. One card is shown per congressional district or Senate seat in those states.

The featured candidate for each district is chosen using a heuristic that weighs endorsements and progressive score together — not a strict formula. As a general rule:

  • A human choice can override the algorithm. The site moderator can personally choose the featured candidate for a district when an exception is warranted — that pick takes precedence over the rules below, and the moderator can also choose to feature no one in a district.
  • Endorsements carry more weight. Whichever candidate has the most endorsements from the organizations we track is usually preferred. A candidate with more endorsements wins the slot even if their progressive score is somewhat lower.
  • Score gaps can override endorsement leads. If a challenger has at most one fewer endorsement than the leader but scores dramatically higher on our progressive rubric, that score advantage can outweigh the endorsement lead. A gap of roughly 20 to 29 points means we show the higher-scoring candidate alongside the leader, on a shared card; a gap of about 30 points or more means the higher-scoring candidate replaces the leader as the featured pick.
  • Ties. When two candidates are close on both endorsements and score, we sometimes show both on a single card rather than picking one.
  • Omit districts with weak candidates. A district's card is dropped entirely unless there is some real justification for featuring someone — that is, unless at least one of these holds: the chosen candidate scores 30 or higher, some candidate in the district scores 50 or higher, the chosen candidate is personally endorsed by the site moderator, or the chosen candidate has 4 or more endorsements. If none of those are true, we'd rather show nothing than promote someone we can't stand behind. Similarly, many incumbents are excluded — especially those who appear on our Wall of Shame for votes against progressive values, even if their progressive score from their campaign website is relatively high.

Unsung Heroes

We search FEC filings and the web and Secretary of States' websites to find all candidates running for Congress. Using a combination of artificial intelligence and human evaluation, we score each candidate on the progressive rubric above. Candidates who meet all of the following criteria appear on our Unsung Heroes page:

  • Score of 80 or higher on our progressive rubric
  • No more than 2 endorsements from the organizations we track
  • Not an incumbent
  • Running in a district not already represented by a progressive candidate with 4 or more endorsements
  • The highest-scoring candidate (or within 5 points of the highest-scoring candidate)

Three lower tiers follow the same criteria, at progressively lower score thresholds: candidates scoring 70 or higher appear as Honorable Mentions; those scoring 60 or higher appear as "Also Worth Mentioning"; and those scoring 50 or higher appear as "Candidates with Potential."

To keep the lower tiers from cluttering the page with candidates who are clearly outmatched within their own district, a candidate in "Also Worth Mentioning" or "Candidates with Potential" is left off the page entirely if another candidate shown anywhere on the page in the same district scores more than 10 points higher. A close second place (10 points or fewer behind) still appears normally — this only hides candidates facing a clearly stronger district-mate. Unsung Heroes and Honorable Mentions candidates are never hidden this way; instead, if a higher-scoring candidate from the same district appears elsewhere on the page, a note reading "(Alternative to higher-scoring NAME)" appears above their bio, so readers know a stronger option exists without losing visibility for a genuinely notable candidate.

Additional Candidates on the Full List

The full candidates list may include brief bios for candidates beyond those on the Unsung Heroes page. A candidate will appear with a bio if they meet any of the following criteria:

  • Unsung Heroes, Honorable Mentions, and "Also Worth Mentioning": Candidates from our Unsung Heroes tiers (scores ≥60) always appear with bios on the full list, regardless of other conditions.
  • Site moderator's personal endorsements: A small number of candidates are personally endorsed by the site moderator and shown with bios even if they haven't received endorsements from the tracked organizations.
  • Most progressive candidate with no endorsed competition: A candidate scoring 50 or higher, with no endorsements from tracked organizations, who is the highest-scoring progressive in their district, where at least one other Democrat is also running — so there is a genuine primary choice to highlight.

Limitations and Caveats

  • Progressive scores are based on stated positions, not voting records. A candidate's platform may not reflect how they would actually legislate.
  • Campaign websites change. Our evaluations may lag behind updates to a candidate's platform.
  • Some organizations delay updating their lists after an announcement, so data may be slightly out of date.
  • Our methodology evolves as we learn more. Scores, rankings, and chosen organizations from earlier in the cycle may not reflect our current criteria.
  • None of the evaluations on this site have anything to do with electability, fundraising levels, or campaign viability. We evaluate progressiveness only.