Four female Democratic military veterans calling themselves the “Hell Cats” are running for U.S. House seats in 2026 in closely contested districts, arguing their service backgrounds position them to win swing voters and to challenge Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s approach to military leadership and oversight.
The “Hell Cats” formed in mid-2025 after starting a Signal group chat and later adopted the name from a World War I-era group of women Marines, according to The Nation. The four candidates are JoAnna Mendoza in Arizona, Rebecca Bennett in New Jersey, Maura Sullivan in New Hampshire and Cait Conley in New York.
Mendoza, a retired Marine and the daughter of farmworkers, is challenging Rep. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona. The Nation describes Mendoza as a queer single mother whose family relied at times on SNAP and Medicaid when she was growing up.
Bennett, described by The Nation as a Navy pilot officer, is running against Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. in New Jersey.
Sullivan, a Marine veteran, is seeking the Democratic nomination in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District to succeed Rep. Chris Pappas, who is running for an open Senate seat, The Nation reports.
Conley, a West Point graduate, former National Security Council official and Army veteran who, according to The Nation, served six overseas tours and received three Bronze Stars, is running against Rep. Mike Lawler in New York’s 17th District. The Nation notes that Lawler represents one of a small number of Republican-held House seats in districts carried by Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
The candidates have drawn comparisons to the 2018 cohort of Democratic national-security and military women who called themselves the “Badasses,” including Elissa Slotkin, Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill, Elaine Luria and Chrissy Houlahan. The Nation reports that Slotkin won election to the U.S. Senate in 2024; Spanberger and Sherrill won their states’ governorships in 2025; and Luria, who lost her House seat in 2022, is running again.
The Nation also cites data compiled by VoteVets indicating that Democratic military veterans, on average, perform about 5.8 percentage points better than Democratic nonveteran candidates.
A central theme of the Hell Cats’ campaigns is opposition to Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon. The Nation reports that Hegseth moved early in the Trump administration to remove multiple senior female military leaders, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, and quotes Sullivan arguing that Hegseth has focused on identity rather than competence.
Hegseth has also faced scrutiny over communications security. In early December, the Defense Department inspector general reported that he violated Pentagon policy by using Signal to discuss details of an impending U.S. strike in Yemen, and that the practice could have endangered troops and missions, according to reporting by the Associated Press and The Guardian.
Separately, The Nation cites The Washington Post as reporting that Hegseth’s directives in an escalating U.S. campaign targeting suspected drug-trafficking vessels in Caribbean waters included a “kill them all” order that led to a second strike on survivors of an earlier attack—an episode the Post and outside experts described as raising serious legal and ethical concerns. The Pentagon has defended the broader campaign as lawful.
The Nation reports that Mendoza has criticized Hegseth’s changes to the Pentagon inspector general’s complaint process. The Associated Press previously reported that Hegseth signed a memo directing the watchdog to identify complainants rather than allow anonymity, to dismiss complaints deemed “non-credible,” and to impose tighter deadlines—moves advocates warned could deter reporting, particularly by women.
The candidates also emphasize personal economic histories to argue for programs they say helped expand opportunity, including the GI Bill. The Nation reports that Sullivan worked three jobs while attending Northwestern University on scholarship, and that Bennett attended college on an ROTC scholarship while holding additional jobs.
On domestic policy and governance, The Nation reports that three of the four candidates said they would have opposed a November vote to reopen the federal government without an agreement to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidies. The Nation also reports that Conley’s campaign cited KFF research estimating that a typical qualifying couple in New York’s 17th District could see premiums rise by 221%—about $1,330 per month—if the enhanced subsidies expire.
Max Rose, a senior adviser to VoteVets and a former congressman, told The Nation that the candidates’ service experience can help build trust with voters and reinforces an argument that taxpayer-funded public systems can create opportunity.
The Nation reported that Democrats would need a net gain of three House seats to take control of the chamber in 2027, making several of the districts targeted by the Hell Cats potentially pivotal.
