When four women veterans launched a joint campaign last fall, it was easy to file the move under branding. They named themselves after the first women Marines of World War One. They leaned into a shared message of service. Skeptics could fairly ask whether a Signal group chat and a catchy name would matter once voting started. Now it has started, and the answers are coming in fast.

The model is not new. In 2018, a wave of Democratic women with military and national-security backgrounds flipped Republican seats and helped the party take the House. The Hell Cats are following that blueprint on purpose. And the trend is bigger than four candidates. With Honor data shows more than 560 veterans running for Congress this cycle, and 42 percent of them are Democrats, the highest share the group has ever recorded. Among women veterans alone, 71 are running, up from 54 in 2018.

New Jersey voted first, and Bennett delivered. On 2 June, she won the Democratic primary in the 7th District with about 47 percent of the vote, beating three rivals. That makes her the first Hell Cat to secure a nomination. A former Navy helicopter pilot and mother of two, she built her run around affordability and a working-mom message, right down to the no-frills sedan she drives.

Her opponent gives Democrats an unusual opening. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. has been absent from Congress since early March because of an undisclosed illness, missing more than 100 votes. Even so, he ran unopposed in the Republican primary with Trump’s backing. The district is genuinely purple. Trump carried it by about a point in 2024, and Democrats held the seat until Kean flipped it in 2022. Like other Democrats this cycle, Bennett is hammering rising grocery and gas prices, which an ongoing conflict with Iran has pushed higher. So she starts the general election with a competitive map and a rival who has not been seen in public for months.

New York votes on 23 June, with early voting starting 13 June. Conley is the front-runner in a packed field. A poll released in late May put her up by seven points, and she has out-raised the entire primary field for two quarters running. The endorsement list is long. Rep. Pat Ryan, a fellow West Point graduate and Iraq veteran, is backing her, as are county Democratic chairs in Putnam and Dutchess and the Westchester County party chair. Late in the race, the veterans group VoteVets launched a $1 million ad campaign on her behalf.

Her record is striking. Conley is a West Point graduate, a 16-year Army veteran with six deployments, and she ran counterterrorism on the National Security Council and election security at CISA under President Biden. Still, she carries baggage. She moved back to the Hudson Valley from Virginia last year to run, which opened her to the carpetbagger label, and earlier consulting work drew scrutiny. Her chief rivals, Rockland legislator Beth Davidson and progressive Effie Phillips-Staley, are pressing those openings. If Conley wins, she takes on Rep. Mike Lawler in one of just three Harris-won districts still held by a Republican. Forecasters rate that contest a toss-up. Both parties see it as one of the handful of seats that will decide who controls the House for Trump’s final two years, which is why the money and attention keep pouring in.

Arizona offers the cleanest story of the four. Mendoza, a retired Marine drill instructor and the daughter of farmworkers, has no primary opponent. Several Democratic rivals dropped out, leaving her as the effective nominee well ahead of the July contest. Better still, she is out-raising the incumbent. In the first quarter of 2026, Mendoza brought in about $2.44 million to Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s $1.14 million, and she ended March with roughly $3.5 million in the bank.

The seat is a perennial battleground. AZ-06 is one of the most closely divided districts in the country, and Ciscomani won re-election in 2024 by fewer than 11,000 votes. Mendoza has spent the year building a profile, appearing alongside Sen. Mark Kelly and former Rep. Gabby Giffords. Money is not everything, of course, and Ciscomani still holds large reserves of his own. But for a first-time candidate in a swing district, clearing the primary and matching the incumbent dollar for dollar is a strong start.

New Hampshire votes last, and Sullivan faces the toughest primary of the group. The seat opened up when Rep. Chris Pappas decided to run for the Senate to replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Filing just began, and the Democratic field is crowded. Sullivan’s chief rivals include Stefany Shaheen, the senator’s daughter, and Carleigh Beriont, a Harvard lecturer and Hampton selectwoman.

Sullivan brings a deep resume. She is a former Marine captain and Iraq War veteran who served as an assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, and she now chairs the state Democratic Party as first vice chair. She also brings history. Sullivan ran here in 2018 and lost the primary to Pappas by 12 points, dogged by a carpetbagger label after moving to the state in 2017. This time she is leaning hard on her record, and she argues that a conflict with Iran has raised the salience of national-security credentials. If she wins, she would be the first woman Marine elected to Congress.

So where does the bloc actually stand? One of four is now a nominee. A second leads her primary but has not closed it out. The third has her nomination locked in all but name. Sullivan, the fourth, is fighting through a difficult field with the latest vote on the calendar. That is genuine progress, and it beats where most first-time candidates sit at this stage.

The caveats matter, though. None of the four has won a general election yet, and the hardest races come in November. Conley still has to close out a real primary. Mendoza trails the incumbent in total cash on hand. Sullivan has to get past a Shaheen. Branding got the Hell Cats attention, but votes are what flip seats, and only Bennett has banked any so far. Even so, the bloc has already made good on its premise once, and three more chances sit on the board. The next test is two weeks away in New York. After that, the math gets serious.