This Democrat Smells Blood in Deep Red Florida (w/ Bale Dalton)
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Tim Miller talks with Navy veteran and former NASA Chief of Staff Bail Dalton, who’s running for Congress in a deep red Florida district Democrats usually ignore—but may now be in play. They dig into his opponent, Rep. Cory Mills' the mountain of scandals and lies, and why Trump-era chaos could open the door for an upset.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody, welcome to the ballwork. I'm Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome a Democrat running for Congress in Florida against Corey Mills. He's also a Navy veteran and former NASA chief of staff. It's Bail Dalton. What's up, bro? Hey, Tim, how's it going? Thanks for having me on. It's going well. We had, I guess, a couple of weeks ago, Roger Sullenberger on to talk about all of the various |
| 0:21.6 | crimes and misdemeanors and offenses and bigotries of Corey Mills. We've covered that a little |
| 0:25.6 | bit. That's what we're going to get to that. But I wanted to have you on in part because this |
| 0:30.8 | district really encapsulates something that I've been talking a lot about, which is I think |
| 0:34.2 | the Democrats have big opportunity to win in places that haven't |
| 0:39.2 | traditionally been targeted. You know, Corey won this district by 13 points. It's not a traditional |
| 0:44.7 | swing district. But because of the year, because of how bad Trump's screwing things up, |
| 0:49.3 | because of the bad candidate on the other side in particular, I think this is the type of race that needs more attention. |
| 0:55.5 | So before we get to like the Corey drama, I just want people to hear a little bit about you |
| 0:59.0 | and give us your little kind of, you know, I don't know, first date pitch for the Dale Dalton |
| 1:03.9 | candidacy. |
| 1:05.0 | Absolutely. |
| 1:05.6 | Well, yeah, as you noted, I've been now in the Navy and Navy Reserve for over 23 years. It'll be my |
| 1:12.8 | 24th anniversary here in about a month in May, helicopter pilots supporting special operations |
| 1:18.6 | throughout Iraq, Afghanistan is on the ground with the SEAL teams as a forward air |
| 1:24.0 | controller and then commanded the helicopter squadron supporting special |
| 1:28.1 | operations in the Horn of Africa and throughout the Pacific. |
| 1:30.9 | So those have been some really good adventures, some good, some bads there, but really the |
| 1:37.6 | honor of a life to take care of, you know, 450 of my opinion, the best sailors in the Navy. I did some work for Florida's former |
| 1:46.6 | Senator, Bill Nelson, doing national defense form policy work for him. And of course, near and dear |
| 1:51.8 | to my heart, veteran services, making sure our veterans are getting the benefits that they earned |
| 1:57.0 | and the care that they need in their own transition. And then, yeah, even maybe more exciting, |
... |
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