Organizing to Win

By Rick Holmes

Where Democrats have fallen short in recent elections, the party’s DC establishment has often caught the blame. Resources have been focused too much on presidential campaigns, critics have said, with too little commitment to state and local races and too little investment in grassroots organizing. All the energy has gone into boosting turnout in blue cities, with rural areas and Republican-leaning exurbs all but ignored. All the money went to media buys in battleground states, while campaigns in red states were written off as unwinnable and starved for funds. Even in communities that make up Democrats’ base, voters felt pressured on Election Day and taken for granted the rest of the year.

One complaint I heard often from grassroots Democrats during the Obama years was that they couldn’t get the national campaign to send them lawn signs, that staple of democratic engagement. The DC guys didn’t want to spend anything in places where they were already well ahead or far behind, they were told. The presidential campaigns controlled the party and they had little interest in down-ballot races. They were all about polling, algorithms, microtargeting niche constituencies and getting out the vote ­– but their vote, not anyone else’s.

That kind of top-down thinking has hurt Democrats at the lowest rungs of the political ladder, leading to Republican-controlled state legislatures that have used gerrymandering to cement their domination. We see where that leads: the greatest threats to freedom and democracy are now coming from red state legislatures. Suddenly every state rep race has national implications, and Democrats need to get back into that game.

Some Democratic leaders have gotten the message about competing everywhere. Beto O’Rourke has made a big deal about visiting every one of Texas’ 254 counties, even those with the smallest, most Republican, populations. In Pennsylvania, long described by insiders as Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other and Kentucky in-between, Senate candidate John Fetterman won’t hear about it. His slogan is “Every County. Every Vote.”

In Arizona, Democrats decided the nature of campaigns – candidate-centered organizations that typically dissolve the day after Election Day – deprived both the party and its constituents of the consistent engagement needed to build political strength. So the party created the 15/30 Project, a year-round organizing project on the ground in each of the state’s 15 counties and 30 representative districts.

In Wisconsin, the state Democratic Party has run an organizing team year-round, in every corner of the state, for the last five years. “What do our organizers do all day?” party chair Ben Wikler explained on Twitter. “Build local volunteer-led teams, which have been knocking on doors, month after month, in their own neighborhoods. This takes time. But like planting a tree, the longer you do it, the bigger it gets.”

After the 2020 election, Wisconsin Dems organized a permanent, year-round voter protection team, with a voter hotline staffed to head off attempts at voter suppression. Wisconsin has been fighting off Republican election shenanigans for years, and they are prepared for a fierce campaign this fall. That’s organizing too.

The stakes in these states are huge, and the contests are winnable. The organization Wikler has built in Wisconsin is ready to send Mandela Barnes, winner of Tuesday’s primary, into battle against Sen. Ron Johnson, widely considered the most vulnerable Republican senator. The efforts of Arizona Democrats will shore up Sen. Mark Kelly, considered the most vulnerable Democrat. The commitment Fetterman has made to extending Democrats’ reach beyond the cities has made Pennsylvania the Dems’ best chance to flip a Senate seat.

Leadership in state capitals has become critical. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where gerrymandering has delivered large GOP majorities in the state legislature, Democratic governors are the only defense against Republican abortion bans. Republicans have nominated candidates in all these states who deny the validity of the 2020 election and all but promise to tilt the 2024 election to the Republicans.

Freedom and democracy are on the ballot in these states, and the outcomes will touch all Americans, wherever they cast their votes. And you can help, no matter where you live:

-       You can support the Arizona Democrats’ 15/30 project at https://www.mobilize.us/project1530/event/435418/

-       You can join the Wisconsin Democrats in their 100-days-to-the-election push at  http://wisdems.org/100days

-       You can help the New Pennsylvania Project turn the Keystone State blue at https://www.newpaproject.org/

I live in a state a long way from Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a state where voters reliably elect Democrats and much less is on the line. But America can’t afford to have anyone on the sidelines. I figure the least I can do is send a few bucks to the organizers in those states who are doing democracy’s heavy lifting.