Source: Robert Gauthier / Getty
That was a great convention. But now what?
Elections are about organizing and mobilizing. First, you have to organize your campaign infrastructure; recruiting, training volunteers and staff, crafting issue platforms, mapping out a strategy, building coalitions, setting up phone banks, printing walk lists for canvassers, integrating internet and mobile technologies, and of course, raising money.
Once you’ve built that organization, you have to mobilize it to energize your base, convince undecideds, engage unlikely voters and make sure all of them cast their votes on Election Day.
Think of it like NASCAR. First, you have to build your car. Then you race it.
Of course, you can still make adjustments and fine-tune the engine during the race and the same holds true for a campaign. Just because you kicked off your door-to-door ground efforts doesn’t mean you stop registering voters, recruiting volunteers or raising money. Taking a pit stop doesn’t mean the race is over. But, race day is not the time to build your transmission from scratch.
Now, let’s be honest. As Democrats, our car hasn’t always been ready for the green flag and, after the bunting and balloons, our post-convention energy fades away because we have nowhere to put it.
But there’s something different about the party’s infrastructure now thanks to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris prioritizing DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and the Democratic National Committee (our party’s national infrastructure).
You see, collectively they knew how staffing shortfalls, lackluster fundraising, and weakened state parties hamstring the national Democratic Party and how that disorganization impacts the whole ticket from President to Soil and Water Commissioner.
So Democrats went to work and, with a wildly successful fundraising effort, invested $90 million in state and electoral midterm programs tripling its 2018 investment. On top of that, Harrison and the DNC made its largest-ever midterm cash transfer of $27 million to the Democratic Senate and Congressional Campaign Committees, kicked off new efforts like to engage and empower Black voters Chop It Up, A Seat at the Table and Adopt a Precinct and gave neglected state and local parties the real support they needed to register and organize new voters that made the difference in national and local elections alike.
Thanks largely to those efforts, Democrats beat back the midterm “red wave” that seemed all but inevitable in 2022 and made history with victories across America.
Because we treated our party’s infrastructure as an investment, not an expense, the results are undeniable, and coupled with dramatic 2023 victories in Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, it’s clear that Democrats have built a campaign infrastructure that can win and win big. But, with new investments like a $25 million ad buy in African American and Hispanic-owned media, providing $20 million in support to state and local parties this past June and more, Harrison isn’t taking his foot off the gas.
Instead, Democrats are making sure the car is in peak condition so we can run the “High Tech and High Touch” campaign we need to not only Beat Donald Trump and the Trump Project 2025 but win a mandate up and down the ticket.
I’m talking about a “High Tech and High Touch” campaign that invests in social media to combat AI misinformation and trained canvassers that go door-to-door in urban neighborhoods and rural districts alike. I’m talking about a “High Tech and High Touch” campaign that engages voters where they are whether it’s a barbershop or a subreddit. I’m talking about a “High Tech and High Touch” campaign that leverages text messaging, phone banking, online fundraising and one-on-one conversations between neighbors because this election is too important for anything less.
I’m talking about a “High Tech and High Touch” campaign that doesn’t just win the White House because defeating Donald Trump is only part of the equation. If we want President Kamala Harris to protect reproductive freedom, then she needs an Election Day mandate at her back. If we want her to cut the price of groceries, housing and more, she needs a governing majority to do it. If we want to expand the child tax credit, cap the price of insulin for everyone, cut taxes for the middle class and create an opportunity economy for all Americans, then our victory can’t be limited to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
We need to win the House, the Senate, races up and down the ticket and the 10 states with referendums on reproductive freedom on the ballot in November.
As Gov. Tim Walz said last week, “It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball. We’re driving down the field.”
