The presidential race has been won for our side. Continuing to run up the score will increase our odds of taking control of Congress, but I think viewing voters in four groups that can help us, and deliberately working on those groups, can be more effective than just a vague, general push for votes for Democratic candidates.
1) The most obvious group, and the one over which we have the most control are solid Democratic voters. For this group GOTV is the key. The Clinton campaign has the ground game to maximize this group and needs to generate all the enthusiasm it can find. The central message that can enlarge it is “Our party is about to elect the first woman president, so come on out and be part of that great historical moment.” I’ll call this the “Hill-yes!” group.
2) At the other extreme is the rabid Trump supporter, the ones that might come out and vote for Trump then leave the rest of the ballot blank. Some people have called these “bullet voters.” The way to increase their numbers is to keep sowing division among Republicans. Make this a three-sided election, with establishment Republicans and Trump supporters divided against each other. I think this division is what Priebus is desperate to stop. They will not vote for D’s down-ballot, but they might choose not to vote down there at all. I’ll call these “Trump Against the World” voters.
3) A third group is voters who see themselves as independents and who have decided to vote for Clinton, for a variety of reasons. They think she is the best candidate, but they have no party loyalty one way or the other. The message for this groups is “If you want Hillary Clinton to win the election and you want her to be successful as president, then you need to give her a Congress she can work with. Don’t vote for her and a Senator or Representative who will take a pledge the next morning to stop everything she tries to do.” Of course the GOTV operation needs to identify these voters and get them to vote. I’ll call this the “Give Her a Real Chance” group.
4) My fourth group is the one that requires the most cynicism. They have had it with Trump, even if they supported him initially, but they would never vote anything but R for Congress. These are the voters that the Republican candidates who denounce Trump and engage in meaningless talk about replacing him on the (already printed) ballot are after. We will not get them to vote D, but we need to get them to stay home. Since we do not believe in using unconstitutional means to suppress the vote, this means they have to be persuaded. This might be a bigger group than #3, but the message for them is tricky. The kind of enthusiasm needed for #1 and pragmatic argument needed for #3 will tend to motivate them to go out and vote against a Dem Congress. At first I thought we need to convince this group that voting this year is a waste of time, just demoralize them with devastating poll numbers, but that is not enough. It is much better if they think they are standing up for something. They need to believe they are abstaining out of principle. This idea needs to be planted in a subtle way by Dem candidates. “I understand if there are people who have always seen themselves as Republicans and hope to see themselves that way with some sense of pride and dignity again in the future. They may need to send their party leadership a message by refusing to vote, but to everybody else, I am asking for your vote. I’ll call these the “Righteous Republican Refusers.”
There are not tens of millions of voters in groups 2-4, but we don’t need that many. Group 1 may be big enough that just a few million in all the other three combined is enough. Four weeks from today!