Democrats just unveiled a useful new weapon in the fight to secure the party’s future.
The hottest Democratic action this week is the new tool just dropped by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the party organization shouldering the herculean task of rebuilding Democratic strength in state legislatures nationwide.
This new addition to the DLCC’s arsenal is its Spotlight Races page, a clearinghouse of information on essential legislative contests in key chambers around the country. Grassroots activists now have a destination for reliable information on some of the thousands of candidates running for state legislative office each cycle.
In an odd year like this one, when chambers in just two states (Virginia and New Jersey) and a smattering of special elections are on the ballot, tracking state legislative elections seems manageable.
But in even years, elections are held for the vast majority of the nation’s 7,383 legislative seats. Determining which states and chambers—much less which of the many thousands of candidates—to focus on presents a challenge unique to the DLCC. Internally, a staff of experts with state-of-the-art data tools at their disposal makes these determinations, develops state-by-state political strategies, and directs resources accordingly.
But bridging the gap between committee expertise and grassroots engagement has been an task outside the DLCC’s bandwidth to undertake—until now.
The DLCC’s Spotlight Races site markedly improves on existing interfaces from some nascent activist groups. The tool delivers donors to candidate fundraising pages with just two clicks. It also lets activists search for candidates to support based on issues, including “Fighter for Equality,” “Gun Sense Champion,” and “Stands Up for Labor.” Additionally, candidates are searchable by election date (to accommodate special elections) and state. Each candidate profile explains why a particular election is important (“Vital Seat to Protect,” “Challenge a GOP Trifecta,” “Flip the Washington Senate”) and empowers activists to directly connect and engage with candidates via social media.
The sleekness and ease-of-use of the Spotlight Races platform are key features of this new tool, but it’s really the DLCC’s expertise, allowing it to select a superior slate of candidates, that will allow activists to maximize their impact on down-ballot elections. The progressive grassroots community can trust DLCC’s informed analysis of the latest data (much of which other groups don’t even have access to) and targeting based on both this data and on firsthand knowledge of the political realities of these states an districts. The judgment of one organization will never supplant activists’ own priorities and values, but the DLCC is providing some clear guideposts for progressives looking for helpful, easy-to-digest information in the relatively esoteric—but crucially important—province of state politics.
The DLCC’s initial installment features races from eight states, but the committee plans to constantly add to and update the page as the cycle progresses, special elections are declared, and candidate filing deadlines come and go.
Party campaign committees like the DLCC are beholden to constituencies and demands that can make direct engagement with grassroots activists—already a formidable endeavor—a lower-priority item on the never-ending list of tasks and obligations to current elected officials and candidates for office. Add in thousands of candidates across 98 partisan chambers in 49 states (excluding nonpartisan, unicameral Nebraska, of course), and the daunting scope of any endeavor to connect activists directly to state legislative candidates and campaigns becomes clear.
The DLCC has found an effective and adaptable tool to bridge this gap, and I’m optimistic about its application. I worked for the DLCC for several years before joining Daily Kos last month and (full disclosure) was part of the team that conceived and developed this tool. Based on my experience with and knowledge of the organization, I’m confident DLCC will be able to maintain the efficacy and utility of its Spotlight Races as 2018 heats up and the number of legislative chambers and seats in play explodes.