Democrats plan $50M campaign to flip state legislatures before redistricting
Unprepared Democrats got bulldozed in 2010 by a $30 million Republican campaign to win state legislatures — and the right to draw political maps that would help them hold power for the next decade.
Now, Democrats are readying a massive $50 million effort of their own to shape the next 10 years of elections by flipping state legislative chambers in places as red as Texas and West Virginia next November.
The plan, backed by Democratic megadonors like Donald Sussman and the Soros family as well as small-dollar donors giving online via ActBlue, represents a sea change for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a former backwater in Democratic politics that has transformed as the party grappled with the importance of redistricting. In 2020, the last election before states redraw their political boundaries using new Census data, the winners of many state legislatures get the power to draw congressional lines that will last an entire decade.
In preparation, the DLCC has quadrupled its staff, partnered with a slew of other large Democratic groups including EMILY’s List and Barack Obama’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and planned to target as many as 14 states, according to plans shared first with POLITICO. The group will start by targeting one or more chambers in Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, and potentially expand over the course of the election to target additional legislative chambers in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Steering Democrats’ strategy to win back state legislative power is Jessica Post, an operative who is little-known outside Democratic campaign circles and has spent the last five years turning the once-sleepy DLCC into a juggernaut.
“She has done one hell of a job over there,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY’s List, which has built up its own state legislative program (with past help from Post, who helped draw up plans during a stint at EMILY’s List.) “Frankly, the proof is in the victories and in the fundraising.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/15/redistricting-state-legislatures-campaign-099437
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