The First Step to Electing More Democrats? Getting Them to Run
Run for Something’s mission is not to stop Trump in 2020, at least not directly. Its focus is on local races, where Democrats have been creamed over the last eight years, losing some 935 state legislative seats during the Obama era. In 2017, it is focusing its efforts on Virginia and North Carolina, two places where Democratic gains at the state level (the party controls the governor’s mansion in both states) are undercut by conservative legislatures. In Virginia, a blue state in the last three presidential elections, Democrats have failed even to show up in some races: 44 of the state’s 67 Republican delegates ran unopposed in 2015, including three Republicans in districts carried by Hillary Clinton. Democrats have a long way to go to recoup what they lost, but they’ve also left a lot of low-hanging fruit on the vine.
Litman, a Barack Obama campaign veteran who was email director for Clinton’s 2016 effort, believes that replenishing the candidate pool has taken a back seat to other party staples, like building a get-out-the-vote program. “Candidate recruitment isn’t sexy, it takes a lot of manpower, it takes a lot time, and it needs more concerted effort,” she says, “which is why we are stepping up here.”
More: The First Step to Electing More Democrats? Getting Them to Run