As a long time campaign volunteer and staffer who has hundreds of campaigns under my belt, I’d like to share some perspective that will help you focus and get back in the fight.
If you know someone who needs a little perspective right now, please share this with them.
1. 2018 has a lesson for us.
Attention to details and execution matters.
There was a ton at stake in the 2018 mid-term elections. With oversight and impeachment power on the line and an ‘authoritarian wanna-be’ president in power, Democrats won an overwhelming victory in Congressional districts and took the House of Representatives. However, with the balance of power in the Senate and the governorships of Georgia and Florida up for election, Republicans won significant and impactful victories.
Both are true.
Democrats executed successful campaigns in our House races and outperformed pundit predictions. But facing voter suppression and superior GOP execution in states like North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri, Georgia and Florida, we lost critical Senate seats and Governorships.
The takeaway from this is that, with so much on the line in the 2020 election, we have every reason to put 100% our energy on executing our election strategy knowing that whatever they say publicly, Republicans will be doing exactly the same.
The GOP has shown that they can be smart and execute, which includes abusing their power, to achieve their goals in an environment with an electoral headwind. Our challenge, the question facing Democrats, is can we, with a Blue Wave at our backs, execute the details with focus, discipline and precision to overcome the GOP deck-stacking and flip the maximum number of districts and states BLUE?
For us, that means we need to persuade our unlikeliest voters to successfully cast their ballots. We need to harness both outrage and hopeful energy to go the last mile in races that almost certainly will come down to a handful of votes.
2. Virginia has a lesson for us. It’s possible.
If someone told you at the beginning of 2017 that Virginia would elect Democratic majorities to both state chambers and pass gun sense legislation in 2020 in the face of armed protests in the state capital, you might have had a hard time imagining it.
But it’s true. It happened, despite the armed gangs and men parading outsized rifles.
We Democrats won and passed gun reform legislation this year, and this happened because, despite outward appearances, these two outcomes had majority support in Virginia.
So, if we wear our 2020 hats and we go back in time and think from the point of view of early 2017, what was possible for Virginia may well be possible many, many other places.
But we can make that a reality only if we do what Democrats did in Virginia.
We need to be pragmatic, keep calm heads and hearts, and work our asses off to win on election day.
And, as Virginia showed, that’s not the end of the struggle, it’s just the beginning of the path to passing laws that win the victories our majorities deserve.
3. Conservative Abuse of Power is designed to EXHAUST you
The gaslighting and confusion from Trump and the Republicans is deliberate and it’s designed to exhaust you.
Any union organizer will tell you how utterly familiar this is.
The entire goal of an anti-union campaign is to confuse, delay, exhaust, divide, dispirit and grind down people’s determination to take action together.
In this case, the Republican goal is for the Democratic majority in the USA to not realize our own power.
(Never forget that Hillary got 2,864,974 more votes than Donald Trump.)
Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell want to make it so that people don’t see or even believe that change is possible.
But the opposite is true.
Not only is change is possible. But we the people are way more powerful that we realize.
That’s why they gaslight and confuse and try to divide us.
And once we realize that we can tap into the antidote: the power of taking action.
4. Taking action is the antidote to Trump’s lies
First, if you need to take a break, take one.
Physical and emotional exhaustion is real.
There’s no shame in doing 5 more Vote Forward letters and then watching Season 4 of the Masked Singer. (Ahem.) Or signing up to volunteer with Sister District next weekend and then getting back to your needed day to day work.
But we’ve seen this reality over and over again. Republicans will use the fog and confusion of Fox News to confuse you and wear you down.
And in the meantime they are secretly rooting for you NOT to do anything.
If you want to clear your mind from the clutter propagated by the news media and Trump derangement syndrome, TAKE ACTION, DO SOMETHING.
Don’t mourn, don’t focus on the unpersuadable relative poking you on Facebook, organize.
In fact, meaningful actions that work towards our collective goals are the antidote to conservatism.
There’s a reason that the deepest and most profound liberal slogans are rooted in hope: a better world is possible.
That’s not just a slogan. It’s true.
And there’s real cause for hope.
5. Overall the map and poll numbers are horrible for Republicans and even a defensive Democratic strategy could yield big gains.
I’m no polling expert, but I’ve been reading election maps for decades.
Trust me, Republicans aren’t looking at these polls and feeling happy.
Iowa. Georgia. South Carolina. Texas. Kansas.
These are not states that GOP strategists want to be talking about or spending money in right now.
But none of this guarantees anything.
But what it does mean is that if we Democrats focus on executing in states that are clearly within our reach and where we have multiple reasons to invest in like:
- Pennsylvania (Presidential flip, Congressional Seat Flips, and State Leg seats)
- Wisconsin (Presidential flip, State Leg seats)
- Michigan (Presidential flip, US Sen Defense, Congressional Seat Flips, State Leg Flips)
- North Carolina (Presidential flip, US Sen Flip, Congressional Flips, Two State Leg Flips)
- Maine (Presidential flip, US Sen Flip)
- Arizona (Presidential flip, US Sen Flip, Two State Leg Flips)
- CO (Presidential defense, US Sen Flip)
- MN (Presidential defense, US Senate Defense, US Congress Defense, State Senate Flip)
Then, in very clear contrast to the Republicans, even a conservative strategy fought on mostly favorable turf could still help Democrats win big in 2020.
Think about that. And then dig in! We’ve got a fight on our hands, but there’s still so much to win even on turf that currently favors us bigly.
And more.
6. 2004 style turnout combined with voter suppression are the GOP’s best and only hope
But they’ve done it before. You don’t spend decades as an effectively minority party and NOT have a plan. In fact, the GOP did it in 2002, in 2004, in 2010, 2014, 2016 and, partially, in 2018.
The Republicans desperately need pro-life, evangelical, and the unlikeliest of unlikely Republican voters to show up at the polls.
We should all assume that they are executing with discipline and focus to turn out their base.
But they still need something more, and what they really need if for Dems to be divided and to give up hope.
7. DownBallot Dems working to flip districts Blue are as important as Biden’s coattails.
Indivisible’s Ezra Levin says it perfectly here as it relates to Texas on Twitter, click through to read the whole thread:
As you may know I’ve put all of my focus this year on exactly these scrappy and persistent downballot candidates.
Every Democratic campaign expert I’ve consulted with on this project has shared one clear conclusion. The strategy is correct. When local Dem candidates turn out votes, those voters very consistently vote for Dems upticket.
It’s effectively a Trickle Up vote that helps the national Presidential campaign.
You can donate to a great list of these Democratic candidates via Dailykos’ anti-gerrymander ActBlue page.
You can also follow and amplify them on Twitter by subscribing to my State Leg Heroes Twitter list.
Bottom line, Ezra is right.
Every dollar of donation and hour of volunteer time to them goes to getting out the voters we need to win the state. -Ezra Levin, Indivisible
And that you should give you hope and purpose as we close out the home stretch of this election campaign.
Perspective. Focus. Get the Win.