Democrats local party problem

It was a chilling prediction: “[t]hey really don’t care about the grassroots. It is going to come back to get them. It did in 2014 and I have a really unfortunate feeling that it could happen again this year. It is a scary situation at this point.”

This was a statement of a local Democratic Party chair in a battleground state less than two months before Election Day as part of an as-yet unpublished study of state-legislative campaigns. The study partially consists of interviews with party chairs, both Democrat and Republican, in a states that ended up being 2016 swing states: Nevada, North Carolina, and Michigan. While this study and these interviews had nothing to do with the presidential election in theory, the conversations provide a rare glimpse at the disconnect between the upper echelons of the national Democratic party and their troops on the ground. Further, these conversations lack the contamination of hindsight; they all occurred before election day.

{mosads}Much has been written about the Democrats’ failure to appeal to the rural and suburban, white, working-class men who once formed part of the party’s union base. Yet, these defectors weren’t alone in feeling disconnected. Chairs outside of major metropolitan areas also expressed concern – much of it related to the party’s city-centric agenda and the burden it placed on party loyalists during elections. Commenting on the general disorder outside urban centers one chair noted: “there was no state party or local involvement…they were kind of in disarray. They were so disorganized that [a statewide candidate] used [a large urban county party] as his base.” This was emblematic of the feelings of less-urban Democrats – that city parties are often the best funded and empowered entities in the state and that this was by design of the party elite. While Democrats may be comfortable leaving some of the white men in Trump’s coalition behind, they cannot afford to leave behind whole counties simply because their population is “too small.” As one North Carolina chair deadpanned, “the party strategy leaves votes on the table.” When turnout is low in cities, these votes determine the outcome.

With Democrats losing by narrow margins, the complaints of local party chairs from less populous counties should hit home. They underscore the need to rebuild party infrastructure. However, building infrastructure necessitates a party that is open to the grassroots, including grassroots members of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Conversations with minority chairs in less-urban North Carolina and Michigan suggest that Democrats are missing the mark in less-white, less-urban counties as well. In fact, North Carolina has several rural counties where more than 1 in 3 residents are African American. The experience of African American Democrats from those rural counties is illustrative. “Without our vote, which is basically just the black community, no one can win but…they will just tell you, your numbers are not there. They look at numbers [and decide not to do work in our area]… but what they don’t realize is that when you have that attitude you are leaving some votes behind. If they were aggressive or motivated to come here, they would get a lot more votes.”

The picture was brighter in Nevada, where the famously well-organized operation of former Sen. Harry Reid did its job. Part of that job was to organize everywhere, including outside the state’s two major cities and within the diverse communities important to the state’s Democratic coalition. One local chair commented on the need to have a ground campaign in every county, regardless of Republican registration advantage stating that, “when Democrats feel isolated it’s hard to get them out. By having a [local Democratic] club in this area and by getting out the vote down ballot I think we helped. We helped bring votes to the races higher up.”  Their sentiments were echoed by another local chair who described the state’s joint effort stating, “My little county really can’t take credit for [high turn out] you know it is a team effort. When you see all of the counties doing the best that they can and when you see all of the counties getting enthusiastic about it and turning out the vote…it sways the election.”

Unfortunately, this feeling of being part of a team, of being respected even outside of the most Democratic areas, was not widespread among the Democrats interviewed. Chairs were more likely to talk about their struggle to be accepted. For example, one chair noted, “the party is not nearly as open as you might think. It is very closed. It was very difficult for me to break into the party myself. Even today I still get a lot of push back.” This contrasts with view of the local, Republican Party chairs contacted for the study. They were more likely to feel respected by the party at-large. The Republican Party is more decentralized and seemingly more comfortable empowering local chairs in a larger number of districts.

When the Democrats invested in local parties they made substantial gains, but since reversing course in 2009 at the conclusion of their 50-State Strategy, Democrats are at their weakest point since 1928. Even in Nevada, Sen. Harry Reid had been a stand-in for local party investments in the state. With his exit in January, the future of Nevada is uncertain. The hard truth is that targeting select urban districts is not enough. If the Democratic Party hopes to come back, they need to do more than address the disaffected white working-class. They also need to rebuild the bridge to their own local leadership.

Al Benninghoff is a political strategist, election reform advocate, and former Democratic Party operative. Heather James is a PhD candidate in political science at Rutgers University, teaches political science at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and has completed over 100 interviews as part of the study of state legislative campaigns mentioned in this article. For more information on research methodology for the upcoming study, contact Heather James at hjames@bmcc.cuny.edu.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.