Yooooo happy WelcomeFest Eve!
So excited to see so many of you tomorrow for this second annual gathering, presented with partners at Blue Dogs, NewDems, Third Way, The States Project, Inclusive Abundance, The Next 50, NewDEAL Leaders, Future Caucus, and Dream For America.
We will learn together from the biggest over-performers. And that’s not a talking point, it’s a fact: in 2024, just a dozen candidates in competitive districts won by Trump1 over-performed expectations by 5 or more2.
The majority (7) of them will be at WelcomeFest.
Along with more than a dozen 2026 House candidates and hundreds more ready to support them. Tickets are were $20, but registration is now closed. But live-streaming is free!
Click here to watch the live-stream tomorrow, starting at 1pm EST.
The theme is Responsibility to Win, and is broken into three sections:
More Red to Blue
Consistently contesting Republican-leaning districts is the only path to defeating MAGA. But Democrats compete in fewer geographies now than a decade ago. Despite high stakes and finite targets, few take responsibility to grow the party to contest every winnable race.
We will learn from some of the most over-performing Democratic challengers from last cycle:
Rep. Tom Suozzi - after flipping his old seat in a special, won a Trump +5 district by 4 points, the #4 presidential over-performance of either party.
Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet - flipped a seat in Michigan, #3 ranked Wins Above Replacement of any Democrat in a competitive Trump district.
Janelle Stelson - #2 ranked Wins Above Replacement of any Democrat in a competitive Trump district.
Rebecca Cooke - #5 ranked Wins Above Replacement of any Democrat in a competitive Trump district.
To put these electoral superstars into context, we’ll hear from experts who understand where voters are, how to measure candidate quality, and the pressure points that lead candidates away from persuadable voters:
Lakshya Jain will explain the concept of Wins Above Replacement, and opportunities to expand the battlefield with candidate quality. For more, read his Washington Post piece on how election analysis shows “moderation is winning.”
Matthew Yglesias, iykyk (if not read Yglesias 101)
Lanae Erickson has done the research on What Voters Told Democrats in 2024 and called on candidates to refuse interest group questionnaires at Third Way, home of the Moderate Power Project.
Adam Jentleson, former Senate Chief of Staff, asked When will Democrats learn to say no to The Groups The New York Times?
Less Blue to Red
At last year’s WelcomeFest, Rep. Jared Golden laid out a vision of a place-based politics with the potential to flip red districts led by “proud progressive conservatives, defying the laws of physics in DC politics and forming a covenant with the true American majority.”
This year, we’ll hear about bold new ideas from elected leaders in Democratic strongholds.
States run by Democrats could be models for blue governance, but instead have served as advertisements for Republicans. At the ballot box, big blue states like California and New York lost six congressional seats in the midterms - enough to determine control of the House - while demographic groups like young and nonwhite voters have moved right.
Millions more did not just move right ideologically - they up and moved their entire lives from blue states to red states. Population loss will soon sting far more after the next census will deliver more House districts and electoral college votes to Republican control.
New York State of Mind - Josh Barro & Rep. Ritchie Torres
Josh Barro has been a forceful observer of the Rough Times for Blue-State Democrats in recent years, and believes Democrats Deserved to Lose in 2024 because “they tried to do a zillion different things but did them badly, at great expense.” He has argued Democrats in blue states must take responsibility for a range of failures: crime, housing, government inefficiency, and schools. They cannot win simply by changing the subject.
Rep. Ritchie Torres is one of few progressive elected officials to confront these challenges explicitly, and offer solutions for a path forward. He declared “The State of New York is the antithesis of abundance”, citing the challenge of building affordable housing and energy projects. Representing the nation’s poorest congressional district, he left the Progressive Caucus in 2024, and has voiced concern over the progressive left’s tendency to prioritize purity over practical results. Torres has advocated for zoning reforms to diversify housing supply, expansion of high-performing charter schools with accountability. For more, check out this interview with Rep. Torres on What’s Next For Democrats.
Applying Abundance - Marshall Kosloff with Derek Thompson & Jake Auchincloss
There is a political realignment going on in America, and Rep. Jake Auchincloss believes that Democrats lost the battle of ideas during its first phase, and remain bereft of big ideas. Democrats “shouldn’t be afraid of debate and disagreement right now.”
Abundance, the book zeitgeist first coined by Derek Thompson in early 2022, has given the left a conceptual framework for both big ideas and plenty of debate.
Looking Back to Move Forward
The first two speakers announced for WelcomeFest were David Shor and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. They represent an opportunity to both look back at what worked, and did not, in 2024.
Five more Trump-district Blue Dogs, and Democrats would have won the House last year. Five more Blue Dogs, and Democrats would have won the House in 2022 as well.
What can we learn from the recent past to chart a path forward?
A trio of Trump-District Blue Dogs - Rep. Adam Gray, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, and Rep. Jared Golden - have an approach to “hyperlocal leadership” that can spread across the country.
And then there’s the data:
Politico hailed "The cult of Shor" in 2021 to explain the influence of the Democratic data guru leading Blue Rose Research. Barack Obama touted his persuasive explanations of the 2020 election, and Shor’s recent interview with Ezra Klein defines what many Democrats think happened in 2024.
Shor is a leading proponent of the theory that Democrats should embrace popular proposals to win. He explained to Klein what went wrong in 2024, and what Democrats must do to regain power. And he's got the data to back it up - Shor conducted 27 million polling interviews last cycle, giving him a uniquely credible understanding of Democratic mistakes and a clear view of the changes that should be made.
We will close out with Senator Elissa Slotkin, who kept a precious Trump-won state from flipping a Senate seat red. Following her over-performance, Slotkin gave a powerful response to Trump’s congressional address, and was explicit on the need for a “war plan” to beat MAGA.
And then, we’ll be looking forward to happy hour - and the work ahead in the 979 days before the next presidential primary.
House districts Trump won by less than 10 points
By WAR
Go kill it guys!