Are Democrats Conceding Democracy?
Newly-released campaign finance data shows Democrats underinvesting in potentially competitive swing districts and giving anti-democracy Republicans a free pass this fall.
“With democracy itself on the ballot this fall, you’d think Democrats would be doing everything we can to minimize the chances of a Republican-controlled House. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.” — WelcomePAC co-founder Lauren Harper
The midterms are just a little over three months away and it’s on Democrats to save democracy from a radicalized GOP. To understand how aggressively Democrats are challenging vulnerable Republicans, WelcomePAC combined newly-released quarterly fundraising data from congressional candidates with 2020 election results in newly drawn districts to produce another edition of Conceding Democracy.
Here are key findings:
There are 7 GOP-held districts where Trump received 50-51% in 2020. Democratic candidates started Q3 with less than $200,000 in cash on hand in 5 of the 7.
Those include districts held by democracy-undermining Republicans such as Bill Huizenga (MI-04), who signed onto the failed Texas amicus brief to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and Michael Turner (OH-10), who voted against the formation of the Jan. 6th Commission. Both Huizenga and Turner’s Democratic challengers kicked off Q3 with less than $6,000 in cash on hand — effectively giving these Republicans a free pass.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Democratic candidates started Q3 with less than $100,000 in cash on hand in 18 of 29 GOP-held districts where Trump won with 50-54% of the vote.
These include more districts held by insurrectionist-aligned Republicans like Scott Perry (PA-10), who went all-in on the Big Lie and hasn’t checked a single box on the Republican Accountability Project’s Democracy Scorecard, which grades GOP officials on fidelity to democracy.
Perry’s Democratic challenger only had $55,983 in cash on hand at the start of Q3.
Democrats are giving up in the “Golden Zone”.
These slightly-red districts — salmon or light coral colored on the partisan rainbow — are important because Democrats like Jared Golden (ME-02) have proven them winnable by building independent brands that appeal to center-right swing voters. With the right candidates and resources, Democrats can win in the “Golden Zone”: districts where Trump got less than 54% and Jared Golden-level over-performance would deliver a win.
In her new book, Democratic strategist (and architect of Mayor Pete’s presidential campaign) Lis Smith compares politics to American football. On any given Sunday, any NFL team can beat any other NFL team. That is not literally true in politics, but it is closer to reality than the doomsaying polarization hawks who dominate today’s discourse would have us believe. As we often say, volatility is the defining feature of modern politics — and vastly underrated.
The bottom line is that you can’t win if you don’t play. And Democrats aren’t even playing in too many districts.
Check out WelcomePAC’s full Conceding Democracy analysis here.
The Democrats’ Resource Allocation Problem
Why aren’t Democrats investing in recruiting and supporting candidates in these potentially winnable districts?
We’ve broken out a few drivers of Democrats’ resource allocation problem before:
“The Democrats” Fallacy: The news is filled with invocations for “The Democrats” to do something, but the structure of modern political parties means that there’s no chief executive in charge of macro party strategy and asset allocation. There’s no such thing as “The Democrats” — in reality, the party is simply whoever in the ecosystem organizes and invests.
Undervalued Seats: The political marketplace has ballooned rapidly (reaching $8.7 Billion in 2020 — more than double four years prior) while the share of competitive seats has declined sharply (decreasing by 60% since the year 2000 to a historic low this cycle). The sector has yet to catch up to this growing mismatch between market size and competitive terrain, meaning that each marginal seat is significantly undervalued.
Irrational Small Dollar Donors: The “Political Hobbyists” driving the online political marketplace are wildly irrational and inefficient when it comes to allocating their resources. No example captures this inefficiency more vividly than the fact that these online hordes have rage-donated millions of dollars to defeat supervillains like Marjorie Taylor Greene in impossible-to-win districts while neglecting to support winnable challenges.
Conservative Race Ratings: The political ratings agencies play an instrumental role in informing the allocation of Democratic resources, but they too ignore the value of strategic risk-taking: the narrower Kevin McCarthy’s majority come January 2023, the better for Democrats and democracy — and the advantages of incumbency make it easier to defend a seat than to flip one. Democrats have every reason to play for keeps this year, despite the widespread doom-and-gloom narrative.
There are also two other drivers of the Democrats’ resource allocation problem that we haven’t covered in-depth before but will impact the ability to protect the fragile House majority:
Irrational Institutions: The institutional arms of party establishments value protecting incumbents over winning new seats. This is natural and politically savvy — establishment leaders are rewarded and engender loyalty by protecting their own — but it should be noted that the goal of this approach is not always to maximize seats won.
Strong Loss Aversion: There’s an aversion to losing in politics that limits tolerance for strategic risk-taking and affects stakeholders across the board — from major institutional investors wary of being second-guessed to advocacy groups incentivized to focus on gaining the affection of likely winners.
Redistricting’s Impact
After the decennial redistricting process, Republicans saw a big jump in very safe districts. When looking at the safest seats — those that were 10 points higher or lower than the GOP presidential result — Democrats stayed even at 126 while Republicans jumped from 100 to 122. Democrats have no choice but to compete in the declining share of more winnable districts where Trump won with 50-57% (reduced from 78 in 2020 to 51 in 2022) to entertain a sustainable governing majority.
WelcomePAC produces an updated edition of Conceding Democracy every quarter alongside each new release of quarterly FEC reporting to inform district targeting and track investments in center-right districts.
The first report, released in early November of last year, identified insurrectionist GOP Rep. Ken Calvert of California as a ripe target for a big tent insurgency. As WelcomePAC co-founder Lauren Harper wrote in NBC News:
“Sprinkled across states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Georgia are congressional districts that may initially appear to be the ‘Safe Rs’ that the official Democratic Party campaign entities bypass to focus their resources on more competitive districts. Take Rep. Ken Calvert in California’s 42nd District, southeast of Los Angeles. Calvert has been in office as long as I’ve been alive and hasn’t had a well-funded Democratic challenger since 2010. Yet just 52.7 percent voted Trump in his district, and his incumbency has been tainted with scandal.
Giving folks like Calvert a ‘free pass’ every year doesn’t make for good democracy, and it certainly doesn’t advance Democrats into new territory if they concede by not even showing up for the fight.”
Months later, the insurgency is well underway in Calvert’s district (shifted from CA-42 to CA-41 after redistricting). After WelcomePAC invested early to put democracy on offense in support of Calvert’s Democratic challenger, Will Rollins, the DCCC announced this week that it would officially jump into CA-41.
Scale is Possible
The stakes are too high for Democrats to concede democracy without competing.
For a $9 billion industry, leaving a dozen or so markets untouched seems insane — and it is. But the good news is that scale is possible. These newly drawn lines are here until 2031 and there’s a strong opportunity for strategic, multi-cycle investment in just-right-of-center districts.
Maybe conceding a few seats here and there made sense a decade ago, when American democracy seemed secure and there was just a fraction of the money being spent across far more swing seats. But in today’s environment, competing everywhere possible is a must — for Democrats and for democracy.
As for the midterms? The best thing Democrats can do right now to flip winnable red-leaning districts is support compelling candidates who have demonstrated a capacity to compete — candidates like Rollins in CA-41 and Emilia Sykes in OH-13.
For more suggestions on which candidates to contribute to, check out WelcomePAC’s Smart Donor Bot on Twitter:
