An unusually early and large Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee investment is aimed at getting voters to pay more attention to state legislative races.
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State Senator David Haley and Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, both Democrats. Their party hopes to break Republican supermajorities in the Kansas legislature.
As the arm of the Democratic Party that works on state legislative races, it is the job of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee to care about the bottom of the ballot. With a $10 million campaign announced on Monday, it is trying to get more voters to care, too.
The $10 million investment, part of a $60 million total that the group previously announced as its target for the 2024 cycle, will fund an unusually early and expansive public push — one intended not only to support candidates, but also to convince voters of the importance of controlling state legislatures.
The money will go to party caucuses in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Most of these are swing states, but red Kansas is included because Democrats hope to break Republicans’ supermajorities there — which would let the state’s Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, veto legislation with less chance of being overridden.
A broader public-facing campaign is centered on a website that will spotlight and raise money for a cycling lineup of candidates, including in solidly Republican states like Idaho and Oklahoma where the party is trying to make long-term inroads.
The message: Much of the policy that directly affects Americans’ lives is enacted at the state level. That is perhaps most prominently true on abortion, one of the most salient issues for the Democratic base, but it is also true of voting access, gun laws, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and economic programs like paid leave. Republican-led states could supercharge, and Democratic states could constrain, a second Trump administration, and vice versa if President Biden wins.
“It is so crystal clear that regardless of who wins the White House, this Republican agenda — this dangerous MAGA Republican agenda — is going to move through our statehouses,” said Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “We can’t just continue to pay attention to what is happening in Washington, D.C., and our federal races.”
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