Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:42 pm
It’s full throttle for House Democrats as they head into the 2014 midterm elections beyond frustrated with the deliberate obstruction of the Republicans, who swept into power in the 2010 midterms.
House Democrats are getting organized, rolling out a campaign to lock down commitments from 1 million supporters to vote in November, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), as first shared with Alexandra Jaffe in The Hill.
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DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) told The Hill that this is the largest field program House Democrats have ever put on the ground for a midterm, “‘1 Million Votes for 2014’ will be the centerpiece of the largest field program House Democrats have ever put on the ground for a midterm election. We’ve been outraising the Republicans and now we’re going to out-organize them as we build a campaign infrastructure to win this November.”
According to details shared first with The Hill, the “1 Million Votes for 2014” campaign calls for voters to sign a “Commitment Card,” on which they pledge to vote in November and offer a reason why: “Better paying jobs,” “equality for women,” “raising the minimum wage,” among others.
The card will be sent back to them the week before the election. Studies have shown reminding voters of their written pledge to hit the polls just before Election Day is about as effective at boosting turnout as speaking directly to them at their door.
Jaffe points out that this strategy is something the Obama campaign (one of the most well run political campaigns in a long time) did to “great effect” in 2012.
While Democrats have been outraising Republicans in the House by $113 million to $91 million according to totals earlier this month (Republicans aren’t even paying their own dues and the big money is focused on taking the Senate from Democrats), the midterms favor the Republicans because the Republican voter shows up.
The pundits have been saying for years that 2014 would be a referendum on Obamacare (that turned out to be wrong, as we predicted at Politicus, because people like access to medical care no matter how glitchy it is getting there) — a certain routing for Democrats, with Republicans easily taking the Senate.
While it’s true that voters like a balanced government, and thus midterms will often go against the party of the President, right now that actually doesn’t look like a given. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is in deep trouble in Kentucky as his Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes relentlessly guns for his seat as he trips over his entitlement, lack of policy, and bad campaign.
If even a small percentage of the Obama voters turn out due to anger over John Boehner’s lawsuit (another way Republicans are helping Democrats raise money) or to stand up for contraception as a medical right or to defend access to affordable health insurance or stand up for our veterans rights to have an adequately funded VA, or just to say ENOUGH!, the midterms could be a surprise.
The bad news for Democrats is many of the core Democratic base do not vote in midterms and some of them don’t even know that there are midterms. It’s easy for those of us who live and breathe politics to scoff at this, but the truth is that most Americans are buried with work and family responsibilities. Many of them are not paying attention to politics, and who can blame them.
The other day, I was talking about the midterms to a (very smart but very busy) friend of mine who did not know what or when the midterms are. My friend votes in Presidential elections and cares deeply about many of the issues. For these folks, midterms will be on Tuesday, November 4th and it’s when we vote for all 435 House seats (think John Boehner (R-OH) versus Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)) and 33 of the 100 seats in the Senate, plus 38 governorships will be elected in this midterm election, and then there is your state legislature. In other words, all of the power the President doesn’t have? You vote for that in midterms. You’re voting for all of your laws and you’re voting for the executive of your state often (states elect governors for four or two years). It’s a BFD with a lot at stake, but it doesn’t get the attention of the every four years presidential election.
If the Voter Card pledge campaign goes out to some of those busy voters and reminds them what is at stake, it could have a real impact. Democrats could make a decent dent in the crazy in 2014, and use 2016 to ride on a strong Democratic candidate’s back to the majority.
Organizing Democrats in a midterm? What a novel idea! If it works even a tiny bit, it spells trouble for Republicans, who can’t gerrymander themselves into complete immunity from their failures forever.
Image: Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, carrying the gavel that was used to pass Medicare (Chip Somodevilla /Getty) — Back when things got done in the House
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