That Whole Red State Thing
The short term and long term case for investing in red state/district races
The short term and long term case for investing in red state/district races
As Democratic Party strategists have gotten more and more invested in Big Data targeting, we have created a culture which has narrowed our interest in targeting voters, districts, and states that are harder to win. I have been having this debate with the Democratic establishment for more than 25 years, as party leaders began giving up in one state after another.
Up until 2000, West Virginia was a reliably Democratic state in presidential elections with two Democratic Senators and a Dem Governor. After we lost it in a surprise in 2000, we stopped targeting it, and because we paid no attention, it became one of the most Republican states in the country.
Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Iowa, and Ohio all used to be purple states in presidential elections and have at least one Democratic Senator.
There are all kinds of problems with this narrowing of targets mentality. One is that once you give up on a state, it becomes more and more Republican, and harder to win any elections there. Another is that more and more people get radicalized by the non-stop social and legacy media domination in those places. But the number one reason to not give up on states is simply math. Look at the states that are generally considered blue, red, and purple:
Blue (17)
VT
MA
CT
RI
NY
NJ
DE
MD
VA
MN
IL
NM
CO
CA
OR
WA
HI
Purple (9)
ME
NH
PA
WI
MI
NC
GA
AZ
NV
Red (24)
WV
SC
AL
FL
MS
LA
TN
KY
AR
MO
IA
IN
OH
ND
SD
NE
KS
OK
TX
MT
WY
ID
UT
AK
Let’s talk about the Senate for a while. I know that many progressive-minded folks like to bemoan the way the Senate is deeply biased toward rural and Republican states, and there is certainly some truth to that complaint. However, that is the system we have for the foreseeable future, so if we care about passing legislation, and confirming or stopping judicial nominations and administration appointees, we need to figure out how to win the Senate.
With many party strategists and pundits ascribing to the view that Democrats can no longer compete in red states, that means the Democrats would have to win every single Senate race in both blue and purple states to get to 52 seats.That leaves almost no margin for error. Give the DSCC and Senate Majority PAC credit, they do really well in those swing state races: they’ve won 14 of the 18 races in those purple states over the last three cycles. But we are very unlikely to win them all: we need to win some of those “red state” races, and we need to turn more red states purple.
A lot of pundits and party leaders forget that nothing in politics is immutable and unchanging.
Look at just how politics has shifted since the turn of the century, 25 years of American politics. Within that timeframe, Democrats have had both Senate seats in MT, ND, SD, AR, LA, and WV, and one each in OH, MO, IA, and NE. Democratic presidential candidates have won or come very close in 9 different states that Trump won in 2024: IN, MO, AZ, NV, NC, FL, GA, PA, MI, WI. And in case you think it’s all been bad news for Democrats, at the beginning of this century VA, GA, NC, and AZ were all considered reliably red in presidential races. In 2018, we won Senate seats in OH, MT, and WV; since then we have picked up two Senate seats in AZ and two more in GA.
We have to get out of a mindset that says we should only compete in the usual purple and blue seats and districts.
Great candidates and a message taking on corporate abuse of power
There are two ways Democrats, and Independents who share many of our values, can win in red states.
One is to recruit kickass candidates who truly represent their districts and states, and are genuine about identifying with working class folks. The best red state/district candidates are those actually rooted in the working class, and who speak to the strong anti-establishment populism voters are feeling today. I’m going to highlight a few of those folks below.
The kinds of candidates who have the best chance in working class red states and districts are the populists. Not all of these kinds of candidates are Democrats – Dan Osborn, the Nebraska pipefitter and former union President who got 47% of the vote in the 2024 Senate election is an Independent. He is running again this year and is tied with the Republican billionaire incumbent right now.
Here’s a great video of Dan talking about corporate America while fixing a car.
Let me show you a couple more of my favorite campaign videos, where working class candidates have kickass populist messages.
The first is from firefighter and local union Vice-President Sam Forstag.
The second is from a farmer who had to sell her farm last year because of Trump’s terrible policies hurting the ag economy. Check this out.
These videos are amazing. They take corporate abuse of power head on and promise to fight for working people on those issues, and show off really appealing, charismatic candidates fighting the good fight.
But it’s not just the message: how do we deliver that message?
The media landscape has changed radically in recent years. 3,000 newspapers have closed in the last 10 years. Most radio and TV stations have been bought up by huge national media conglomerates, many of them with a far right-wing bent like Sinclair Broadcasting. Meanwhile, most people are moving away from watching traditional TV, getting most of their entertainment from streaming services and most of their news from social media.
We need to stop spending so much money on TV ads and invest far more into social media, especially local pages that can build trusted communities, and get people news and information about issues.
Progressive non-profit groups need to be investing in long term social media infrastructure. Democratic candidates need to invest in building campaign Facebook pages that engage people in every community in their districts, pages where you can deliver content and do organizing at the same time.
Over time, I hope that some wealthy progressives buy more media properties, and that our progressive movement can organically support genuine talent who build audiences for the progressive worldview. In the short term, we need to be organizing at the local level to give our candidates a chance.
If we do this kind of local organizing, and build our message delivery capacity through a serious social media strategy, we can win in red districts and states.
