There’s no such entity as “the Democratic Party.” Instead, what we have is a sprawling mass of local and state Democratic parties and a superstructure of committees that oversee everything.
There’s the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in charge of winning the Senate; the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which focuses on the House; the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which tries to win state legislature seats; and the Democratic National Committee, which runs the presidential primaries and national conventions and also tries to help Democrats win up and down the ballot.
These committees constitute an enormous amount of financial muscle—together, they brought in over $1 billion in the 2020 cycle—and are enormously influential, offering behind-the-scenes strategic advice to campaigns, and sometimes (in the case of the DSCC and DCCC) intervening in primaries to protect incumbents or back a more electable candidate (who is usually a centrist).
These committees guide the party’s future by endorsing or promoting candidates in primaries, dispersing money to campaigns and state parties (the DNC does a lot of this), running mostly negative ads in swing states (a big priority for the DSCC and DCCC) and building up party infrastructure by providing resources that campaigns and other organizations can use. Well-run party organizations can provide a boost up and down the ballot. Poorly run party organizations—well, we have seen what that looks like. They failed in a big way five years ago, but seem to have accepted they need to innovate and change. The question is whether they will continue to do that or fall back into complacency.
That question has big implications for Democratic donors both large and small, who have a growing array of choices besides the committees. So what should donors know about these party organs as they look to 2022 and beyond?
The disaster of 2016
The nadir of the Democratic Party’s fortunes was the 2016 election, which not only saw Donald Trump capture the presidency but Republicans control the Senate and House and the majority of state governments. The DNC was a mess after a Russian hacking operation exposed the committee’s anti–Bernie Sanders bias and led to the chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, stepping down; the committee was also in dire financial straits. The DCCC’s failures that cycle were significant enough that it commissioned New York Congressman Patrick Maloney to conduct an “autopsy,” which it refused to let anyone see. The DLCC (and much of the Democrats’ down-ballot operation) had atrophied under Barack Obama, contributing to the party losing hundreds of elected state offices during his presidency.
Perhaps with good reason, rank-and-file Democrats seemed to have little faith in the party committees in the aftermath of 2016. Progressives looking for a way to fight back against the GOP and Trumpism started many new organizations, like Swing Left and Indivisible, devoted to taking back the states and the federal government. On one hand, this showed that the American center-left was still powerful; but it also showed that the people who founded and joined these organizations felt like the party committees weren’t up to the task.
These groups have matured and today make up a kind of parallel party infrastructure that provides funding and support to campaigns, particularly in little-noticed state and local races. But that hasn’t stopped the committees themselves from recovering and rebuilding.
A better DNC
In particular, the DNC is a lot stronger than it used to be. The 2017 DNC chair election was unusually contentious and seemed to be an extension of the Clinton-Sanders feud that had riven the party in 2016. When Tom Perez, the Clintonite/establishment candidate, emerged victorious, he was met with protests. But he tried to unify the party, appointing Keith Ellison, his progressive opponent in the election, as deputy chair and embarking on a unity tour with Sanders. He also made efforts to expand the DNC’s power by requiring campaigns to pay $175,000 and record pro-DNC videos to access the committee’s voter file, and he created a program that allowed campaigns and PACs to share information, an innovation Republicans had pioneered years earlier.
When Perez stepped down after the 2020 elections, the DNC had $38.8 million in cash on hand and only $3 million in debt, putting it on better financial footing than it had been in years; the hope is that that money will allow it to invest in states that the party hasn’t always put money in. The new chair, Jamie Harrison, used to run the South Carolina Democratic Party and state party chairs were hopeful he’d work to grow power even in red states; Harrison has announced a revival of the “50-state strategy,” which focuses on being competitive in as many elections as possible.
Does more money mean “better than?”
Meanwhile, the other committees have benefited from increased Democratic enthusiasm by raking in astronomical amounts of cash. In 2016, the DSCC got $137 million in contributions; in 2020, that number had ballooned to over $250 million; the DCCC’s haul in that same period of time grew from $185 million to $264 million. The DCCC also went through a watershed midterm election cycle in 2018, the most expensive in history, which gave Democrats a net gain of 41 seats, even as it put the DCCC in debt. The DLCC had a record-breaking fundraising haul in 2020, bringing in $50 million and benefiting from an increased focus in Democratic circles on state legislative races.
But one lesson of 2020 is that money alone can’t determine elections. Though Joe Biden beat Trump, the House and state legislative results were disappointing, and the Senate results looked bad before Democrats unexpectedly took both Georgia Senate seats. Both the DSCC and DCCC came under fire for having an unappealing message and spending too much money on TV ads, which are seen by some operatives as having less reach and impact than they used to. Though all the committees have prospered financially and though Democrats won back the federal government (and some states) in 2018-2020, many in the party are not happy with their performance.
The uncertain future
As he did after 2016, Congressman Maloney (now DCCC chair) conducted an autopsy of the 2020 election results. But this time, he outlined the report publicly, telling the Washington Post that Democrats relied on faulty polls and spent too much on television—a sign that the DCCC, however hesitantly, is becoming more transparent. The committee also rescinded a controversial “blacklist” policy that barred consultants who worked for primary challengers from doing work for the DCCC. The committee will continue to defend incumbents in primaries, but it has at least backed off of the blacklist, which perversely prevented the DCCC from using the expertise of some of the most innovative digital consultants in the field.
The committees have worked hard to modernize and improve their operations, and by many measures, they have succeeded. But there are also now many new Democratic-aligned groups that are run by digital natives and don’t have the baggage of the committees. One important question for the party is whether the committees will work with these new groups and learn from them or whether they will resist attempts to change. The DCCC’s blacklist is an example of a committee attempting to stifle innovation in the name of preserving its power; the DNC’s data-sharing program is an example of a committee trying to grow and change. Democrats should hope that the committees continue to explore new tactics and ideas—if they get complacent, they risk returning to the dark days of 2016.