The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is one of several committees that form the institutional Democratic Party. It’s one of the lesser-known of these groups, lacking the brand name recognition of the DSCC, DCCC or DNC. Its work flies similarly under the radar; instead of federal races, the DLCC tries to win seats at the state legislature level, meaning it has literally thousands of low-profile contests to monitor and compete in. This focus makes it a more attractive option than other party committees for donors looking to achieve bang-for-their-buck efficiency. We recommend the DLCC to donors. And with the 2022 election season approaching, we consider giving to the DLCC to be a high priority. (Explore our methodology.)
The DLCC had a budget of $51 million in the 2020 cycle, a fraction of the funds available to the DSCC and DCCC. The races it focuses on are obscure compared to Senate and Congressional contests; studies have found that many Americans don’t even know who represents them in their state’s legislature. But state governments decide a lot of important policies, from abortion access to the minimum wage. Back in the 1980s, Democrats controlled most state legislative chambers, but this advantage has gradually eroded as Republicans put more resources into contesting these elections. (Some trace the GOP focus on state legislatures to the 1971 “Powell memo,” which laid out a political strategy for big business.) After decades of quiet work, the GOP came to control a record 32 state legislatures in 2016; because in many states, the legislature draws district lines, this electoral advantage can be self-perpetuating, as Republican politicians gerrymander themselves favorable maps.
This brief will describe how the DLCC functions and examine its recent track record. It will also discuss the opportunity the DLCC presents for donors, and why targeting legislative races, as opposed to higher-profile elections, is a viable strategy for donors
What are its core strategies?
The DLCC divides the country into five regions, each of which is monitored by a political director. In practice, the committee focuses on states where there is a chance of flipping one or both legislative chambers, for example, Pennsylvania and Arizona in 2020. The DLCC provides support to candidates in a variety of ways:
Focusing on priority races. DLCC identifies “Spotlight Races” that are considered important and that have particularly strong candidates. These are races that get a lot of DLCC support, and donors curious about upcoming state-level campaigns to back can peruse that list and give directly through the DLCC website.
Outside spending. The DLCC makes independent expenditures to help Democrats get elected at the state level, which often take the form of ads that air encouraging voters to cast ballots for Democrats in general rather than particular candidates.
Supporting state-level staff. It provides training and sometimes salaries for campaign staff. At this level of electoral politics, candidates often have very few staffers and workers may lack experience in things like writing press releases or running a fundraising operation, making this sort of assistance valuable.
How does it spend money?
Tracking DLCC spending is difficult because it spends across so many states. But it's clear that unlike the DCCC and DSCC, it doesn't spend huge amounts on advertising. According to OpenSecrets, in 2018 the bulk of its expenditures went to staff salaries ($7 million, 23 percent of its spending) and transfers to state party organizations ($8.8 million, 30 percent). This may reflect the impracticality of trying to produce ads for thousands of races—media made up only about 1 percent of its spending that year.
Instead, the DLCC spends money providing assistance to campaigns through training sessions, data modeling, and partnerships with other organizations. This means that a lot of its money is spent directly on its own staff, though like other parts of the Democratic Party it tends to move money around to battleground states.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of those strategies?
Though the DLCC has been raising more money in the past few cycles, it can't be everywhere at once and has to divide its efforts across thousands of races. By necessity, its efforts tend to be concentrated in states where a legislative chamber could flip. But it's important for Democrats to grow power across all 50 states, and there is organizing to be done in states where winning a substantial number of seats is a distant dream. In those places, the DLCC's model makes less sense.
But the DLCC represents an opportunity for donors. In the last decade, an enormous amount of money has flowed into electoral politics, but there is probably still value to be had in donating to state-level races. These elections are decided by relatively few votes and the campaigns have relatively small budgets, so donations, especially early donations, to these candidates can provide them with a lot of help. Being able to buy mailers or coordinate door-to-door canvassing could be the difference between a victory and a defeat, and in closely divided legislatures, a couple additional victories could give Democrats much more power than they would otherwise have. The case for donating to these races, as under-the-radar as they are, is extremely strong.
A good illustration of the merit of this strategy is to consider its opposite, which would be donating to a high-profile Senate campaign late in a race, something many Decmoratic donors do as they are bombarded by fundraising and media messages about these sorts of races. With that donation, a Senate campaign will likely buy more ads, but the state will probably be saturated with political messaging and one more TV spot will probably not affect the race at all. By contrast, if you give the same amount of money to a state senate hopeful early in their race, they may be able to hire an additional staffer—a field director, say—and substantially increase their chance of winning.
These often overlooked state-level races are what make the DLCC a compelling option for donors.The committee can allocate resources to races that probably won’t be top-of-mind for donors.
What is its track record of achieving its goals?
In the decade prior to 2016, the DLCC had a poor track record. During the Obama era, Democrats lost nearly 1,000 state legislative seats and Democratic-aligned operatives Blue Tent spoke with agree that the DLCC wasn’t a particularly functional organization. From 2008 to 2014, Democrats lost full or partial control of legislatures in 13 states, and they continued to lose chambers on net in 2014. In 2016, they gained more chambers than they lost, but still continued to bleed seats.
The party suffered a setback in 2020, however, as it was hit by a net loss in seats, even while winning the presidency. This may have been due to unexpected Republican enthusiasm, a lack of door-knocking from Democrats during the pandemic, or ticket-splitting from swing-state moderates, all factors that have been identified by analysts in election post-mortems. The DLCC could have helped ameliorate these problems by, for instance, pressuring campaigns to do in-person door-knocking, but it didn't do so.
These losses can’t be solely blamed on the DLCC, but unfortunately, the group has had basically only one positive cycle in terms of results in the last decade-plus. Still, the organization has clearly recovered from its disastrous pre-2016 slump.
Does it have strong leadership and governance?
It’s nearly universally held that Jessica Post, the former DLCC employee who came back to run it in 2016, is an energetic and effective leader who has helped grow the organization. Under Post, Democrats started to reverse the decades-long trend of Republican state election dominance in 2018, when they flipped several legislative chambers. This was thanks partly to better organization from the DLCC and partly to new Democratic-aligned groups that focused on legislative campaigns.
Unlike the DSCC and DCCC, whose staffs and leadership turn over nearly every cycle, the DLCC maintains the same team through multiple cycles. This is a reflection of the more specialized nature of the DLCC’s work, but it also means that the organization is more stable and less likely to change directions. An advantage the DLCC has over the DSCC and DCCC is that while the tactics of the other major committees are scrutinized by pundits and political operatives from all branches of the party, the DLCC, with its lower profile, is not subject to the same problems.
What metrics and milestones does it use to measure its success?
Like the other Democratic committees, the DLCC does not release detailed breakdowns of internal metrics, and would not share internal data with Blue Tent.
How transparent is it about its spending, results, and learning from its mistakes?
It isn't especially transparent by the standards of other organizations in the state electoral space, which tend to share detailed impact reports. The DLCC occasionally releases strategy memos, which are helpful for those interested in the Democratic Party's take on various states, but it doesn't stand out for its transparency.
Is it committed to racial and gender equity both internally and in its strategies?
The DLCC does not publish statistics on its staff, but a review of their LinkedIn profiles shows that like other party committees, the group appears mostly to be staffed at the top level by white people. (Blue Tent has asked the DLCC about its staff diversity and will update this brief when we hear back.) But the DLCC’s board of directors is led by Chair New York State Senate Majority Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Vice Chair Nevada Speaker of the Assembly Jason Frierson, both of whom are Black.
The DLCC’s Spotlight Races feature an array of candidates of color and LGBTQ candidates, so it is dedicated to diversifying the party through its endorsements.
Does it collaborate well and is it respected by its peers?
Since 2016, a number of state-focused organizations—including Sister District, Swing Left, and Future Now—have been founded and have attempted to boost Democrats' prospects in the states. The DLCC, to its credit, seems to have more or less welcomed this infusion of enthusiasm and has worked with many of these organizations on shared goals. Since the committee stays out of primaries there is less friction between the DLCC and progressives than there is between the DSCC/DCCC and progressives, who have clashed over endorsements and other interventions in House and Senate primaries.
Does it have clear and realistic plans for the future?
A Twitter thread from the official DLCC account in March was fairly upfront about changes Democrats should make in order to be competitive in the 2021–2022 cycle. The three things it identified were: getting donors to invest early in campaigns; running ads early in the cycle; and building infrastructure that can pay off down the road, even in states where Democrats can’t currently compete.
The expansion of those operations will require money, and that means convincing Democratic donors that these races are valuable. As Post herself pointed out in a 2021 strategy memo, the DLCC’s record $51 million in fundraising was dwarfed by Kentucky Senate candidate Amy McGrath’s $96 million war chest, a huge amount for a candidate most informed observers never believed had a path to victory.
In that memo, Post noted that Republicans often have more funding in these down-ballot races, adding, “Democrats must invest early. Despite talented staff, caucus campaign organizations and state legislative campaigns are often under-resourced. They need money for staff for recruitment, candidate support, and to build winning infrastructures. None of that is possible if we do not send them the money to do it.“
Conclusion
Of all the components of the Democratic Party, the DLCC has the most obvious potential for growth; it’s the only major party organ that is arguably underfunded. Donors should focus more on state-level races, and while they have a lot of options when it comes to giving in that arena—including individual campaigns and several reputable organizations that support Democratic down-ballot candidates—the DLCC has both brand-name recognition and stable, well-respected leadership.
Many major donors who wish to donate to the Democratic Party give the maximum allowable by law to the DSCC and DCCC as a way of supporting the party. But while these committees are important, the DLCC is arguably doing more to build infrastructure by winning small races and flipping state legislative chambers, which, over time, builds a bench of candidates and makes it easier for Democrats to win bigger races—if Democrats control more state governments, they can reverse gerrymandering and voting restriction laws Republicans have passed to keep themselves in power.
It is generally good advice to give to campaigns rather than party committees because individual candidates can take advantage of better ad rates, and many campaigns may know what they need more than committees. But because the DLCC is involved in the less visible but valuable business of fighting out in the states, it is definitely the best option of the major party committees for donors.