‘Defend democracy’: Dems launch massive recruiting push for local election officers

Election subversion in 2024 is not going to be a mob storming the Capitol, it is going to be a county clerk in Michigan or a supervisor of elections in Florida who decides to fuck the whole thing up.

Every state where election administrators are elected by voters will be included in the program. One of the boldest organized attempts to put Democratic-backed candidates in these positions was in response to Trump endorsing various election positions of followers who subscribe to conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen. Other Republicans are organizing around these offices as well, including former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who has urged Trump backers and 2020 election deniers to get involved in party politics.

American Bridge, a Democratic group that compiles and shares opposition research, is one of the partners of Run for Something.

There is an effort on the right and there needs to be a clear effort on the Democratic side as well.

After quietly kicking off fundraising in late 2021, they have raised nearly $6 million for the push. She described donors as receptive, but she thought they were missing the point.

Early support has an outsize impact as we race to recruit good candidates before it's too late, according to a pitch memo.

The left is decades behind in investing in the local infrastructure needed to fight back against the right. We need to go big quickly if we want to win.

One donor adviser said that the project was filling a role in the Democratic community that no other group or committee was doing.

Run for Something is filling a void left by a lack of action on the part of the Democratic National Committee and state parties.

Run for Something has five years of experience supporting local candidates from campaign launch to Election Day. The group offers logistical support, like how to file campaign finance paperwork, as well as templates for campaign strategy. Run for Something connects candidates with mentors, as well as other current candidates, to create a sense of community around running for office.

Over the last five years, they have supported 639 winning candidates, with a 42 percent win rate for their endorsed candidates.

It's so helpful that you can call on mentors or people to ask silly questions about how to format this document. If you are a first-time candidate, the logistics can be a barrier of entry.

The deadline to run for office in Montana is March 14, and Run for Something has already aired digital ads with the slogan: "Your future is calling."

In Illinois, a Democratic candidate for county clerk cited Run for Something as the reason why she decided to challenge a three-term GOP incumbent.

Run for Something spent $1 million to recruit candidates for 50 election offices across the country. The group was able to put forward a Democratic candidate in half of the 40 that had deadlines.

Another example of what the spending might look like is the local spring elections in Wisconsin. Nine of the 14 candidates who were boosted by Open Democracy PAC won. Many people were looking for local positions that had a hand in election administration.

There is concern that getting involved in these races will politicize positions that have not traditionally gotten involved in that framework. The reality is that the Republican Party has made democracy into a partisan issue, so we don't have a choice.

We will be aware of where our public engagement with candidates is going to look different, where our endorsement is helpful, and where we should be behind the scenes.