Quote:

---

Last week, the New York Times wrote a jaw-dropping article about the Democrats’ voter registration woes. The stunning data further solidifies the shrinking nature of their coalition. Not only are Democrats losing votes, but they are also losing voter registrations.

In the 30 states that track voter registrations, Democrats lost ground in every single one between 2020 and 2024. The data is damning. It all adds up to a 4.5 million deficit of registrations for Democrats. The NYT calls it “a deep political hole” and warns “that could take years for Democrats to climb out from.”

This was not a concern that Democrats used to have to worry about. During my first campaign experience as a teenager, I single-handedly registered over 1,000 people to vote as an intern for the Obama campaign.

The Obama campaign of 2008 made voter registration a central part of its strategy. Even a month before the election, all our efforts were focused on optimizing voter registration. Michelle Obama herself came to town to lead the charge, asking volunteers to dedicate all of their time to these efforts. (I passed out at the rally where she spoke, having to be hauled off in an ambulance to the local hospital from overworking myself that day.)

There was a time when Democrats could get people to do field work like this, mostly for free, even to the point of overheating and exhaustion! “Paid canvassing”, at least during Obama’s first election, wasn't necessary.

So what happened?

A myriad of strategists and party insiders give various answers. Pointing their fingers at Democrats’ reliance on non-partisan organizations to conduct voter registration drives. They also complain about a lack of investment in partisan super PACs, saying that donors prefer to give to C3s (nonprofits) because they reap the rewards of a tax write-off, and that a non-deductible donation is a harder sell.

It’s funny because my personal experience with political fundraising has been the opposite of their claims. In fact, the C3 arms of political organizations were the hardest to sell with donors. Non-profits aren’t usually “sexy” enough for politically motivated donors. C3 donations didn’t get donors access to power the way that super PAC or candidate giving does. Donors loved funding TV ads the most.

Tory Gavito, founder of Way to Win, a progressive donor collective, tells the NYT: “It would be naïve to call 2024 anything other than a reckoning on the Democratic brand. To solve a brand problem, you need people talking about that brand — and that requires partisan dollars.”

Gavito’s comments reveal much about how Democratic strategists think about voters and elections. The language she chooses, referring to the party as a “brand,” inadvertently shows her hand. Voters are viewed by orgs and strategists as a product that needs to be marketed and sold to. While there is some truth to this, I believe it highlights the inauthenticity issue the party currently faces. Elections are not about “Coke versus Pepsi”. Elections are about livelihoods, quality of life, and trust. Policy, not just branding, matters.
coca cola can on white plastic pack

But what’s more important, is what Gavito isn’t saying.

The brand is a symptom that ultimately comes from the goals and priorities of the party. For Democratic org leaders, in order to fix a brand issue, partisan dollars should be invested. As a former fundraiser, I see exactly where this is headed. They are testing the waters to reach out to donors with more money asks. There’s no doubt in my mind they’ll send clips from the article directly to their top donors, citing their claims and coverage as evidence of the urgency. Even if that money goes to voter registration efforts, the downward trajectory on almost every demographic will bring in voters who could go either way.

The funny thing is, more money funneled to the very orgs who contributed to the current situation will make the problem worse. Their instincts are so far off base about where the average American stands. The more people find out about the progressive wing of the Democratic Party’s beliefs and goals, the more turned off they are. An infinite amount of dollars won’t fix the Democratic brand–the perception will only recover with a forceful rejection of the extreme ideas and attitudes that have taken hold.

If you’re a Democratic donor, the best thing you can do to fix the party is to withhold your money until a true reckoning is held around progressive cultural excesses. If any group in the party has the power to make them truly change course, it is the donors, and the donors alone.

According to Democratic pollster David Shor (Blue Rose Research), in terms of high value issues, there is only one issue where Democrats still lead Republicans: Healthcare.

In the wake of the 2024 election, many strategists and insiders told themselves and voters a self soothing myth: that they lost simply because too many Democrats stayed home. But Data from PEW revealed the truth: if more lower-propensity voters had shown up at the polls, Trump still would have won. It used to be that Democrats had a voter registration advantage, but this is no longer the case.

Ironically, the readers in the comments of the NYT article section do a much better job of addressing the root cause of their voter registration issues than any of the “experts” quoted.

An example here:

---

Quote:

---

This is the single most liked comment of any New York Times paid subscriber comments. The commenters and people who pay for a NYT subscription are certainly more liberal than the average voter. So if someone is saying this and over three thousand people are liking it, we should probably listen.

The commenter’s assertion that the Democrats shut down dialogue around complex issues, especially around immigration and gender identity, was at the forefront of the party’s blind spots in the recent election. Trump’s most powerful ad was a rebuke of the excesses of the liberal base, who automatically shut down people who hold different viewpoints.

I get it. It’s hard to speak out about these things. In San Francisco, many moms (including liberal ones) quietly whisper to each other about how they aren’t comfortable with their children being read books about changing their gender identity in pre-school. Yet, they remain silent, mostly out of fear of being ostracized, shunned, or worse — professionally punished.

Democrats need to stop shutting down conversation around a whole host of cultural issues, not just gender ideology. Many hot-button topics (immigration, crime, identity politics) where the majority public consensus doesn’t align with modern Democratic priorities require more heterodoxy in liberal circles. Until Democrats can come to terms with this and fix their policy priorities, it will not matter how much money they invest; they will continue to lose votes and voter registrations alike.

---