The Democratic National Committee announced on Tuesday that it would pour $15 million into the party’s ground game in seven battleground states, an early cash infusion into the nuts and bolts of campaigning as Republicans hold their national convention in Milwaukee.
The money, which will go directly to the Democrats’ state parties, will be used to open more field offices, expand data collection efforts and hire staff members to cover more terrain in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“This is the largest-ever investment made to battleground state parties at this point in time,” Jaime Harrison, the chair of the D.N.C., said in a statement. “And we continue to build our state-by-state war chests in preparation to re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris in November.”
The $15 million summer expenditure amounts to a bet by Democrats that a sophisticated and sprawling ground game in battleground states can overcome the turmoil engulfing President Biden’s campaign, after weeks in which key elected Democrats and donors have defected from him and called for him to step aside over concerns about his age and acuity.
And in the new era of widespread early voting, which Democratic voters have used more frequently than Republican ones, early field investments in state parties can be crucial to getting out the vote. Political ground games are no longer tailored for only the final week of October and early November, but instead a much longer stretch in which voters are casting ballots early and by mail.
“This election was always going to be close, and regardless of Beltway media narratives, the entire election is going to come down to operation and turnout in the battleground states,” Mr. Harrison said.
Democrats have enjoyed a cash advantage over Republicans for most of the year, and the D.N.C. has outraised the Republican National Committee by about $45 million this cycle, according to the most recent fund-raising reports. But former President Donald J. Trump’s operation has quickly caught up to the Biden team in fund-raising, and Biden officials are bracing for a July fund-raising report that shows their cash flow slowing since the June 27 debate.
Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for the R.N.C., declined to detail its investments in state parties, saying only that “Biden and his handlers can talk process all they want, but President Trump will continue to talk about his agenda to curb inflation, lower costs, secure the open southern border, end the chaos Biden has created at home and abroad, and Make America Great Again.”
The D.N.C.’s two biggest investments are in Wisconsin, where it will spend nearly $3 million, and Nevada, where it is diverting more than $2 million. Both states have top races for the Senate as well as competitive House contests. In its announcement, the D.N.C. argues that putting money directly into state parties will help down-ballot candidates as well.
Many Democratic state parties run what is known as coordinated campaigns, in which field staff members, phone bankers and door knockers all have literature that lists the full slate of Democratic candidates running in a district, from the president down to the state legislature and county offices.
Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist, said that putting cash into state parties now was a way of making donors’ money go further and ensuring that the overall campaign is run effectively. He pointed to the failed presidential campaigns of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Jeb Bush, both of which tried to outsource their field programs to super PACs, as evidence of the importance of state parties and local campaigns.
“Especially in a close election, it’s critical to invest in state party infrastructure, and that money can be really hard to come by because it’s not always the sexiest, but those investments can make a huge difference in the ground game at the end,” Mr. Leopold said. “It’s not going to swing an election by double digits, but it could swing it by a few percent, and that could be the difference in who’s the next president or who controls the Senate.”
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