An alliance of leading national Democratic groups is preparing a new effort this summer focused on driving voter engagement as the party tries to regain support following its defeats in 2024.
The plans, first obtained by CBS News, fall under the label of what these groups have dubbed “Organizing Summer.” While this year has relatively few major statewide elections, such as gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, the 2026 midterms will be a crucial test for a party that is trying to respond to the lessons learned from Republicans’ wins in last year’s campaigns, including the presidential race. The groups behind the summer organizing effort include the Democratic National Committee, the Democrats’ coalition of state parties as well as the campaign arms for House, Senate and gubernatorial contests.
The DNC alone intends to initially invest a six-figure dollar amount in the wide-ranging effort, with plans to scale to seven figures as the summer goes on.
“For too long, the DNC has been a D.C. institution, and we’re trying to get the DNC out of DC and into the states through this program,” a Democratic strategist familiar with the plans said.
The summer program is focused on voter engagement and registration, particularly with voters who wouldn’t otherwise hear Democrats’ messaging. The DNC has signed up 16,000 volunteers, twice as many as it typically has in an off-election year, according to a Democratic strategist familiar with the plans. As part of the summer effort, Democrats will urge volunteers to connect with voters in less politically dominated parts of life, with the outline of the plan pointing to community groups, book clubs and social media platforms as examples.
The plans include developing a “direct pathway to share feedback they receive from voters, and what they are seeing online, helping the party inform its messaging and strategy on an ongoing basis,” according to a Democratic strategist familiar with the program.
“We are deploying an army of thousands of volunteers to activate their communities, register voters, and make sure the Republicans who are putting billionaires ahead of working and middle class Americans lose their elections in 2025 and lose their seats in the midterms,” DNC chairman Ken Martin said in a statement.
National Democrats are also keen on trying to build momentum after party infighting spilled out into the open during the early months of Martin’s tenure leading the DNC.
An April announcement from activist David Hogg and his political organization, Leaders We Deserve, detailing plans to “start primarying out-of-touch, ineffective House Democrats in solid blue seats” caused a rift with Martin and other party leaders. This eventually led to Hogg losing his position as a DNC vice chair. Soon after that standoff ended, attention grew around two leaders from major labor unions exiting the DNC, bringing about more questions about the direction of the party moving forward.
Many Democrats have been uneasy about the infighting, wanting to focus instead on trying to win elections in the coming months and years.
In an attempt to help do that, Democrats’ summer initiative includes all 35 of the GOP districts the House Democrats’ campaign arm is focusing on at this stage, U.S. Senate races in North Carolina and Maine and the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, according to the Democratic strategist familiar with the plans.
Democrats are already attempting to use President Trump’s wide-ranging “big, beautiful bill” making its way through Congress as a flashpoint in the midterms, and that work will also be a major point of the summer organizing program.
The GOP House version of the legislation, which narrowly passed the chamber, continues major parts of Mr. Trump’s first term Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Yet it also includes more politically volatile changes, such as enforcing Medicaid work requirements and changes to federal food assistance. Senate Republicans have been working to try and pass their own version of the bill as well. As the process plays out, national Republicans already appear to be centering a major part of the GOP’s chances in the 2026 midterms on Mr. Trump’s agenda legislation.
“The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes common-sense policies supported by a majority of Americans,” House GOP campaign arm chairman Richard Hudson wrote on social media recently. “@HouseGOP Republicans are putting Americans first while Democrats defend the waste, fraud, abuse, and illegal aliens.”
Last year’s elections sent Republicans to Washington with unified control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, giving them clear paths to act on Mr. Trump’s agenda. Democrats are facing a difficult map to try and reclaim the Senate in 2026, meaning that the left’s best hopes at gaining power back in Washington are likely centered on winning back the House next year. Since Mr. Trump’s second inauguration, Democratic governors have proven to be a major counter to his actions, meaning that either maintaining or winning governor’s offices around the country is a critical goal for the party as well. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for instance, sued Trump and others earlier this month over the federal deployment of state National Guard members following immigration protests.
Whether efforts like the summer organizing will be enough to help the party moving forward is likely to be closely watched among politicians and operatives looking to build campaigns not just for the 2026 midterms, but the 2028 presidential election cycle as well.
“Our job this summer is to make sure working families know exactly who is responsible for taking food off their table and ripping away their health care,” Martin said in his statement.
Hunter Woodall is a political editorial producer for CBS News. He covered the 2020 New Hampshire primary for The Associated Press and has also worked as a Kansas statehouse reporter for The Kansas City Star and the Washington correspondent for Minnesota’s Star Tribune.
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