I hope that Democrats don't stop investing in states, even though we lose them

[In It to Win It]

I wrote this as a response (kind of revised) but I think it deserves it's own post.

I'm in Florida. I feel like once we lost in 2018 (by a ridiculously close margin) here in Florida, they stopped investing and stopped competing. As a Floridian, I felt pretty abandoned by the party as if they were telling us we're on our own. Now, they've likely lost Florida for a generation. I'm not sure if my feelings were justified but that's the way I felt at the time.

I hope the same thing doesn't happen in Texas and North Carolina just because we haven't been winning. We desperately need to expand our Senate map. Republicans are going into 2025 with a 53-seat majority from swing states and red states. In order for Democrats to get a 53-seat majority, we'd have to venture into seemingly safe red-state territory. As of now, it seems like our cap with is maybe 51 seats.

In order for us to have more paths to building a governing Senate majority, we have to keep investing, keep running, keep building the infrastructure, keep building ground with voters inch by inch. That may take a few election cycles of losing but we can't ever let up. The moment we let up, Republicans come in. I'm aware of the reality that losing elections likely means losing donors. Donors stop investing if you can't show that you can win.

Now that Republicans have successfully purged all Democrats from safe red states, Republicans get can get 48 senators just from safe red states, see below. We can get 38 senators from safe blue states (Maine included as a safe blue state even though they have Susan Collins). We have to make up the difference by going into swing states just to catch up to 48 seats. We rely a lot more on swing states than they do, which puts us on defense more often in just about every election cycle. Going into 2025, we'll have 10 of 14 swing state senators.



With all Democrats gone from safe red states, that leaves Susan Collins hanging on as the last "blue state" Republican still standing. Now, they don't have to do much to win in red states besides run milquetoast cookie cutter Republicans and their incumbents. Frankly, I'm shocked that Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester and Joe Manchin hung on as long as they did after their states become overwhelmingly Republican.

When I look at the 2026 map, we're defending 2 swing state seats (Michigan and Georgia). Then, they're defending 1 blue state seat with an incumbent that state seems to really like (Maine) and 1 swing state seat in a state that refuses to swing (North Carolina).

When I look at the 2026 map and the 2028 map, I see a bunch of safe red and safe blue states, and almost no room to expand our map. For now, it's hard to see where they could lose their majority even after the 2028 elections. I guess we'll have to wait to see.

I write all of this to say that we should always compete and make inroads in states we believe are shifting our way even if they're not there yet. I hope the losses don't dim moral and scare away donors, big and small, for the next election. I remember the chatter after Beto O'Rourke lost to Cruz in 2018 of people saying that the money should have been spent somewhere else because we weren't going to win. I remember the chatter of saying the money going Stacey Abrams in Georgia should have went somewhere since we lost and therefore the money was wasted. I reject that because what that money should have done, even though we lost, was lay the groundwork and infrastructure to make sure we do better and have better voter outreach for the next election cycle.

Otherwise, where the fuck else are we going to expand our map and increase our paths to a majority?

[Gore1FL]

1. We stopped the 50-state strategy in 2008 when Howard Dean was replaced.

Part of Obama's 2008 victory was Howard Dean's time as DNC chair.

It was a poor decision to remove him. We really need to go back to that, again.

[In It to Win It]

3. Now that I think about that

Not saying what was completely to blame for it, but looking back, it makes sense that our Party's presence has decreased so much since the Obama era if we weren't investing and competing in every state. At that time, Dems getting 60 senate seats was possible. Then, with each election cycle that became less true.

[Tribetime]

2. Somehow I think the 2.5 billion views musk had negative ads

On us had some impact....we will find out eventually