Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On Democratic Partys 2020 Target States 20240713

The major driver of our driver is our president who i have the job of introducing today. She spent most of her professional career. To quote a piece, they wrote, steering democratic strategy, jessica, an operative who is little known outside of campaign circles and turning the once sleepy dlcc into a juggernaut. I turn it over to jessica how we urned it over to a juggernaut. Thanks so much. Ok, great. The line is open. The juggernaut is powered by a lot of coffee and a lot of hard work. I appreciate everyone coming here today. Im the president of the dlcc d announcing our flip 2020 campaign. And we flipped 10 chambers from red to blue and did that since Donald Trumps election and flip red to blew and why state legislatures matter. So we will talk about the dlcc. We are charged with winning americas state legislatures. For me, this is personal. In the 2010 election cycle i was the National Field director and junior staffer and i saw what happened in 2010. In the last 28 days, i was sent to harrisburg, pennsylvania to preserve the majority in the Pennsylvania State house which was a critical state for redistricting and tough road. We saw late spending in states we thought we couldnt lose and it was hard. I was on the ground in Election Night in harrisburg and the news that we lost so many elections across the country and the republicans were prepared. They spent 30 million to our 10 million that cycle. The worst news is when we lost pennsylvania. I got a call from one of our colleagues back in headquarters and said we lost 21 other legislative chambers. Outside of the smokey bar in harrisburg, in 2010, you could. I walked out of a smokey bar up ed in smoke and curled and i cried a few tears but i picked myself back up and i made a promise as i walked into the bar while karl rove was opening a bolt of champagne, if i had anything to do with that, i would fight back to take back state legislatures. We are better prepared than ever going into 2020 and ready to take this fight and even more chambers going into the next election cycle. I recognize our chairwoman. This is one of the chambers we switched red to blue. And she shares my vision at the dlcc for flipping red to blue. She would be here with us today. But one of the benefits, you can pass great policy and passing Voter Registration in new york. So we are excited to see that progress. Voting rights get when democratic governors sign those bills for us. New york is president alone. Since president trumps we flipped 10 chambers and here are the 10. We have flipped 436 seats, including victories in 425 districts that trump won. Across the board we made gains 4550 states. The 2018 election was a sea change that we continue into 2019. Heres what it looks like. 42 where democrats control the state legislature. In addition to that state democrats govern 15 of the nations total g. D. P. Nd there are 24 fortune 500 companies where democrats control the legislature. It is a significant footprint on the american economy. With the addition of virginia and the wins that were had, we now have 15 democratic. E combined population, a democratcontrolled legislature is 140 million, almost half of the u. S. Population. Lets talk about our try effecta, virginia. In virginia, this november, we showed no signs of slowing down. We flipped six seats in the house and two seats in the state senate. This is the first democraticically controlled and first since 1993 and we are seeing incredible progress since yesterday and steve brought me to tears when i was driving home, i listened to the story where i heard someone who we worked so closely to flip the state legislature counting the votes. Something in my mothers generation and passed the Virginia State legislature. And now they did it. We are excited and will see further progress in virginia and there are bills moving gun safety legislation, lgbt legislation. This is a see where we will see dramatic changes. The numbers are impressive. And these are the members serving before 2017 and lets show you the members in the exact same district that are serving after 2019. This is a remarkable change. Lets see that one more time. Before 2017 and now after 2019. This is a sea change in terms of Representative Democracy in virginia. And this is the most diverse in virginia history. Nationally, we are leading across the country in diversity and no comparison. 3,262 to , we elected state legislatures and 1,300 are women, roughly 40 of women that were recently elected. More than 1,000 people of color nd more than 100 of openly lgbt. We made significant changes. This is such an important pipeline as we develop folks to run upticket. The republicans know we are on the offense. In a memo they sent to lobbyists and say this is what they are up against. They were struck by the spending. They havent changed their candidates. Those are major problems for them in virginia, but they know significant spending is coming their way and doing everything they can to warn their donors and corporate allies. While these results have been amazing, the work hasnt been easy and has been on this journey, its been tough, right . Heres some of the things that we have done that have taken the level of focus. And building out robust analytics and increased our political staff and built up communications and finance and did a lot of work strengthening our Partnership Working with others to make sure our priorities are aligned. Lets talk about candidates and instate partners. One thing i knew we had to do was making sure there were strong campaigns being run in states across the country that be in arizona, texas or pennsylvania were staffed with high quality talent and had the quality. Some of that capacity as democrats had fallen in the minority. We are doing a lot of that and making early investments in states allows a strong team in the states to partner with us to recruit candidates that are diverse and reflective of their communities. Lets talk about what the changes we made in data. When i returned in 2010 it was like comparing apples to oranges and polling at the state legislative levels is difficult. We waited for bias and where to make investments. That was the wrong way. As a result, when i came back, i said we need to standardized and put them in one platform to figure out what is the best chamber opportunity to flip and what are the best races and what are races we may be missing out on. We partnered to build out a platform. We juice online panel data and past Election Results at all levels of the ballot. Our Analytics Platform has been more predicttive than polling. Or past legislative results on their own. This is the most predicttive tools and part of our competitive advantage. And voter turnout and support and we apply to the voter files in states and allows us to target mail, digital and others in states. And determines which states to target. In example is ross tyler out virginia. Well expected that seat to be initially safe and werent polling it. As we looked at our platform we did polling and we narrowly targeted it and we won 5149. This is the way we select our investments and identify opportunities and challenges across the state. Earlier i mentioned our five regionsal political directors. In virginia for the first time, we had a staffer dedicated to the common elt wealth. She was working in richmond and political campaigns and absolutely integrated into the Decision Making processes. We will embed a staffer down in texas where we can win ar special election. Beto orourke has been involved. And great to hear from him and his efforts and secretary castro will be down motivating folks to come out for that race and mayor bloomberg has been knocking. That indicates the importance of state legislative races and we have engaged high profile allies that have their own following to highlight the opportunities in special elections. We have unified special communication and messaging plans for states on tv, mail, digital. We have made a lot of early investments in field and we are spending closely with the Virginia House Democratic Caucus. Every time we spend in a state, we want to see what is the existing plan to spend money to win elections and how can we be supplemental and complementary . E share the best messaging but we have encouraged candidates to focus on Kitchen Table issues, what are the things that folks say to you. What are those issues. Those are the issues you should be reflecting about. You know that education may be challenging in your district or people are searching for jobs. We dont set down national messaging eedicts but folks focus on local messaging and that is in the texas 28 special. One candidate in virginia, the first thing shell talk to you about is relieving the traffic on route 28. Mi was broader brought and entertainment reporter said, what are you most focused on and she said route 28 and the reporter had no idea but how laser focused she has been. Anica is focused on the issues that are core to her constituents and that has been important and used her national profile. In addition to that, record amounts of Financial Investments in states. We announced in virginia of Million Dollars of december of 2018. In addition we spent 2 million in virginia between in kind and companion services. Virginia has Unlimited Campaign contributions and we coordinate the closely with the campaign. We run 50 states finance laws. So often we have to examine the laws to make sure we are in compliance but make sure that our strategy follows the Campaign Finance laws. We have been able to do all of this because of our fundraising. From 2010 when i was on that harrisburg sky walk to 2017, we had a 7 million increase. We have doubled down. From 17 million to 36 million and on track to spend 50 million. This is the largest spending. We have already raised more than 17 million last cycle, 17 million this cycle. That was the last time a president ial campaign was on the ballot. And this july, we outraised in the Republican Leadership committee. And we are on parity with the republicans which is something we couldnt say in the 2010 election cycle. As i mentioned earlier, there has been unprecedented on legislative races from our democratic groups because of our work. Many other organizations are growing their work in the state legislature. And many of these groups have committed to 2020 spending. Many of these groups have not been to the state legislative level before and they are following our lead and they are following our lead. That is an overview of the programs we have developed and share now how we will implement them in 2020. The dlcc is sharing our target. We have never done it before. We never really released the real target list like you might see at some other places and excited to do this right now. Lets talk lets move and talk about the targets. We are working in states to support caucuses and elect more red states. The stripe states are on our expansion list. We are trying to break the supermajority. Kansas, many of you may have heard the shoutout of the governor. Our interest is to break the supermajority in the kansas state house and only need to flip one seat. That would allow the governor to bad more bad bills and veto redistricting maps. He was able to get a person to cross over but she needs stable support and we are interested in providing that. In addition to that, we will be watching to move some of these states like georgia and florida that are competitive states. We want move them on to our top target list. This is 19 chambers across 1 states. As you can see here, we are on complete offense. These are all republican chambers. We feel confident about holding the chambers that democrats won. This election is a once in a generation to flip state legislatures. Every 20 years we have a president ial election on the preredistricting election. So this is significant. There will be record voter turnout this year and this is a 20year opportunity. The next time i will be 60 and will be retired and running a studio. [indiscernible] our focus in life will be different from that 20 years from now. Our targets are in line with the president ial battle grounds. We are building early infrastructure by building up strong legislative campaigns and will benefit the nominee. And this makes sense if you think about the 134 legislative seats in a place like minnesota, folks running smaller campaigns across that state and mobilizing their friends to vote. And in addition to that, we know we have the momentum to surpass our progress in the mid terms. 122 Million People voted in 2018. 156 million are expected to turn out in 2020. Hat is a 28 increase in turnout. We have this generational opportunity to change the composition of state legislatures while building out great infrastructure across the country in order to help the president ial nominee from the bottom up instead of the top down. Now, our targets, these are on our list east to west. First, North Carolina. Democratic governor in North Carolina. In 2018, we broke republican supermajorities in both chambers and that is vital. And we are now competing on a competitive map after redistricting litigation. The governor in North Carolina doesnt have a veto over redistricting it is critical to flip one cham beer from red to blue. Five six seats in the house and six in the senate. The president ial campaign see this as a target. Huge senate races and several congressional pickups on these potential redrawn maps. We have a sense of what has happened and we need early investments. House democrats have filled 117 of the 120 seats on the ballot and 50 seats on the ballot. One of the things we did in virginia we learned after republicans failed in recruitment that we were on a stronger path to switch from red to blue and we knew that. Looking at this map, we know we have strong opportunities as republicans are not challenging as many seats as democrats are. Lets go to our next target. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, a huge state for redistricting and opportunity to have the next democratic after virginia. The democratic governor tom wolf, we won a special election here in april of 2019. This is a preview of what is to come out of pennsylvania. Flipped anavy veteran district that will trump won by five points. That is significant. That is a significant change and will hold that state senate seat. In redistricting, winning the legislature will have fair maps and democratic Supreme Court. Only nine seats to flip the house. There are nine targets in the house that we can go after and many of the seats, many seats are staggered and we didnt have the opportunity to take them out in 2018. As a result, this will be our first crack at our first seats in pennsylvania since trump was elected. There are special elections coming up. We have a winning record. We have a debate record of winning specials and will have an opportunity this march to flip some of these Pennsylvania State house seats. Pennsylvania is a major president ial battleground. So there is a lot of northwesting in our targets. Lets talk about michigan. In michigan, the democratic governor, an ally as we flip the state house from red to blew. We have the opportunity to flip the Michigan House. We gained five seats in the Michigan House and we only need to flip four seats red to blue in order to flip michigan. We have to win the house to give the governor more power in the state legislature. They are fighting gerry meandering and passed a Redistricting Commission in michigan. But scott walkers organization, National Republican redistricting trust has fought hard and brought a suit in federal court to say that that initiative may not be eligible. Republicans have tried to do everything to take away the funding to build out this commission. So we want to do everything we can flip it from red to blue. Michigan is a huge president ial battleground. Governor gary peters is back up and many gains were made in the last election cycle and we will look at the overlay. There are still seats we can win. So we have a great ability to do this and flip this red to blue. Go to minnesota. This is our next target. Minnesota state senate is our target. We put the minnesota house from red to blue. The speaker is leading it there. I consider an honorary member. The last time i worked i worked for the Minnesota Senate Democratic Caucus in 2006. This one is close to my heart. The legislature only needs two seats to flip red to blue. The Minnesota State senate was not off the entire chamber and not up in 2018 and gives us a great opportunity. There are a lot of battle grounds that we flip in the minnesota suburbs and if you think what happened in minnesota 2 and minnesota 3. All of those seats flipped from red to blue and they are underneath that opportunity. We have a great we can work easily with the caucus and there are Campaign Contributions to the party and this is a president ial battleground and the prosecute president has spent millions and tina smith is back up and compete in places like minnesota 1. Lets talk about iowa. Another favorite of mine. I worked on gephardt for president in 2004. And i have been thinking about that. And i did rag bry. So it was in iowa. This is the first one on our list. Kim reynolds is the republican governor of iowa and competing in the house. This makes it more difficult but i think well make gains. In part because the longest serving republican in the iowa house decided to flip to become a democrat. She was so disgusted with trumism that he decided to change parties. That is encouraging for us. Iowa has a nonpartisan system. As many of you know its a unique system they call it the iowa model. As a result the legislature could vote down these maps. Theyve had sort of an agreement in the government tradition of iowa, democrats controlled the senate, but theres a possibility that the Republican Legislature votes down congressional and legislative maps in this increasingly partisan time. One thing we saw that was a tea leaf for this earlier this cycle, republicans tried change the independent nominating process for state supreme word. Thats Supreme Court. That signaled to us were in a more partisan time now in a state thats been pretty genial and nonpartisan, iowa. Lets go tour next target, texas. Were only nine seats away from flipping the state house red to blue. This is exciting. Of course theres, texas right now is another republican trifecta with Governor Abbott but having the House Speaker be a democrat which is a possibility with flipping nine seats, could give us a seat at the table for redistricting and this could be significant. Texas is the crown jewel of redistricting. So many more congressional seats coming into texas. This is something we have to think about. Were competing, as i mentioned earlier, theres a special elis on with a woman, markowiz. Beto oyoure did not win that seat but came close. Im heading down there to door knock saturday. Theres also been a texodus, similar to the wave weve seen at the congressional level, at the state level. This makes it easier to win and flip seats from red to blue. We only need nine seats and beto orourke won every seat so in addition to the seat thats up we have nine more great targets to go after. Democrats in texas made significant process on this path, flipping so many seats red to blue to put us in this situation last cycle. The model used in virginia, while every seat is different, a lot of what we learned about the finance laws and coordination in viverage we can apply in texas. The states are similarly set up in terms of Campaign Finance model, so well be able to go in and engage there. Texas is being mentioned as a president ial battleground and in addition to that the senate race and many other targets are hot this cycle. Theres been a lot of talk about trying to win texas 22 and some of these other congressional seats. Many of our legislative seats are underneath those congressional targets. Our next target is arizona. In arizona theres a republican trifecta at this time but we made significant gains in the last election cycle. This was once a republican stronghold, rapidly turning blue. The last time we controlled the state senate was 1992. The last time we controlled the Arizona State house was 1964. A long, long time ago. Redistricting is a nonpartisan process by submission. Republicans have tried to dismant that will in the sate. State. Thats why were so competitive in the state. We know we can win we are only two seats away in the state house three seats away in the senate. This is increasingly a president ial battleground, the hottest u. S. Senate race. One of the hottest u. S. Senate races in the country with mark kelly on the ballot there as well. Certainly a very competitive electoral environment. It will allow us to run great campaigns, recruit great candidates to flip the Arizona House red to blue. I also want to announce that we have made our earliest offyear investments. We invested 1 million into all these targets so far. Weve staggered that thinking about things like recruitment deadline, supporting the recruitment of the filing deadline has closed in texas. This is a record early investment for us. Strong fundraising allowed us to do this even with critical targets on across the country like virginia, we spent significantly in virginia. We also spent significantly making sure that democrats stayed out of the superminority in the Louisiana State house to support governor john Belle Edwards veto. In so many states were the only group giving to state legislative caucuses to build out the Campaign Infrastructure to make sure. Candidate recruitment still happening in many states. At the legislative level so many of our races still break very late. So a lot of the spending still happens postlabor day in our races. Were trying to move that timeline up to make sure theres excellent staff and were doing things that will have a multiplying effect like investing in digital fund raids, recruiting great candidates and making sure candidates are trained on tow howe to reskewer the resources they need and going out and talking to voters early. Why does all this mat her were not just here to put numbers up on a page. We are here because of the impact state legislative chambers have on folks lives. I say if you care about health care, you care about state ledge slay chours. If you care about a. C. A. And the expansion of the Affordable Care act, you care about winning state legislatures and having democrats on state legislatures. In 35 states, state legislatures still draw the lines for redistricting. So state legislators hold the pen in redistricting, both the legislative map and congressional map, thats why theres so much pow thorne line. We also know that the states are our first line of defense against donald trump. With the gridlock in washington work washington just absolutely ground to a stop, the states serve as a firewall against scradmrgs policies. We obviously will beat donnell trump in 2020. We have to do that. But theres been huge progress in states as we look at the u. S. Supreme court where we could lose protections for rowe and protections for reproductive choice, the states have become a firewall for making sure choice is protect thsmed estates have started to protect the a. C. A. And some of the Mental Health and other provisions within the Affordable Care act. The states have started to make sure that the controversial practice of lgbt conversion therapy is ended in the states. The states are acting to protect lgbtq americans. The states have stepped up to fight climate change. States like california, washington, oregon and states across the country joined the paris climate accord. So the progress were seeing in the state, in california they said the Trump Administration punches once, well punch back twice as hard. With know in states the democrats criminal well build up this firewall. Wore confident and strong going into 2020. We are better positioned to win than weve ever been at the state legislative level. Weve been competitive with the republicans. We flip sod many seats red to blue. And now were on maps we know we can win. And feel great about where we are. Im happy to take any questions. Thank you again for attending today. Im with nbc news. I had a question obviously the democratic debate the other night, diversity and ideologies within the Democratic Party at the National Level are you so seeing that among local leaders running for office . State legislatures . What are voters telling them . How are they feeling about the diversity in the party . I think theres a lot of ideological diversity within the Democratic Party. We talk to candidates about focusing on the eKitchen Table issue the daytoday things folks are concerned about. As a result in many of our elections, the key issues are things like supporting public education, making sure that theres access to health care. And many of the things bear out district by district. Traffic is a big issue, thats a quality of life and economic indicater. And then in some districts its access to rural hospitals. Theres a lot of ideological diversity but ultimately at the state legislative level these folks have to pass a budget every year and have to agree on things. I think theres a lot more collaborative work on things like Mental Health that happen at our level of the ballot but e have seen extremists and par sanship in state legislatures. You mentioned the battleground states, how much of fferent will the primary are some te make, candidates more helpful to you than not . In people are doing anyone who is doing a lot of politicaling prothats kating probably has too much confidence. What i will say, we focused our campaigns on local issues forever and will continue to say that our candidates should focus on the daytoday work that theyre going to do for their constituents in their districts, like education. Its hard to say if one candidate will be stronger than another in terms of securing the things we need for a president ial candidate which is a strong, compelling economic message. Thats the thing we know moves the needle. People with strong personal economic stories that can sort of talk to that concern especially in many of our battlegrounds where people are suffering and i think in addition to that, having having voter turnout, as i said, is another key piece for the election. Does it concern you having to run with that label . I think we do everything we can to make sure that our candidates are differentiated from the democrats at the top of the ticket. Remember some of these geographies are very small. In montana you get elected to the state legislature sometimes with 1,200 votes. Who the candidate is really matters. Often its a football coach or a Popular High School principal is running in some of these geographies, theyre well known and have their own identity and thats part of why our candidate recruitment is so essential, to do that differentiation from the top of the treatment. Why did you choose to release these targets . We thought it was more important than ever with 2020, theres so much on the line. Its 20 years of power. I think we realized that with increased interest in spending in the state legislative race we wanted to be transparent and make sure that the democratic side knows where were headed. The special election held by a republican for a little while. Talk about the money youre putting in there . So weve spent more than 100,000 in texas so far. We sent an additional 35,000 down there. Well also support the campaign with text message support as well as staffing. So were really interested in doing everything we can to support dr. Plmbings arkowicz. She has a background in public education, a compelling personal buy yow, shes been working really hard and going out and door knocking. The district is a suburban district, in fort bend, sugarland, its been trending democratic for some time. So were really interested in doing everything we can. Shes still focused on things like, theres some testing in texas that is controversial and theres a lot of thought about folks, theres sort of teaching to the test. Shes interested in eliminating some of the testing to make sure that students are receiving a better education and not a test focus. Thats one big piece shes focused on in the campaign. Do you view that as a bellwether for the rest of 2020 . I dont know. Heres a republican in the district,ic it would be earth shat forget were able to win it. If we win it that says the other nine seats are well the other nine seats are easier but if we win it our odds in texas are even better than we thought. The targets that overlap, some of which were discussed here, florida, new york, an theyve also raised 19 million last year. My question is, is there a specific plan for countering the rslts efforts in campaigning and fundraising . They put new york on the target list . Seriously . You can put that on the record. Theres been a number of retimes in new york, its ridiculous they think they can take back the new york state senate. Its like the state republicans in the state senate are dropping like flies. I think democrats have a supermajority in the senate. Thank you for putting that on the target list. I think we realized a few things. They didnt release the real target list, theres no way they can win new york. The rslc, theyre responsible for everything. When i say that, i mean all downballot races. Theyre responsible for secretary of state, state Supreme Court, winning back state legislatures. They reported 19 million, we reported 17 million, they only have 2 million but they have huge, broad, sweeping electoral responsibilities. Were absolutely still in the fight. I would say our performance with the narrower scope that we have and the rslc is a much stronger number. And i think in the case of florida, the floridas house is an eminently winnable chamber. We want to build out that chamber to get it to a place where we think we can put it on our target list. We wanted to be honest and transparent. Can you break down funding . Were still making many of the decisions. I think in the 2018 cycle, we were one of the biggest funders for the arizona ledge slay it legislative efforts. We spent more than 250,000 in arizona alone. We have moved early resources into arizona and happy to get a specific number in terms of what weve moved so far to you, i dont know it off the top of my head. Arizona has been on our early investment list. Well continue to work with the leadership of the alcc and all the allies in arizona to win it. One of our political staffers, sean, was down for the caucus retreat. I speck to leader fernandez and assistant leader frieze recently on the phone and made a commitment, ill be in arizona, the right around february 15 and 16. I plan to sit down with the caucus and talk about our plan for victory that our regional director laid out. But we are in it to win it in arizona. Hi. When you talk can you talk about voter of enacted redistricting reforms and stuff like that, in missouri, for instance, republicans have been trying to squeeze rollbacks on that, spending bills and things like that. Do you have a game plan for attacking that . Or what does that look like for you . I think you bring up a really important point that in many of these cases, even if the petition is passed, the legislateture has the ability to dismantle it in. Missouri the clean missouri reform passed decisively, including a reform of legislative districts, not congressional districts, as well as missouris crazy Campaign Finance law, i can say that as a missouri native. The Campaign Finance laws are ery the theyre very permissive. I think the right thing, the senators are trying to pass the initiative. Part of our strategy in missouri is doing what we can to break the supermajorities in both state legislature chambers. If clean missouri can hold then missouri will become a much more viable target. Their maps are extremely gerrymandered. The republicans did this to us starting in 2002 when republicans put that into place. So i think well be able going into 2022 well look at a lot of new fair maps. In a place like missouri potentially find a path to victory. Thank you. Redistricting, you mentioned in michigan and talk about Fair Districts. Are these Fair Districts going to be ones that are done by other parties in in the redistricting committees or ones drawn by democrats . The Fair Districts of will democrats is this a commitment from democrats to support nonpartisan Redistricting Commission if they win in michigan . Yeah, ning michigan theyve been very the democrats have said this is the path. Theyve been very supportive of voters, not politicians and nonpartisan Redistricting Commission. The secretary of state has tried to doo everything she can along with the democratic a. G. To make sure the commission held. It was the republicans who tried to dismant they will redistricting in michigan and they continue to do that. The Republican Organization sued on it as well, with scott Walkers Group coming in and taking it to federal court because the Michigan State Supreme Court is fairer than federal courts who said they wont rule in redistricting cases. As political candidates are dropping out, weve seen them , an when then weve seen active ones haved as well. As youre looking at the landscape to get involved in the president ial nomination, are there can you go through ones that stick out as especially involved in these races . Senator warren called me last ar and this year to thank me for our work, she made a donation to us last cycle. Senator booker did a video for us, senator booker has really done anything weve asked, hes ppeared at events, stumped for delegate yallah in virginia. Mayor pete reached out as well to do campaign work. I think his infrastructure was still developing in the 2018 cycle, as you said biden, bloomberg, senator klobuchar was helpful in the effort to flip the Minnesota State house red to blue. Shes been working with legislative candidates there as ell. Theres history there, weve worked closely with Nextgen Climate that he founded and we work closely with every town in virginia as well. I think weve had great history with these president ial candidates. This is a sea change in 2010. I went over to when i was field director, i went to the d. N. C. In 2010, people were like what are you talking about . Its been its a real difference to have president ial candidates across the country and i think part of the reason theyre doing this, obviously they really get it they get downballot, the impact of downballot races. But in addition to that, this is where our democratic activists are. The democratic activists across the country have formed organizations like flip it iowa, to flip the iowa state house. As soon as they went into states like iowa, a state thats a huge target for us, New Hampshire, a state where we flipped both state houses in 2018, nevada where we flipped beth chametpwhoferse legislature in 2016, defended three democratic members of the caucus from recall in 2017. Those were states that people have a sense that the legislature is really important. I think they talk to democratic activists, that was something we echoed back. Thats incredible for us going into 2020. There were interesting results in new jersey, i was wondering where that falls on the priority list . New jersey is not up until the in 2021, right . So i think they have strong majorities in both state ledge slay slative chambers. There was a loss of a single seat. I think democrats have maxed the map out in the state of new jersey. So thats something that well look at and see if we can get some seatbacks in new jersey. Lou greenwald is on our board, we worked closecally with him to figure out a strategy there. You said there are five reeg gnat political director, where will they be based and when are they on the ground . Theyre already here, already started. We have one based in denver, and many of our other regional we have one in minnesota. The rest of our regionals are based here in d. C. As the year goes on, we may also expand our team as the map expands. A lot of what we have to do at dlcc is build the campaigns train structure. One specific strategy is creating a Campaign Services department where we can do things, for example, like share a videoographer, we have great creative talent here at dlcc. Not every caucus can hire a videoographer or designer which are things becoming more and more common on campaigns, so well be able to share those esources are caucuses as well. [inaudible] i think were working with the abrams organization to look at Election Security. We had a lot of great conversations with california secretary of state padilla and are interested in getting him to talk more to some state legislatures to figure out what are things we can do legislatively in states with democratic majorities to move forward Election Security provisions. Its much more difficult when were locked out of power to make those changes. But certainly we can do thing thopes Election Protection front, training attorneys, making sure there are good incident logs kept on election kay to make sure that we are in a good position on election day. The other thing too, just to develop on Election Protection, in many of our states, when people create a statewide election framework, they historically havent thought of places like college towns, so were working closely with state parties and fair fight to talk about what are other places that are our priorities for Election Protection, what are our target races and states where we may need additional staffing. In places like lacrosse, wisconsin, where maybe statewide Election Protection isnt as interested, maybe theyre more in milwaukee andra seen, but we know that what weve his toik his tofferically seen in wisconsin we may need to target other legislative districts. Obviously its helpful to have national pig if yours out there campaigning with local anadas but places that are battleground districts like texas and virginia, are you, are some of the candidates wary about the races getting so nationalized . And maybe wary of having a president or president ial candidate Elizabeth Warren or bernie sand thornse trail with them . We have seen the reverse be true. In virginia they put up, the only border wall trump built is the one between d. C. And virginia. The republicans didnt want him in the state during the election. So the certainly the weve seen this happen the other way where the Virginia Republicans banned trump from the state and only wanted pence to come in to help. I think that in a special election like the one happening in texas, these special elections are turnout elections. Having folks like secretary castro, beto, michael bloomberg, help the democratic bases is good. What about the are you on the defense . We feel like were on the offense. Well make sure in states like minnesota and maine and the New Hampshire house where there are 400 seats, thats a volatile chamber, well monitor that closely. Well make sure that we keep an eye on those places, were always concerned about our democratic majority. We defended the Colorado Senate earlier this year when we beat down some republican recalls that were put up by an extreme gun group. We were able to beat a number of recall elections and i think that was the solution for us to hold on to the Colorado State senate which we feel really good about. We have never lost colorado in a president ial year so we feel good. You spoke earlier a little bit about new data analytic, do you have reason to believe that republicans have the same technology or is it something you developed . I think, so this is a partisan company. We d a lot of work here to make sure that things are accurate. We survey on candidate names. So the work of simply getting the names of 7,000 state legislative candidates or 14,000 or 12,000, however many are on the ballot this year, headtohead and then figuring out which of those won primaries is significant. Thats a big list our team does in order to make our data accurate. So the we think that we sort of started this earlier than the republicans. We feel like our data and analytics are strong because our voter files so the backing state legislative data are starting. Were always vigilant. We know that the republicans have outsized resources. We know they got a great return on their investment. The united states, most unfortunately, after winning in 2010, so we know that we have to stay vigilant and make sure that everything we do is cutting edge and competitive. Can you elaborate on the importance, or significance, of having overlap with president ial races in states youre targeting beyond the obviously instict like increased turnout. Are there things that you can you talk about things where you can coordinate or cant coordinate and ramifications of that. Can we go back to the president ial battleground slide . In perfect. In many of these states, the only state where theres coordination is colorado. Because of amendment 27. So in many of these states well able to look at robust robustly coordinate with stronger coordinating campaign, the president ial campaign to think about where should door knocking happen. Theres economies of scale if you think about it, turning out democratic voters from state to state. Thats important. If you think about doing social pressure as, to talk to voters about making a plan to vote, if thats already being funded across a state, its very easy for us to say hey, can we add that on in our target. It decreases the cost of get out the vote. In many states, states like minnesota and iowa and michigan, historically the coordinated campaign, this happened last cycle in North Carolina, the campaign fully integrates the caucus work. And they think about as they work statewide how do we win the presidency. Theyre also trying to figure out how to win the state legislatures. Well sit down at a table and say heres our key precincts for door knock, heres our key targeted chambers that allows us to get out a more robust get out the vote strategy in states where theres coordination. We have a full field team that will go in and help build that out in states where there isnt as strong a history. In pennsylvania therell be a robust coordinator, well need to work closely with them. In texas, the texas Democratic Party is very focused on winning the ledge ledge slayture. Additional resources in the state, additional bodies, people knocking on doors. All those things are great for us. We view turnout as mechanical. A lot is having vote planning conversations with marginal democratic voters. And if its a president ial battleground theres going fb a large operation to do it. We have had the ability to start early and that puts us in a great position to engage with coordinating experts. Ive noticed that West Virginia im curious to know what you see in the state there and how much youre investing in it going into 2020 and what you think you expect out of it in the long term . I think were only three seats away from tripping flipping the state senate. So as a result were looking at these we look at these three seats to see are these seats specifically winnable. If so well work to make investments. Weve been talking to state legislative leadership in West Virginia. Had a West Virginia county democrat chair reach out to me excitedly and said how will you engage in our state . Its definitely on our list. We need to figure out can we go in and win some of these seats in the state senate. Any other questions . All right. Thank you so much, everybody. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming and matt is available for any followup questions. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country. So you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of overnment. Campaign 2020. Watch our continuing coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. As the voting begins next month, watch our live coverage of the iowa caucuses. On monday, february 3, cspans campaign 2020. Your unfiltered view of olitics. Next, a discussion from the arab center on the implications of the u. S. Drone strike that killed iranian general qassem soleimani. Other topics include the administrations policy toward iran and security in iraq. Hello, everyone. Im Senior Research fellow at arab center, w