DNC announces funding agreement with state parties

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Wednesday announced a massive funding agreement with state parties as it gears up for the 2022 midterms.

The DNC said in a statement the four-year deal will provide $23 million to state parties as part of the national organization’s 2022 midterm strategy.

The group will also create a “Red State Fund” to direct additional investments in historically red states as part of efforts to compete in every state and territory. That fund includes $2 million in direct investments and grants for states that have no Democratic senator or governor, where under 25 percent of the congressional delegation are Democrats and where a Republicans hold a supermajority in the state legislature. 

The announcement is the latest part of the DNC strategy under Chair Jaime Harrison, a former head of the South Carolina Democratic Party and former 2020 Senate candidate who has vowed to boost the body’s support for state parties. 

“As a former state party chair, I know firsthand how critical it is that we invest in the grassroots to strengthen the Democratic Party as a whole — and we can’t leave a single community behind,” said Harrison. “With this agreement, the DNC’s new ‘Red State Fund’ will allow us to take the fight to Republicans as they fight among themselves by providing unprecedented resources to Democrats organizing in every corner of the country.”

The funding agreement with the state parties specifically includes $15.5 million in the DNC’s State Partnership Program and the reestablishment of the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee between the DNC and state parties. 

The proposal was hailed by state Democratic parties that said the injection of funds would prove key to making gains in the midterms.

“This historic agreement will give Democrats across North Carolina and the entire country the resources we need to continue delivering for the American people,” said North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Bobbie Richardson. “With more investment than ever before in our grassroots infrastructure, we are ready to get to work electing Democrats up and down the ballot in 2022, and beyond.”

Harrison has vowed to reassert the DNC’s partnerships with state parties after a decade when they often played second fiddle to liberal outside groups. The plan under Harrison is emblematic of 50-state strategy employed by Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and DNC chairman who helped Democrats win the House majority in 2006. However, Democrats now find themselves on defense, defending the narrowest House and Senate majorities in years.

The DNC has typically allowed partners like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which deals with House races, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which handles Senate contests, to take charge in midterm cycles but has forecasted heavy involvement in the 2022 races.

The DNC has already sent out ad blitzes and messaging campaigns surrounding President Biden’s coronavirus relief plan, a strategy that is expected to continue as Democrats push forward the White House’s infrastructure proposals.