So reverse coattails are up for debate again, & I do actually have some thoughts. But I am afraid they are going to frustrate all parties in this debate equally! You're better off just muting this thread right now tbh [1/17,000]
Here's the NYTimes piece folks are responding to today, which reports on the results of a study funded by RunForSomething nytimes.com/2021/04/16/us/…
Here is the public write-up of the study in question itself👇. If there is a more detailed write-up out there, I'd love to be pointed to it? Bc as it stands the structure of the comparative analysis here leaves me very confused (on which, more below...) runforsomething.net/wp-content/upl…
But quite apart from either 1) this study or 2) reverse coattails per se, I want to underline that recruiting candidates for seats recently uncontested by Dems became a core mission for born-as-anti-Trump grassroots groups everywhere: & it's been integral to their growth & gains
We wrote in Feb 2018: "The need to contest 'every seat, every election' is a new mantra among activists in red or purple communities, appalled by the range of elective offices they discover all around them for which Dems stopped even fielding candidates.." democracyjournal.org/arguments/midd…
As I wrote a few months later, these races were both building on & adding to personal ties among activists. These lateral connections were part of what kept new groups across urban/suburban/rural districts functioning more like allies than ideological foes democracyjournal.org/arguments/ther…
Getting involved in downballot races didn't just get volunteers out into their communities talking to voters. It got them out *listening* to voters: & reality-checking their own preferences & priorities against the complex electorates around them vox.com/first-person/2…
That hands-on experience trying to win elections (every year! not once in 4) meant newcomers rapidly developed acute diagnoses of the leverage—& shortcomings—of their local Dem party cttes. They steppd in to revitalize: or fight for them.Which is healthy! global.oup.com/academic/produ…
Precisely because recruiting & running a downballot campaign both reflects a certain minimal level of local political engagement, & builds more over its course, my own sense is that throwing (some) money at such campaigns is generally a great thing to do democracyjournal.org/arguments/iowa…
The argument is that the "grassroots engagemnt" projects most visible to distant funders are systematically the least grounded in local dynamics/needs. Targeting previously-uncontested races is a way of using an organic signal that something's underway here you want to encourage
So if you want build broader, stronger Dem-side political infrastructure, then providing attainable basic resources to downballot candidates in a wider range of places is a wise & logical component of an investment plan
Of course, not all downballot campaigns are equally structured to "lay tracks" for the future. I really want some funder to ask me & @daschloz & co. to write a version of this👇 as a campaign questionnaire, to make this dimension part of your eval process scholars.org/contribution/l…
So far I've talked about internal capacity-building: but there's external relationship & brand-building too. If you never run a local candidate to say "here's what a Dem looks like here" FOX caricatures of Pelosi will be the only Dems some places ever see
You'll notice that none of the case I've made so far for investing in downballot races claims doing so will help at the top of ticket in the same cycle. On the contrary I'd argue that it's worth doing even if it may *hurt* you short-term, by driving up turnout in hostile terrain
"Let sleeping dogs lie" was long the justification for sitting some races out, & @jyazman2012's analysis of eg VA's 2017 House of Delegate long shots argues that turnout impacts meant they hurt Northam more than helped him. But were worth doing anyway! joshyazman.github.io/reverse-coatta…
Ok so does this most recent RFS study give reason to think that contesting downballot races brought immediate benefit at the top of the ticket in 2020? The first thing I'll note is as far as I can see it says nothing about turnout levels, which would make a huge difference here
So eg in rural areas of PA, Biden improved on Clinton's two-party vote share but carried out a larger absolute vote deficit than she did, because turnout rose there: & losing by less is still losing (see absuuurdly long thread on PA's-2020+trends here👇)
Plausibly, having contested downballot races could *both* improve Biden vote share & increase local turnout enough to be a net disadvantge at top of ticket. I would still say it's the right thing to do! For all the longterm building/incentive reasons above
Ok but back to the study itself. 1st of all it looks to me like they're basically comparing a control group made of mainly KS precincts+some OH/GA, w/treatment group almost wholly FL+OH? But then if FL or KS have any unique relevant features, your findings could be confounded?🤔
As an aside, re: how state-level parties can interact with candidate recruitment & campaign course & quality in significant ways, a tweet fr @otis_reid pointed me to this fascinating study from @movement_labs... contesteveryrace.com/wp-content/upl…
...which among other things shows both how uneven Dem party chairs' initial responsiveness is, even within a single state—& how impactful getting them personally involved can be.🚨Great Target For Infrastructure Building Alert🚨
A few other🤷‍♀️things. Controlling on general partisanship, Biden's performance in these OH/FL/KS/GA precincts seems fully explained by basic demographics. It's only when you control by Clinton16 vote instead that uncontested races look worse than just demographics would predict
It's also a little hard to know from the results released👇 but it looks like %HS or Less & %Bachelors are doing separate work here, & once the latter is included in the model the apparent difference between contested & uncontested precincts disappears. That's interesting!
A fact that gets lost in some reductionist discussion re "non-college" voters is just how important *some college* (incomplete+assoc deg) voters are: that's ~30% of adults in FL & OH alike. A suburb with lots of some-college voters is very different than one with all bachelors+up
I'm saying all this because I would actually be thrilled if the only problem here were correlation-doesn't-prove-causality, which was eg @MattGrossmann's (quite sensible!) immediate caveat
I would love to be able to point to clear evidence that the kind of grassroots activity that makes places more likely to run downballot candidates is also linked to improved top-of-ticket performance. It turns out to be really hard to say, bc the drivers of both are so entwined
So eg in PA a metric like Indivisible listings is tightly correlated w/ the portion of local adults with post-BA degrees. I can tell you about the intense organizing folks are doing, & you can look at results & say "educational polarization" & we're left🤷‍♀️ americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvani…

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More from @lara_putnam

8 Apr
This👇 (from @StanGreenberg) matches what I've seen since last summer in right-leaning social media spaces. And it pushes to me ask aloud—as a real question, not a rhetorical one—Why aren't we talking how 'Antifa' cost the Democrats votes? No, really, why? democracycorps.com/republican-par…
Put differently, what are the stakes & consequences of taking a summer of protest understood by so many voters as having been driven by "Antifa"—& instead talking as if race+policing entered public debate driven & shaped by a handful of activists messaging "defund the police"?
You're gonna say but Lara, Antifa isn't a real thing, not in the way Greenberg's respondents are talking about it👇. To which I say, yes: correct. That seems like an important thing to be reckoning with?
Read 34 tweets
3 Mar
Another wk & the pace of party reg changers has barely slowed: 4,646 voters changed party reg in PA last wk, bringing YTD changers to over 39,000. While in first 6 wks of 2021 big trend was GOP to Other, this wk continued last wk's trend: folks came home to parties, just new ones Image
(for excessively long previous threads on topic, including important caveats re uneven data reporting, see👇)
Regions in blue quadrant👇 saw net losses to GOP & net gains to Dems. White quadrant saw net losses to both: distance above green line reflects frequency of loss from major parties to Other. Almost everywhere has seen rate of movement to Other slow in last 2 wks (SCPA is holdout) Image
Read 7 tweets
20 Jan
It seems nationally there's some political stuff going on today & tomorrow, whatev, but here in Pittsburgh we are all only #onhere for the sudden news that we have a contested mayoral primary ahead: & all the reasons that's Actually a Good Thing (whoever wins!). Eg, 👇
For my part I am just on Team Democracy, & from that point of view am really hopeful this contested race may make progress in rectifying the severe voter registration deficit that COVID-19 falling in presidential year 2020 caused in Pittsburgh's most marginalized neighborhoods👇
Read 6 tweets
19 Jan
I've been chewing over this substack post fr @danpfeiffer, bc on the one hand he hits *so many* important points & on the other it makes visible the huge gap between what "grassroots activsts" look like from 30,000 ft—even to best-intentioned observers—& the reality on the ground
I spent 2 h last night at the monthly mtg of a Dem women's group in a very red PA county. Two women founded the group in Dec 2016. 4 ys later they are plugging away, with a dozen+ people via zoom on a January mid-pandemic Monday, brainstorming recruitment for boro council races
Two years ago it was jarring to hear nationally amplified "Resistance" leaders proudly announce they were about to guide "their" groups into voter outreach: when the actual groups on the ground had been all-in to local/regional electoral action since 2017 democracyjournal.org/arguments/midd… Image
Read 15 tweets
31 Dec 20
wait wait wait. halt presses. talk about burying the lede. yes I know pandemic coup collapse-of-democracy etc. but PEOPLE

@davidshor is on team Yard Signs *Do* Vote

static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/46827… Image
& he says it all nonchalant, like he doesn't realize that w this one banner he can summon to his side all the supervols he needs to campaign on whatever the heck msg he suggests, eternally loyal bc someone finally stopped undercuttng their lived truth of politcs in their communty
ok for anyone here who has not lived the yard signs wars 1st hand: Local volunteers everywhere passionately believe in the impact of yard signs. Dem campaign pros, esp since data-driven methods/metrics became gospel, largely don't. Here's the skeptic case:
Read 15 tweets
19 Dec 20
1) @4st8 is always right about everything & especially this, and 2) I've been meaning to create a thread of examples of What Investing in Grounded Political Infrastructure Looks Like, & this is the shove I needed. Here goes! 1/~17,000
What do I mean by "grounded political infrastructure"? Infrastructure designed to be fueled by, make use of, & contribute to existng networks of connection. Because all organizing is reorganizing. & disconnected/dropped-in infrastructure won't be sustained scholars.org/contribution/l…
I worked on 👇 w/@daschloz @CarolineTervo @JakeMGrumbach @awh @adamsethlevine Tabatha Abu El-Haj & Joseph Anthony: if that doesn't persuade you to buy a copy [jk: it's free!] what will? Lots of suggestions will be relevant to orgs that aren't parties, too scholars.org/contribution/l…
Read 17 tweets

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