What is the Role the Democratic Party?
And how should we think of the relationship between the Party and Democratic campaigns?
“Is this the Kamala Harris office?”
“No, ma’am,” I told the person who had just entered the office. “This is the Dallas County Democratic Party. We help Harris’ campaign and we also help every other Democrat whose campaign runs through Dallas County. Colin Allred is a big one, he’s running for Senate.”
The lady seemed confused. She had just come from church, donned in her Sunday best (an elegant black-and-white dress and one of those fancy hats with flowers on top), and came prepared to do her part to help elect the first black female President of the United States. “Well, where’s Kamala’s office?” she asked.
“I haven’t heard of the Harris campaign opening up an office in this region.” I replied. “But you’re more than welcome to join us in writing postcards. We have about 30 passionate Harris supporters here today doing all they can to help get her and Texas Democrats over the finish line.”
“No,” she responded, miffed. “I’m fine.” She turned around and headed home, and I never saw her again.
I reflect on this moment occasionally. This would-be volunteer’s name was Ruthie, and this instance, I believe, indicates a deeper question that has been gnawing at me since I left my job at the county party after the election: What exactly does the Democratic Party do?
Most people, when they think of Democratic or Republican politics, think of campaigns: Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Colin Allred, Ted Cruz. But not everyone thinks of the backstage crew assisting those campaigns. For the Democratic Party, at the top of the food chain for that backstage crew, is the Democratic National Committee, or DNC for short. Down one level, each state has its own Democratic Party. For us Texans, that’s the Texas Democratic Party, or TDP. At the bottom of the food chain, but perhaps serving the most important functions of our party’s ecosystem, is your local Democratic Party. For Dallas County, it’s the Dallas County Democratic Party, or DCDP.
The average voter – the one who might only visit the ballot box every four years if there’s a compelling reason to do so – may never think of any of this. For us hardcore politicos, on the other hand, we may wonder why the average voter should even bother knowing about the DNC, state parties, and local parties. “As long as we raise enough money to help Democrats get elected in my area and in swing states,” I can already hear some of us say, “our job is done.” But that is where we commit a serious error. As much of a “hot take” this is and as much as it sounds counterintuitive, the Democratic Party should stop focusing on helping Democrats get elected. Instead, it should visit people where they are, letting them know that the Party sees and hears them.
I live in Far North Dallas, a predominantly white and affluent community that leans right but might vote left depending on the political winds. My U.S. House Representative, State Senator, State House Member, and City Council Member are all Republican. (Technically, in Texas, City Council Members are nonpartisan. But, come on, we all know where certain people stand.) Only my County Commissioner, Constable, and Justice of the Peace are Democratic. Since we Democrats in Far North Dallas constantly try to unseat or fend off Republicans, we find ourselves concluding that voters who lean left are already with the program, assuming the sale and simply asking them to vote for Democrats. When I became the Organizing Manager for Southern Dallas County for DCDP in 2024, however, the battle became different. There, in an area that is predominantly black and Hispanic and where every single precinct is represented entirely by Democratic officeholders, it became more about what those officeholders have done for the people in those communities. “They’ve never done anything for me,” was a refrain I kept hearing from Democrats in Southern Dallas County. Since the name of the game for too many politicians, unfortunately, is to remain in power, those same politicians don’t feel the overwhelming threat of being unseated. Democratic challengers can face them in primaries, to be certain, but in a naturally small-c conservative state like Texas and county like Dallas, that threat also doesn’t bear much weight. Essentially, in Northern Dallas County, the battle is with Republicans. In Southern Dallas County, the battle is with apathy.
As I see it, the Democratic Party as a whole suffers from a branding and marketing problem. In my first post, I mentioned that the Party, in the era of Obama, used to be the party of messaging and data. We’ve strayed from that, and now, seemingly, have tried to play catch-up with Republicans and their messaging strategies. “They shitpost on social media? We shitpost on social media!” “They have Joe Rogan? We need to find our own Joe Rogan!” Voters can sense that desperation, and when most people notice that you’re reacting to someone else’s lead, they’ll either follow the person taking that lead or find something else to do. That goes not only for voting but for life in general. Democrats, at least at large, are not known for being colossal assholes – a good thing! – so we should lean into our strengths and create separation from the Republican Party on our own terms. And what is our biggest strength? The Democratic Party has traditionally and should always remain the big-tent party.
The way we communicate that we are the party for everyone, however, shouldn’t be via political campaigns every two or four years. Ruthie rebuffing my offer of writing postcards for all Democrats indicates, in my view, the Democratic Party's lack of presence in her community. Not including political campaigns, when was the last time your local Democratic Party appeared at an event? Did you meet them while they were tabling at a popular festival, for example? Or did you spot a big billboard along a highway offering a witty and poignant bumper-sticker explanation for why you should vote Democratic, or even inform voters of polling dates? Maybe you heard them during the break of a podcast episode, or watched a quick ad on YouTube before inevitably pressing “Skip Ad?” If you said yes to any of these things, consider yourself lucky. However, all of these examples and much more, in addition to aligning with local grassroots organizers and organizations (definitely a future post for this one topic), comprise what we need to start effectively marketing to everyone in our communities.
As far as branding is concerned, we tend to ramble when explaining who we are. To me, the big tent is simple: We believe every person living in America deserves a fair shot at a meaningful life, and we realize that those in power, whether it be businesspeople or politicians, pit us against each other in order for them to keep clinging on to that power. Is that a bit populist? Absolutely. Will they ever mention that, yes, it is also the politicians who manipulate average people for their own gain, and maybe some of those politicians are Democrats? Likely not. The DNC’s recent support of Andrew Cuomo for Mayor of New York City instead of the much more popular and much less scandal-ridden Zohran Mamdani provides evidence that the Party might forever find it anathema to call out its own leaders. But this sort of populist branding draws from the New Deal coalition from the 1930s to the 1960s, a time in which labor unions, lower- and middle-class voters, secularists, black people, brown people, white people, Asian people, small-town voters, and city slickers all voted together. These numbers outpace the numbers of people in power, and if done right, can bring us a more sustainable majority.
So now we have the DNC, the state parties, and the local parties. How do we get them functioning as one giant, well-oiled machine to help bring about that sustainable majority? Ideally, the local parties feed data – both statistical and anecdotal evidence – up to their respective state parties, and the state parties hand off that data to the national party. The national party, in turn, collects that information and tells a cohesive story about the state of our nation and how we should proceed, while also handing the data to political campaigns across the country in order for those campaigns to tailor their messaging to different states and cities. If you’re a finance geek, this process is not much different from the Federal Reserve. The Fed is no stranger to hard numbers, obviously, but before its Federal Open Market Committee meeting, it publishes its Beige Book, a report that provides an assessment of the nation’s economic conditions based on the qualitative data across the institution’s 12 districts. For us Democrats, when we echo phrases like “For the People,” we need to remind ourselves not just what that means, but how we construct a system that shows Americans that we practice what we preach.
That all may sound fine and dandy, but the unfortunate truth is that many local parties simply cannot afford marketing or the ability to collect data in their communities. Many county parties, especially smaller, rural ones, operate with a Chair, a small army of passionate part-time office volunteers, and a large number of (also unpaid) precinct chairs. In the case of the Dallas County Democratic Party, a funding partner in 2024 allowed them to hire full-time staff for the election cycle, but that is surely not the case for the vast majority of local parties. Lack of funding for county parties – and for that matter, state parties – ultimately falls on the Democratic National Committee. A significant portion of the DNC’s spending does indeed go to state and local parties, but its efforts focus more on swing states that we hear about during the duration of a presidential election cycle – Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, etc. In the DNC’s eyes, Texas and other states haven't yet reached critical mass.
I will leave my critique of the DNC’s assessment of Texas perhaps for another post. But in the end, we must overhaul how we view the roles of the Party and its political campaigns. Campaigns should not bear the burden of carrying the flag for the Party; they should ideally only reap the rewards of the Party’s years-long efforts of building political infrastructure in communities across the nation. The Party builds, and campaigns use. Some of us politicos might know that, but it's also our job to show everybody why they should join our side.