DNC Pumping Money into Key State Legislature Races as Obama Has Increasing States in PlayHoward Dean always said the Democrats needed to rebuild in the state legislatures and state houses because that is where elections are won....redistricting and controlling the voting procedures. Look at the boon having Jennifer Brunner as Secretary of State in Ohio.
On the heels of the campaign's final debate, the Democrat is launching TV ads in West Virginia, which George W. Bush won four years ago and hadn't been on the list of target states until recently, according to two Democrats with knowledge of the strategy.....Obama lost West Virginia in the Democratic primary to Hillary Rodham Clinton as he struggled to win over working-class whites. But Democrats say the economic turmoil in the hard-hit state and TV ads Obama has been running in its neighbors have made West Virginia competitive. These Democrats spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the campaign.”
I'll bet he goes back into North Dakota and Georgia before this is over, too. And the article is talking about Kentucky. Kentucky!
And the improved environment for Democrats generally, combined with the incredible ground game from the Obama campaign, has rallied a late push into state legislative races:
“The Democratic National Committee is waging a last minute injection of as much as $20 million into state legislative races in key states, hoping to take advantage of Democratic momentum this cycle.
“A senior Democrat familiar with the conversations said: "We are looking at options, races, where we can be helpful, as we did in 2006. This is the time when some races pop.....DNC chairman Howard Dean has made it a priority to help Democrats win down the ballot, so that if Obama wins the presidency, Democrats will have a larger majority in Congress. But with states planning to redistrict their congressional boundaries in 2012, control of state legislative chambers is all the more important, people close to Dean said.”
Very sharp strategy. Dean has learned from the bottom-up conservative movement that started in the states.
More from Marc Ambinder on this push:
DNC Weighs Accelerated Spending In State Legislative RacesThis year, having plucked the low-hanging fruit, Democrats have set their sights on tougher pulls, like New York's state senate. "It's the biggest toss-up on the map," says Matt Compton, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Other targets for Democrats include: Ohio, Wisconsin, Delaware and the Texas House, where Democrats are five seats away from the majority; the Obama campaign has added organizers to help them.
Currently, Democrats control 27 state senate chambers and 30 state house chambers; Oklahoma and Tennessee are split down the middle, and Nebraska, with its unicameral legislative, is a special case. Democrats are playing defense in New Hampshire, Indiana and Pennsylvania.
Stateline.org rates 11 chambers as toss-ups, seven of them with Republican and four with Democratic majorities.
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