A Post 2024 Pathway

Memo to Unite the Country donors

Below is a memo we wrote for our Unite the Country donors. Sharing it more broadly here.

To: Unite the Country Supporters

From: Steve Schale, Unite the Country

Date: November 2024

Re: A Post 2024 Future

What happened on November the 5^th didn’t happen overnight…nor did it happen in the 3 months that Vice President Harris was the nominee.

It didn’t happen because Joe Biden is 81 and had a bad debate or because Donald Trump is a unicorn or because of global trends working against the incumbent or because of any other hot take out there right now.

While all of these are true, what happened on November the 5^th was the result of a decade or more of self-inflicted wounds, too much group think, an over-reliance on political data, a belief that we no longer needed to try to persuade anyone, a complete disconnect from what was happening in rural America, and at times, an unwillingness to face the hard truth.

Here are some facts:

· The gender gap that used to work in Democrats favor, now works against us. In Pennsylvania, Harris won women by 12, but lost men by 17 and lost non-college white men by 42.

· The education gap is also widening, as Republican strength with non-college voters is growing at a faster rate than Democratic growth with college educated voters.

· In addition to the states that flipped back to Trump in 2024, there are multiple states we won 12 years ago that aren’t remotely in play anymore. Barack Obama won 53 electoral votes in 2012 from states that no one can argue are competitive today.

· We don’t have a single U.S. Senator from a state that Trump won in 2020. Not one. Only a handful of Democrats serve in Congressional seats won by Trump. Today, you can drive 1,850 miles between Yakima, WA and Moline, IL and not travel through a single Congressional District held by a Democrat.

· Voter registration has been under-performing for much of the recent past, even in swing states with massive grassroots investments. Take Pennsylvania, where despite the spending, Republicans shaved 300,000 voters off the Democrats’ 2020 voter registration edge — a massive shift in a state that saw a roughly 200,000 vote shift in the margin between Biden and Harris.

When President Obama took office, Democrats had an 847-seat advantage over Republicans in the 50 state legislatures. Today, Republicans have a 795-seat edge.

Harris will win roughly half the number of counties that Obama won in 08, and some 100 less than John Kerry, and 200 less than Al Gore – and this isn’t a commentary on Harris – Democrats just aren’t winning many places.

Twenty years ago, our party represented Americans in all corners of the country. Today, we are largely a regional party. You can drive from Seattle to St. Louis and maybe hit 10 counties Harris won – then drive from there to New York City and hit maybe a dozen. Our entire math now is running up scores in an ever-decreasing handful of counties and hoping we don’t get crushed everywhere else. In the Blue Wall states, we won less than 3 dozen of the 222 counties.

And here is the other looming challenge: The 2030 census will lead to a new apportionment that will mean the “Blue Wall” no longer adds up to 270 electoral votes. Population estimates suggest that at a best-case scenario, the “Blue Wall” number will fall to 260, and some low-end estimates put that number closer to 255.

Even in President Biden’s extremely narrow 2020 win, the map looked shaky.

Our brand collapsed.

Many have pointed out that the race was close in many states, that she ran a very respectable race given the truncated campaign, and that this was just another change election. All true.

But these arguments fail to recognize three key facts: First, we barely won in 2020. A race that shouldn’t have been as close as it was turned into a squeaker. Secondly our voter coalition has shrunk over the last decade, and our existing voter coalition is built around one thing: narrowly defeating Donald Trump. And finally, had it not been Trump on the ballot – and had it not been for Republicans nominating borderline crazy people in 2022, we’d likely be facing a deeper hole.

The truth is, we are simply not relevant in huge swaths of the country, and increasingly, the coastal and beltway democrats are blind to it. This is unsustainable going forward.

Part of this is an increasing reliance on data and analytics. Yes, these tools are valuable, but they are also driving way too many decisions. We now look for the most efficient ways to spend – and efficiency by its very nature, means exclusion. The most efficient thing we can do is do nothing, and that is exactly what we do in most places.

The multi-racial coalition that defined the massive wins of the Obama years is gone. Increasingly non-college educated white, Hispanic and Black voter are trending Republican. There simply aren’t enough suburban college-educated voters to make up the difference.

You can’t run from the math.

· According to AP Vote Cast, Black Men shifted 25 points to the GOP.

o Non-college white men: 21-points

o Hispanic men: 19 points

o 18-44 non-college: 17 points

o Hispanic women: 12-points

· In 2012, Barack Obama carried the two majority Hispanic counties in Florida, Osceola and Dade, by a combined 237,000 votes. 12 years later, Donald Trump won those same two counties by a combined 130,000 votes.

· The county that is home to Joe Biden, Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania, went from a nearly +30 county for Democrats in 2012 to essentially a tie in 2024.

· Volusia County, FL, a blue-collar county, with a diverse population that used to be reliably Democratic – in other words, the kind of place we used to win when we won. In the last 5 elections, the results have looked like this: D+6, R+1, R+13, R+14, to now, R+22. A county Obama won by 13,000 votes turned into one Trump won by 68,000 – despite the county getting more diverse over those 16 years.

These aren’t isolated anecdotes, there are many other examples we could list — and none of it happens without major shifts in the coalition.

We’ve Lost Our Voice

Clearly, Harris faced headwinds during her candidacy: The President’s and administrations low approval numbers, geopolitical issues, inflation and border issues were real, but they were merely symptoms of the larger problem.

For starters, voters don’t see us fighting for real change. Ironically, while Biden and Harris exclusively passed legislation that benefitted working class Americans, the voters never connected those to Biden or Democrats writ large. They didn’t see Democrats as acting in their best interest, but rather saw us focused niche social issues that seem out of touch. At times, this was true and at other times, it was masterfully amplified by the robust Republican messaging ecosystem.

For instance, in Florida, we’ve seen margins in heavily white/non-college rural and urban counties explode for Republicans while margins in more urban/suburban counties with large Hispanic populations decrease. If you ask voters why, they tell you that Democrats aren’t in their corner or that our priorities are not aligned with issues that directly affect them.

The Democratic Party did this to ourselves. In 2019, our primary was a race to embrace very left-leaning policy that was nowhere near the median voter. That primary saw major candidates challenging capitalism, social proposals that appealed to very niche audiences and increasingly the language being used felt like it was invented in a college lab. At the same time, all voters wanted was a no-drama, competent alternative to Donald Trump.

Thankfully Joe Biden was smart enough to avoid that path during the primary campaign (though the campaign decided to move left after they had the nomination locked up). While we don’t want to admit it, those 2019 things almost cost us the 2020 election, and frankly, they did cost us the 2024 race.

It has become abundantly clear; Democrats have lost our ability to communicate with working class voters. In focus groups, voters repeatedly use words like “condescending” and “preachy” to describe Democrats and point out that we don’t push back on the extremes in our own party. Additionally, for voters who root their lives in faith, our message often comes across as disrespectful.

Example: Remember the controversy around gas stoves? A bureaucrat’s 200-page report included a “possible” suggestion to deal with climate change: eliminating gas stoves. That narrative quickly spiraled out of control for Democrats. Suddenly, people were asking why Joe Biden was banning gas stoves. Even the Florida Legislature jumped on the opportunity by passing legislation to protect gas stoves. If the administration had immediately responded with a firm “We are NEVER going to eliminate gas stove” instead of staying silent, it would most assuredly have been a one-day news story.

We saw this play out in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. Our lack of connection with rural voters made it easy for misinformation to spread unchecked. Instead of immediately deploying surrogates to counter the narrative on the ground, our response was relegated to online platforms like Reddit. This approach not only missed the mark but highlighted the ongoing struggle to engage directly with key audiences in battleground states.

Truthfully, our Democratic brand has deteriorated so badly that successful Democratic candidates facing competitive races spend most of their time distancing themselves from Coastal Democrats. Careless language used in very safe coastal Democratic areas ultimately comes back directly to hurt those Democrats who are trying to appeal to moderate voters.

We’ve often forget how Barack Obama built his coalition. Yes, he was a charismatic leader who drove many to the polls, but he was also a surgical operator who instinctively understood the median voter. In the general election, he ran on cutting taxes, protecting jobs, a moderate plan on immigration that called for securing the border and cracking down on companies who knowingly hired illegal workers. In southern states, he did mail on guns, not because he was necessarily going to win all those voters over, but because those voters would not hear him out on other issues until they knew where he stood on the 2^nd amendment.

Yet, despite winning the largest election mandate backed by the broadest voter coalition in recent history, many in our party took the lesson that we needed to lean more into the base and turnout.

The problem with this mobilization strategy is successful elections are won by addition, not subtraction, but our party’s mobilization approach is inclusion by exclusion, built on the flawed assumption that everyone within a “group” is monolithic. For example, assuming all Hispanics prioritize immigration leaves those with different views feeling overlooked and unheard. Meanwhile, voters outside these groups are left wondering where they fit into our priorities. Unsurprisingly, this strategy has failed.

Our base is more diverse than ever - ideologically, ethnically, and racially. The reality is that when we focus our campaign messaging on real-life, pocketbook issues that Democrats perennially actually fight for, we win. When we stray from that approach, we lose.

For starters, we need to:

· Re-evaluate the Map and Strategy: Conduct not only 2024 autopsy, but a deep analysis of how the map has shrunk and our coalition has eroded. Look beyond traditional strongholds and consider what a winning map could look like by 2030.

· Broaden the Democratic Table: Encourage collaboration and diversify decision-making by engaging more groups and voices. Avoid concentrating independent expenditures in a single entity to foster fresh ideas and competition.

· Invest in Proven Communication Strategies: Prioritize consistent paid communication across digital platforms year-round, not just in the final weeks of an election. Avoid chasing “magic bullet” solutions and focus on what works.

· Compete with Conservative Media: Build a robust communication apparatus to rival the Right’s coordinated messaging, content sharing, and innovative voter outreach strategies.

· Embrace Common Sense and Median Voters: Focus on rational, results-oriented policies that appeal to the median voter. Push back against litmus tests and elevate voices that prioritize listening and common-sense solutions.

· Take a Stand on Key Issues: Address hard topics directly. Advocate for safe streets while calling out bad policing, secure borders while supporting humane immigration, and climate action while acknowledging energy independence. Avoid being baited into wedge-issue traps.

· Elevate Candidates Outside Washington: Support mayors, governors, and state leaders who are winning in tough districts. Prioritize candidates with deep ties and credibility in their communities over those from safe Democratic areas.

· Develop Operative Talent: Highlight operatives who win hard races and prioritize their voices. Intentionally cultivate young talent by giving rising stars opportunities to manage down-ballot campaigns and develop leadership skills.

We are all tired of losing, tired of not even being able to compete in parts of the country where we used to win, tired of hearing “we got this” from the DC establishment when those of us working outside raise a flag. I am personally tired of writing memos like this, we all should be tired of reading them. But until we acknowledge the issues, we can never fix it.

In elections, there is only one goal: Winning. There’s no consolation for second place, no honor in a race well run but lost, and certainly no participation trophies. You win, or you lose. Period.

Winning means finding 50% and adding one. The path to that goal should be agnostic in ideology but relentless in focus. The left/center/right debate is meaningless. We must go where the votes are, talk to the voters we need, and embrace the tactics required to reach that 50th percentile voter. If we’re not focused on that singular mission, then what are we even doing?

Let’s be clear: our failures aren’t accidental, they didn’t happen overnight — and in many cases, they were avoidable. In 2022, Unite The Country polled across four battleground states and found we were at a staggering 25-to-40-point disadvantage on three of the four most critical issues in the race. There was an absolute disconnect between what coastal Democrats were saying and what Americans were thinking. How do we win from that position? And more importantly, how do we even let it get that bad?

The path forward is clear. There’s no presidential administration to defend, no congressional majorities to protect. We have an opportunity to rebuild where we’ve fallen short. But doing so requires truthful introspection, unwavering focus, and disciplined execution.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, but neither could the opportunity. We can reclaim our place, redefine our strategy, and rebuild our coalition.

So, let’s stop making excuses, stop retreating into ideological safe spaces, and start doing what needs to be done to win.