Since 2008, Democrats nationwide have been hemorrhaging state legislature seats, and dressing their open wounds with tiny Hello Kitty bandaids.
It was bad.
After Trump's election, a group of former Clinton organizers decided to form a new startup, Flippable, dedicated to breaking Republican supermajorities and winning some of these states back. State politics isn't exactly romantic -- think of how many of your former Assembly members you can name -- and Democrats haven't had a successful track record in the area in a long time.
Almost a year later, Flippable appears to have started to, well, flip that trend. On Tuesday, the group said they won 16 out of 20 races on which they worked.
Is state politics becoming ... cool?
SEE ALSO: More than a dozen Democratic Socialists won last night in a wave of rose emojisMmm, probably not. But it's at least becoming more competitive. For this election, Flippable decided to create a model that would identify the most competitive districts based on their previous voting history and incumbency status. They identified 20 races they could potentially flip, and zeroed in on 6. That number, they say, was actually ambitious.
"It was the maximum number of seats that Democrats had managed to flip in a single cycle over the past 30 years," Flippable CEO and Co-founder Catherine Vaughan told Mashable in an email.
"What we saw last night was nothing short of incredible . . . As of writing, 16 of our original 20 candidates won -- including every single one of our target five, who in some cases bested incumbents who hadn’t seen a real challenger in decades. Additionally, five of these candidates outperformed Hillary’s 2016 vote margins, a substantial feat given that lower turnout in off-year elections typically decreases Democratic margins."
Tomorrow, 100 million Americans have a state, city or district election. See if you're one of them at @flippable_org https://t.co/JcPhzSWvuw
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2017
There were dozens of group who helped organize for Tuesday's election -- from the DLCC to massive new organizing operations like Indivisible, Swing Left and Run for Something -- and it's impossible to neatly statistically quantify how much of an impact Flippable, or any one group, had. There were also other variables working in Democrats' favor, namely, a president with incredibly low approval ratings.
Flippable's impact nonetheless appears to have been felt. In four of the five races Flippable targeted, they were top donor:
"Flippable raised more than $550,000 in grassroots contributions for our targeted candidates this year--over $200,000 of which went to our targeted state legislative candidates that won on Tuesday. For context, the average total cost of a state legislative race is $120,000. So we’re talking contribution sizes that can literally change the outcome of a race," Vaughan told Mashable.
State politics isn't sexy but it matters two major reasons. First, state governments have more power than most people think -- they control everything from how schools get funded to how much in taxes you pay to whether or not you can smoke weed at your local jam band concert.
One seat flipped the WA state senate, the state government, and the entire West Coast blue. Washington is our 8th Dem trifecta! pic.twitter.com/7gQ7AwuVsv
— Flippable (@flippable_org) November 8, 2017
Perhaps even more importantly, state governments get to draw legislative maps and otherwise determine who gets to vote. They control gerrymandering and, in the case of Wisconsin, openly suppress the vote with voter ID laws.
Progressives have a long way ahead before catching up with the current Republican state level of control. As of Tuesday, Democrats have just eight "trifectas," or states where they can control both legislative chambers and the governorship. Republicans, by contrast, have twenty-four.
It's still bad. But by zeroing in on competitive races and using social media to attract both in-state and out-of-state donors and volunteers, groups like Flippable (and Swing Left, and Indivisible, and others), hope they can take advantage of our passing political moment to make lasting change.
Tuesday showed them that it's possible.
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