(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Welcome the primaries, they make us stronger. Bring it on... [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-04-21

37,415 emails each week. This is how Hope Springs from Field PAC [dated website] communicates with our volunteers. Probably 85% of these email addresses come from the Obama era, through organizers who worked on those campaigns (and 3-5% come from Hillary presidential campaign organizers) and continue to help our voter contact canvasses. I mention this because it is apparently different than how other Democratic or progressive organizations attract volunteers. I really wouldn’t know.

But the advantage of this approach is that we have a list of experienced canvassers to mobilize who live outside of strong Democratic urban strongholds. Out of those 37,415, only 17,284 volunteers showed up on our best week last year. At the height of Summer, we’ll get ~10,000 volunteers to come out. It is what it is.

The buzz this week, even in the states that weren’t canvassing because of Passover/Easter/Spring Break, was the hubbub over the David Hogg announcement that his independent group would spend $20M in the Democratic primaries next year to elect younger people to Congress.

On Wednesday, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg’s group Leaders We Deserve PAC launched a $20 million effort aimed at launching primary challenges against House Democratic incumbents in safe seats in hopes of electing younger candidates. A number of young progressive candidates have already launched primary bids against longtime incumbent House Democrats.

Volunteers — and a couple of donors — were curious about how Hope Springs was going to handle that. But we aren’t “going to handle that.” We don’t get involved in primaries — and it doesn’t sound like Leaders We Deserve will be funding candidates in the Swing Districts where we canvass. And more than a few of the people reaching out felt like the media was trying to divide Democrats: “A generational divide has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s most contentious rifts in the early stages of the Trump administration, as younger officials press their elders to toss aside deference for more confrontation.”

Are we divided? a couple volunteers asked, in text and in person. “Not really,” i responded. We’ve always had disagreements about tactics, but all Democrats want to win, and all Democrats were disappointed in the 2024 election results. It is interesting that the media seems very focused on what changes Democrats will make in response to the closest presidential election in the last century. Except maybe not choose a presidential nominee that close to the election. I don’t think those are circumstances we will ever see again.

But isn’t running younger Democrats against Democratic incumbents inherently divisive? It doesn’t have to be. Primaries are our process. I would think it is unusual for Democratic incumbents in Congress to face no internal opposition, even if most times it is hard to consider those challengers as serious candidates. Sure, no incumbent wants to face a challenger from their own party and most incumbents will argue that taking challengers seriously (like doing debates, etc) elevate the challengers to something they are not (serious challengers).

Here’s the thing: even if we won’t be in the districts that Leaders We Deserve seems likely to contest, Hope Springs volunteers have been on opposite sides of primaries. And it doesn’t impact our voter contact. We’ve seen people on opposite sides of primaries canvass together, even if there is a spirited debate over their differing points of view. I distinctly remember one volunteer who was in that kind of situation come back from canvassing and observe that the candidates should be talking more about the concerns they were hearing at the doors instead of what they were saying in debates. Voters have their own priorities.

Hope Springs from Field PAC began knocking on doors again on March 1st. We target Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but Democrats are determined to deliver the best government possible to all Americans. The voters we talk to continue to tell us they come away more invested in governance and feel more favorably towards Democrats in general because of our approach.

Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization Hope Springs from Field understands that volunteer to voter personal interactions are critical. Knocking on doors has repeatedly been found to be the most successful tactic to get voters to cast a ballot and that is the goal of what we do. The only time i can remember a question arising was when a volunteer raised a question about one Democrat in a contested primary canvassing with us. But we don’t turn volunteers away because they are a candidate. All Democratic candidates are invited to knock on doors with us. And we’ve had more than a few. Some who wanted to understand what Hope Springs was doing in their area, some who wanted to learn how to canvass. More than a few interested in getting the data volunteers are generating before their primary dates! In some respect, i am the wrong person to address this because i believe in primaries (i think every incumbent should face a primary), i think it makes our party stronger, and it certainly gives a way for more voices to be heard. Successful primaries against incumbent members are pretty rare but there is one thing they prevent: they prevent Democrats from losing seats in the general because an incumbent has grown old, tired and disconnected from their electorate. Political polarization probably prevents the kind of partisan turnover we’ve seen in the last century because of that but. And there’s an upside to primaries, particularly those in open-seat contests. Despite the money spent, robust primaries do help an eventual general election candidate sharpen their campaign operation, their message and serve as a proving ground for November. Any doubt i may have ever had in this regard was forever altered by the Democratic presidential primary in 2008. I don’t buy the excuse that a partisan electorate (not all primaries are party exclusive) can drive a candidate too far to the left because any Democrat who can’t navigate differences in opinion and ideology among Democrats won’t be in office long. We are an opinionated bunch! Our elected officials have to be able to deal with that. Let’s put it this way: trad Democrats in public office have to be able to respond to, and include, the Bernie people in their state or district and the Bernie-progressive incumbents have to be able to respond to, and include, the traditional Democrats in their’s. It’s an open question whether “a deluge of primary challenges from younger insurgents who say older and more established incumbents aren't effective foils to President Trump” are right. Everywhere i’ve been this year, volunteers are looking for more effective resistance to president felon and his chaos-driven approach to governance. Last Saturday, several volunteers and i discussed the Trump-Musk criminal regime and what we could do “to stop it now.” Several of these volunteers were cutting out early for their 50501 events and hoped that direct action could stop it. But one of them admitted he was hedging his bets, “because we have to win over the people who don’t see it my way.”

The reality is that we didn’t talk enough about how inflation was hurting voters in 2024 and we weren’t prepared for the big stumble the president took in the first debate. Presidential primaries might have exposed those weaknesses, and it most certainly would have shown the president that the information his advisors were feeding him (that age wasn’t a factor and he was much beloved by the electorate) was misplaced. You would think we would be more open to Democratic primaries after the debacle of 2024, not less so. Primaries are an opportunity for Democratic incumbents to engage with the electorate and need to be appreciated as such.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/21/2317400/-Welcome-the-primaries-they-make-us-stronger-Bring-it-on?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/