Take the Senate, 2014

Dear Fellow Chairs,

When I ran for WSDCC chair I was asked two things over and over again.  How are we going to win the State Senate? How are we going to grow the party? My idea was simple: we would implement a “Sister LD” or “Adopt an LD” program. This type of program would allow our strongest LDs to support other LDs when and where help would do the most good. It was popular when I described it, and I am proud to say that we are ready to launch this program through the WSDCO.

Section One: The Organizations

First, I want to introduce the organizations already involved in the plan. This specific plan will be coordinated by the Washington State Democratic Chairs Organization. We will be working closely with the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Young Democrats of Washington State. These organizations are already on board, and other organizations may be added as the campaign goes forward.

Section Two: The Goal

Second, we must identify the goals for 2014. We have one end goal this year; the Democratic Party must regain our majority in the Washington State Senate. To that end, we have identified five Legislative Districts during the 2014 Election Cycle that we want to concentrate our efforts and resources on.  These are the five districts that we are hoping you will adopt:

The 6th District

Represents a crescent shaped district around the North, West, and Southern parts of the City of Spokane, and parts of North and Southwestern Spokane County, including Airway Heights, Medical Lake and Cheney.

The senate seat is currently held by Michael Baumgartner (R).

The 28th District

Represents part of Pierce County including Fircrest, University Place, Lakewood, Steilacoom, Tillicum, Dupont, part of Tacoma, Graham, Spanaway and Anderson, Ketron, and McNeil Islands.

The senate seat is currently held by Steve O’Ban (R).

The 42nd District

Represents most of Whatcom County including Point Roberts, Blaine, Ferndale, Lynden, Nooksack, Everson and the northern part of Bellingham.

The senate seat is currently held by Doug Ericksen (R).

The 45th District

Represents part of King County including Woodinville, Duvall, and part of Kirkland, Redmond, and Sammamish.

The senate seat is currently held by Andy Hill (R).

The 48th District

Represents part of King County including part of Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, and all of Medina, Clyde Hill, Yarrow Point and Hunts Point.

The senate seat is currently held by Rodney Tom (“D”).

Section Three: The Method

Now that we have identified which races we Democrats can win, we need to decide to support those races in order to win the Senate.

We are looking for two types of organizations specifically who are willing to adopt one of these five groups.

1.       “Safe” districts. If your democratic candidate is going to win his or her election by 60% or more, is running unopposed, or is otherwise generally agreed to be in a safe race, we need you! We hope and expect that you will still work to ensure your senator wins his or her race, but they will tell you that unless we regain a real majority in the senate, the work they would like to do will not happen. Please consider adopting one of the LDs above.

2.       “Top-Two” are districts with two Republicans in the General Election. If no Democrats make it through to the primary or it is pretty assured that any Democrat is not currently in a position to win in 2014 in your district, please consider adopting one of the LDs above. Just because you have no candidate to rally around in your home district doesn’t mean that your time, energy and donations are not needed to win the senate. Being able to help us regain the majority is the first step in making sure that you will have a Democrat to vote for in your next election.

Section Four: The Means

If you feel like you would like to be a part of this movement, please discuss this plan with your e-board or general membership.

The commitment is as follows:

1.       We will need donations! Your LD or county organization can send money to one of the five organizations listed above. This will allow those organizations to run independent expenditure programs that will further promote the growth of the party in their areas.

2.       We still need donations! Encourage your membership to donate directly to the campaigns. If you have a “big donor” that can easily “max out” with their contributions to their home senator, please ask them to donate to the adopted LD’s candidate as well.

3.       We need boots on the ground. We expect that there will be two major canvassing days. One before the ballots drop and one after. This does not preclude the adopted LD chair from asking for more help or the campaigns reaching out to you independently. However, we want to make sure the efforts are concentrated.

4.       We need your expertise! If your organization can offer help and/or advice to another, please consider it. Also if you need help or advice, please do not hesitate to ask.

If your organization has the ability to help and would like to adopt one of the five LDs listed above, please contact me as soon as possible.

Section Five: Closing Statement

While the State Party runs a coordinated campaign every year, to my knowledge this is the first time the LDs and counties have decided on our own to do something like this. We have been planning on this for a while as we tried to prepare ourselves and the organizations for this important undertaking.  I wish to explicitly state that this is an attempt to win the Senate, but also to build our local organizations. To that end, the chair of the adopted LD gets the final word on what work needs to be done. We will work with each chair to determine an outside group coordinator to make sure that communications between the adopted LD and the supporters are seamless.

We cannot succeed without your help and support. This plan will only work if we all work together. If the plan does work, our local organizations should be stronger and better connected as we move into the 2016 presidential elections.

Thank you for your hard work,

In solidarity,

Jay Clough

jvclough@gmail.com