November 4, 2019

TO: Interested Parties

FR: Seema Nanda, DNC CEO 

RE: One Year Out, The DNC Is Preparing To Win The General Election 

One year from the presidential election, Democrats are making historic, early investments to build the general election infrastructure our eventual nominee will need to win. Meanwhile, Trump is facing major headwinds across the battleground states and his standing with voters is crippled by his record of broken promises. Here’s the state of the race: 

Trump faces historic headwinds 

Nationally, Trump’s net approval has averaged lower than any president in modern history according to FiveThirtyEight: 

Polling from Morning Consult also shows his net approval in every major battleground state has decreased by double digits: 

He’s also badly damaged his standing with key subgroups, like suburban voters. Only 32 percent say the would vote to reelect him according to the Grinnell College poll and NBC-Wall Street Journal polling found 61 percent of suburban women disapprove of Trump and prefer a Democratic candidate by 29 points. 

Democrats are making historic, early general election investments 

Democrats are taking nothing for granted and the DNC and Democratic state parties are working now to lay the groundwork for the general election. Here are some of the programs already underway: 

• Organizing Corp 2020. The DNC has launched Organizing Corps 2020, an unprecedented field and training program in 8 battleground states (AZ, FL, GA, MI, MN, NC, PA, WI) helping ensure the eventual nominee has a pool of trained, ready to hire field-talent working in the neighborhoods where they are from, with a special emphasis on communities of color. Applications for wave 2 and 3 open today. Read more from The Atlantic: The DNC Army That Could Soon Descend on Swing States. 
• Data and Technology. The DNC has rebuilt our data infrastructure with a state-of-the-art, cloud-based data warehouse. We’ve also invested in our data itself to make sure our view of every voter and possible voter is accurate as possible with correct information like addresses and phone numbers, as well as integrating advanced data sets like demographic and behavioral modeling. And we’ve modernized our cybersecurity infrastructure to improve our own security posture, while helping state parties and campaigns do the same.
• War Room. The DNC’s War Room is a rapid response operation with significant communications, research and digital components, staffed by dozens of operatives — the majority of whom are veterans of the 2016 campaign who have been tracking Trump for years — who work with hundreds of media outlets, surrogates, and online influencers to shape the narrative of the Trump presidency using reporter outreach, research, extremely localized content and disruptive online content, along with placing major stories about his record.
• Defining & Localizing Trump. The DNC is funding communications staff in 6 battleground states (AZ, FL, OH, PA, MI, WI) who work in concert with the DNC’s War Room to define and localize Trump’s record of broken promises. Read more from POLITICO: DNC hires staff in six battleground states.
• Research. The DNC is home to the largest and most experienced research team in Democratic politics who have been tracking Trump since 2015. They’ve built the world’s most comprehensive research file on Donald Trump – including “more than 7,000 lawsuits, volumes of Freedom of Information Act requests and thousands of hours of video footage.” This work began in 2015 and has continued without pause since the 2016 election.
• Full-Time Organizing Staff. The DNC is funding organizing positions in 8 battleground states (AZ, NV, CO, FL, MI, PA, WI, TX) who are working with key communities on general election readiness efforts — like programs to engage the Latinx community in Arizona and Nevada, African American organizing in Detroit and rural outreach in states like Wisconsin. Read more from HuffPost: The DNC Is Sending Organizers To 8 Battleground States.
• Increasing Monthly Investments in State Parties. The DNC has increased its monthly investment in every state party by 33 percent since this time in 2015, helping support a variety of general election programs. For instance, Florida Democrats have 54 organizers on the ground; Wisconsin Democrats have 17 regional field organizers; and Michigan Democrats are continuing the One Campaign For Michigan which has 12 field staff across the state.
• Voter Protection. The DNC is building a voter protection infrastructure to protect Americans’ right to participate in a fair election– including funding voter protection positions in battleground states, a national voter resource hub, and voter assistance hotline, as well as education, advocacy and organizing resources. The DNC is also filing voter protection litigation in states like AZ, TX and GA. Read more from The Washington Post: Democrats sue three battleground states over law that GOP candidates’ names be listed first on the ballot. 

The bottom line: Democrats are preparing now to win in 2020 

Democrats are taking nothing for granted and laying the groundwork across a wide battleground map so that our eventual nominee can defeat Trump in 2020.

Unlike in 2016, Trump has a record and he’s left behind a trail of broken promises: his health care agenda spikes costs and jeopardizes coverage protections for people with preexisting conditions, his tax scam will end up hurting the middle class in order to give more handouts to his rich, powerful friends, and his chaotic economic policies are costing us jobs. At every turn he is looking out for himself, hurting hardworking Americans, and in one year voters will hold him accountable.