A pair of newly created progressive organizations undertook a multimillion-dollar midterm election push against Donald Trump's election lies.
Pro-Democracy Center and Pro-Democracy Campaign each operated in states across the country during the midterm election cycle to support organizations pushing to expand voting in Arizona and Michigan, boosted voter outreach programs in Florida and Pennsylvania and backed campaigns to press local officials to expand access to early voting, reported Politico.
“It was very clear that there was a mobilized constituency that cared about democracy, but it was on the wrong side,” said progressive operative David Donnelly, who organized the groups, “and there wasn’t as big of a response to what we needed to have to defeat it.”
Donnelly declined to reveal the source of the groups' funding, but they directed $32 million to 126 groups across 16 states and sent another $16 million from donors directly to partner groups, compared to the $45 million spent last year by the Trump-aligned Conservative Partnership Institute to push fraud conspiracies.
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The progressive group intentionally operated behind the scenes, and typically partnered with existing groups to meet their fundraising needs and helped fill out their staffing.
“What struck me immediately was that [PDC] had an analysis about how to construct a protective of democracy and elections strategy that very much aligned with ours. It is about states, it is about state power and political infrastructure,” said Doran Schrantz, the executive director of Faith in Minnesota, which received $1 million from the groups. “Not ‘we have a policy issue that we want to pass in D.C., can you rattle up some people to support that policy issue,’ which is a very different way of thinking about building infrastructure.”
She hoped their work would continue into the 2024 campaign to expand voting access and push for more equitable congressional redistricting.
“We should be on offense in 2024, and ready to go, to continue to undergird and expand voting rights, especially in the states,” Schrantz said.
