DNC will send funding to all state parties to support down-ballot races

The Democratic National Committee is sending money to every state Democratic party in the country for the first time in its history to bolster down-ballot races in the final sprint toward November.

The nearly $2.5 million investment — shared first with POLITICO — aims to help break Republican supermajorities in deep-red states and strengthen voter engagement efforts across the U.S. It’s part of a broader push for increased local support by the DNC, which says it’s increased state party funding by 25 percent during Jaime Harrison’s tenure as chair.

“Money like this can really make or break state legislative district races,” said DNC spokesperson Cameron Niven.

“The statehouses are really where change can happen, where a strategic investment like this can make a difference,” Niven added. “This investment right now shows that in the last couple months of the campaign, we’re really making the effort to support all of our state colleagues in all of these down-ballot races.”

The DNC is sending more than $400,000 to Florida, which in a release it called “a priority state that we know Democrats can win,” focusing on Puerto Rican voter engagement. It’s investing almost $100,000 in Missouri to hire organizing staff in hopes Democrats can pick up a handful of seats in the state House and Senate to break a GOP supermajority. And it’s even spending about $70,000 in deep-red Idaho, a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in over four decades and where Republicans control every arm of the state government.

“I’s a huge boost to targeted organizing and get out the vote efforts we’re running,” said Lauren Necochea, a state representative and chair of the Idaho Democratic Party.

Necochea said the funding from the DNC will support a ground organizer in the Nez Perce Reservation — part of a competitive legislative district — and a Latino relational organizer working in two rural counties where, in the last cycle, one Democrat won by 37 votes and another lost by 80 votes. Democrats in Idaho hope to break the GOP supermajority there by 2030.

“This is also about electoral accountability, which matters in deep-red states. Idaho is a terrifying cautionary tale for our nation,” Necochea said. “When Republicans hold the trifecta of power, they cater to the fringe.”