Democrats will spend $20 million on the 2022 midterms to try to retain control of Congress, party chair Jaime Harrison said.
Speaking on a livestream with the National Press Club, the head of the Democratic National Committee said the party will spend that money earlier and in more states than previous elections.
Democrats have a tiny majority of fewer than a half-dozen seats in the House and an evenly split Senate, and midterm elections tend to favor the party out of power.
”We’re going to start our coalition-building earlier,” he said. “You’ve heard the criticism of the Democratic Party, ‘Why are they just sending people to our community three months before the election?’ Well, folks, we are going to end that right now. We are going to start sending people to your community now.”
He said Democrats will have staff “on the ground” in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as soon as possible, with more states this summer. He said the party is focusing on the state House and governorship in Virginia, which holds elections this year.
Harrison said the midterm efforts will also include efforts to push back against new state laws restricting voting, calling such proposals “fundamentally un-American. It is not who we are as a people.”
