DCCC Made Unprecedented & Early Investment in Community Organizers in February with March into ’18
‘Claim Your Precinct’ Will Identify & Train Precinct Captains Across House Battlefield
Toolbox Serves as Online Hub for Volunteers Working to Take Back the House
Since the start of the cycle, the DCCC has made early, aggressive investments aimed at bringing the committee and Democratic candidates closer to voters, volunteers on the ground, and grassroots activists and supporters ahead of the 2018 midterms. Witnessing the massive backlash to Republican-controlled Washington, the DCCC knew that tapping into that organic energy across the country and working alongside new progressive groups like SwingLeft and Indivisible would be critical to expanding our pickup opportunities across the largest House battlefield in a decade.
At the beginning of 2017, the DCCC built its first national training program, including its flagship program DCCC-University, to decentralize training and build a pipeline of local campaign staff. Next, the DCCC launched March into ’18 to put local organizers on the ground who could tap directly into the organic resistance against Republicans in Washington. Growing out of that initial organizer investment, the DCCC field team developed Claim Your Precinct to identify a captain for every precinct in many targeted districts. Toolbox, located through the new TakeItBack.com website, provides the digital infrastructure to engage, train, and deploy volunteers in every competitive district in the country.
“The Take It Back initiative is about building the largest battlefield in a decade and giving Democratic candidates and campaigns the volunteers, tools, and resources to win. We have already invested in organizers across the country who have been building coalitions with local progressive organizations, holding House Republicans accountable on issues like healthcare, recruiting precinct captains, and much more.
“The early success of our field program clarified the need to move quickly to expand our investment in the grassroots, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Together, Toolbox and Claim Your Precinct provide the backbone of massive effort to engage, persuade, and turnout voters to take back the House in 2018,” said DCCC Executive Director Dan Sena.
TAKE IT BACK
Early Investments
- The DCCC has made key investments in engaging the grassroots earlier than ever this cycle. These investments include the March into ’18 organizing program and the launch of DCCC-University as part of our National Training Program.
- The March into ’18 organizing program put over 20 field organizers on the ground in battleground districts in February 2017. Since February, these organizers have been building coalitions and recruiting volunteers to fuel the backlash.
- Since the initial investment, the March into ’18 has expanded, sending organizers and building field programs in 38 targeted
- The National Training Program has trained 5,500 people in person and online, with DCCC-University alone training 3,200 campaign staffers and activists on the nuts-and-bolts of grassroots campaigning.
- These successful programs have laid the foundation for the DCCC’s Take It Back initiative. The committee has recruited candidates, invested in districts, and built up our campaign infrastructure with one goal in mind: Take back the House of Representatives in 2018.
Toolbox
- Toolbox is an online, grassroots hub for activists across the country to get involved and organize their communities to help Democrats take back the House.
- When activists sign up for Toolbox, they get access to online tools that will help them connect with their neighbors and start organizing. They can organize events like house parties, download DCCC-University training materials, and access message guidance on important issues.
- These new volunteer leaders will also participate in other organizing activities throughout the cycle, including voter registration, door-to-door canvassing, and phone banking.
- Next year there will be an online call tool for people in non-competitive who want to call into targeted districts.
- March into ’18 organizers, in place since February, have already beta tested and are utilizing the Toolbox to do their jobs every day. Now, the DCCC is giving activists all across the country access to the same tool.
Claim Your Precinct
- Claim Your Precinct is a neighbor-to-neighbor, volunteer based organizing and voter contact program. The mission is to locate and empower precinct captains in the majority of our battleground districts across the country. We currently have 38 districts in the precinct program – half of the entire battlefield – and this number will continue to grow.
- The Claim Your Precinct program will allow the DCCC to build the core grassroots persuasion and turnout functions of a campaign earlier than ever before.
- Critically, the Toolbox will help to fuel the organizational model for the precinct program. When an activist creates a Toolbox account and selects the Precinct Captain option, they will be connected with their local organizer.
- Additionally, Toolbox equips precinct captains with district-by-district profiles, voter registration information, community event calendars and much more.
- As an example of how successful the model has been, there are 511 total precincts in CA-49, and already 164 have active precinct captains who have been knocking on doors and talking to their neighbors.
- Claim Your Precinct allows the DCCC to build a large database of volunteers ready and willing to hit the ground running as soon as there are Democratic nominees across the DCCC battlefield. Because this is being run on the coordinated side, this program can be blended with campaigns and all information can be shared, unlike Super PACs.