The spate of tech-oriented grassroots organizations that have emerged in 2017 are finally learning from that Republican playbook, trying to build up power in time for the redistricting that will follow the 2020 census. The list of new organizations includes Tech for Campaigns, Flippable, MobilizeAmerica, Run for Something, Sister District, Pantsuit Nation, the Arena, and One Vote at a Time. But they are playing the game their way—by outfitting down-ballot campaigns with top tech industry volunteers, using data science to funnel efforts to the most winnable districts, and harnessing the latest digital tools for organizing volunteers, connecting their supporters, and crowdfunding donations and their own operations costs.

Nearly a year after the election, these groups have matured and gained donors, members, and confidence. Sister District, which connects volunteers in blue districts with candidates in swing areas, boasts 25,000 people who have participated in at least one action—and three of its four cofounders have quit their jobs to run it full time. Tech for Campaigns has signed up nearly 3,000 volunteers, completed 50 projects, and launched a crowdfunding campaign to enable it to participate in 500 races in 2018’s midterm showdown. Meanwhile, Clinton campaign vets launched Flippable, crunching data to identify the most winnable seats and crowdsourcing donations to finance them. Now it has nine full-time staff, has siphoned $550,000 and 3,000 volunteers into state-level campaigns across the country, and hopes to help up to 100 candidates next year.

The first real statewide test of these new organizations will arrive November 7 when Virginia voters go to the polls to elect members of the commonwealth's House of Delegates election. Virginia is one of only two states with off-year elections this year, and the only swing state. (The other is New Jersey, which is safely Democratic.) Meanwhile, Virginia has shown itself to lean blue in statewide elections—it has Democratic governor and two Democratic US senators—yet the House of Delegates is a staggering 66–34 Republican. All 100 delegates are up for election next month: Dems need to gain 17 seats to get a majority. (On the other hand, if Republicans gain just one more seat they’d have a supermajority to override a governor veto.)

Certainly, the state’s gubernatorial race is more high-profile—attracting Trump tweets and an Obama appearance, plus big national money for the candidates, Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam, including almost $1 million from Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action for the Democrat*. Paul Krugman recently wrote in a New York Times op-ed: “Folks, right now this is where the action is: Virginia is now the most important place on the US political landscape—and what happens there could decide the fate of the nation.” At a recent event in Reston, a DC suburb, Joe Biden said a Democratic win in Virginia would “give people hope we are not falling into this know-nothing pit.” Meanwhile, vice president Mike Pence said at a campaign stop in the Trumpian southwestern part of the state, “Tell somebody President Trump and I need Ed Gillespie to be the next governor of Virginia.” (In recent weeks Gillespie's candidacy has been gaining momentum. The latest Real Clear Politics polling average finds him behind Northam by a mere 2 percentage points. Two weeks ago he was trailing by almost 6.)

But the new resistance orgs see the down-ballot races—usually boot-strap, low budget affairs—as the places where their grassroots money, tech savvy, and volunteers go further. Suddenly the race for 17 seats in a Southern statehouse is something much bigger: not just a test of Democrats’ ability to ride an anti-Trump backlash into office but a dry run for 2018 and a test of how much techie allies like Ryan Ko can help.