A movement is growing at Daily Kos to fix a key problem in our party — regardless of who wins the presidential nomination. In the past couple of months we’ve launched Crowdsourcing the 50-State Strategy and are recruiting activists to join us in this long-term, bottom-up rebuilding process.

This post is the latest installment in our continuing Crowdsourcing the 50-State Strategy series.

As noted in previous posts, we can fix major problems in our party. With hard work and a commitment to the long haul, we as a community can crowdsource our way out of our predicament and ensure voters have meaningful choices.

If you are interested in volunteering to help with this effort please send our group a kosmail and let us know how you want to help. Navajo, who is organizing volunteers, will send you an invite. ​Also please post your own diaries and recommend the work of others you think good additions to the effort.

Whether you support Hillary, Martin, or Bernie, this matters because neither they—nor their successors—can enact their agenda unless we unite to fix these problems. These include a failure in many districts and whole states to organize effectively at the precinct level, a failure to spend enough time and energy supporting down-ballot candidates and a massive candidate recruiting failure that results in many voters having no Democratic candidates for Congress or state legislative posts to choose when they cast their ballots.

One example of this recruiting failure can be found in U.S. House races:

We need to pick up 30 seats to win back the House and actually have a shot at governing.

22 of the 79 Republican members of the House who represent districts where President Obama got at least 47% of the vote currently are running unopposed.

So far, this election 126 Republican members of the House have no Democrat running against them.

In Ohio, the congressional filing deadline is December 16, 2015. Currently, 7 out of 12 Republicans in Ohio are running unopposed.

Currently, 7 out of 12 Republicans in Ohio are running unopposed. Filing deadlines have passed in three states, and that already means there will be no Democratic opponent in eight congressional districts in 2016. This means we are on pace to leave more voters without a choice than even some of our worst years: In 2014 we left 38 seats uncontested. In 2012 we left 24 seats uncontested. In 2010 we left 24 seats uncontested. In 2008 we left 12 seats uncontested. In 2006 we left 11 seats uncontested. In 2004 (before the original 50-State Strategy began) we left 36 seats uncontested.



But, sadly, the recruiting failure is often even worse at the state and local level. We don’t want people to continue to experience what Steven D did. When he showed up to vote this November, many of his local races in Upstate New York didn’t have a Democrat on the ballot. That is even sadder because many of those districts are small enough that door-knocking and other neighbor-to-neighbor communication can create as much or more impact than money.

Also as we have seen recently with the defeat of David Vitter in Louisiana, even if a state or district seems very tough for Democrats and hasn’t recently voted for a Democrat for president, it doesn’t mean that it cannot be won. Even old scandals that established wisdom thinks are no longer issues can come back to bite a politician if used properly when a real campaign is run as the "prostitutes over patriots" ad showed when it highlighted a contrast in priorities between David Vitter and his Democratic opponent John Bel Edwards.

A 50-State Strategy is ultimately about competing everywhere. Below, we will look at two states that are tough, but where many of the Republican candidates have said or done extreme things without facing a challenge or the challenge happened in a very red year when all Democrats were swimming against a fierce current.

I’ll be focusing in detail on two tough states for Democrats with filing deadlines coming up in January—West Virginia and Mississippi.

Join me below fold for: