Heidi M Przybyla, and Fredreka Schouten

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Local Democratic parties across the country are struggling to harness what looks like the emergence of a progressive grass-roots movement — a liberal version of the Tea Party — as protests and crowded town hall forums sweep the nation.

Interviews USA TODAY conducted with a dozen state party chairs and other local leaders show, above all, consensus that many states are poorly staffed and underfunded after eight years of neglect. While there are many national progressive groups working with the political newcomers taking to the streets, it is these party officials who know their communities best and who have historically been the linchpin of organizing and candidate recruitment drives.

The complaints, also echoed at recent Democratic National Committee listening sessions, may be the closest thing to an official “autopsy” — similar to what the Republicans issued after Mitt Romney's failed 2012 bid — that Democrats pursue following another cycle of losses at the state and local level.

“There’s a tremendous amount of people who want to do something. I’m struggling to galvanize the resources,” said Marcel Groen, the Democratic chairman in Pennsylvania who has a single political director responsible for 67 counties.

“My biggest fear is that, as these activists turn their gaze to state parties, which is the natural transition, it’s whether the DNC and the state parties have the capacity to handle 500 or 1,000 activists who come to their doors,” said Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina chairman who is also running for DNC chairman.

“If they don’t feel like they have a purpose then you lose them and you may never get them back,” he said. “We need to make sure we get resources down to state parties ASAP,” Harrison said.

While the critiques are wide ranging, including the lack of a compelling economic narrative, there is agreement on this much: Over the past eight years, the priority of both the DNC and major party donors has been the Obama presidency and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, both of which siphoned crucial funding and talent from state parties. Outside progressive groups like Obama’s one-time campaign arm, Organizing for Action, became rivals to the DNC instead of partners.

Today, many Democratic state parties are down to five or six staffers, a “failed model that will not work,” said Ohio Democratic Chairman David Pepper. “A lot of parties really are starting from almost nothing,” he said, allowing that Ohio is an exception.

The imperative for reorganizing the Democratic Party over the next few years is critical.

If Democrats can’t recruit and run successful candidates, their losses at the state level will be cemented with the 2020 census that will provide the basis for another round of redistricting. During the last census year in 2010, Republicans swept to huge gains around the country, which allowed them to gerrymander, or pack, Democrats into urban districts while drawing districts favorable to their party. Republicans are now in charge of 68 state legislative chambers and Democrats just 31. With one more legislature win, Republicans could even call a Constitutional Convention without Democrats, said Matt Bennett, a vice president at the moderate think tank Third Way in Washington.

“This rot at the base is very serious,” said Bennett. In the aftermath of the election, according to the Federal Election Commission, the DNC brought in $2.7 million in December compared with the Republican National Committee’s $16.2 million.

Donor Culture

The problem is greater than how the DNC raises and allocates resources and extends to a different megadonor culture in each party.

The billionaire GOP Koch brothers have built an empire that aims to raise and spend between $300 million and $400 million over the next two years to influence public policy and political races from the Senate to local contests.

“It’s been a 30-year plan of taking over 33 states with governors and legislatures. We come in and throw $5 million in the last six months of a congressional race and, win or lose, we pick up and leave town when it’s all over,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio. “There’s no roots.”

Democratic political action committees also “tend to be built around personalities,” Harrison said.

For instance, many donors gave to Obama’s OFA in lieu of state parties. One of the richest Democratic donors, Tom Steyer, has build his own political infrastructure largely focused on his climate change agenda and, potentially, his own bid for California governor. David Brock, who is behind a number of outside groups like Media Matters and American Bridge, is also trying to build his own network.

In contrast, in Missouri, a prior state law allowing unlimited campaign contributions helped to all but wipe out Democrats from governor to attorney general and treasurer, after Republican megadonors David Humphreys and Rex Sinquefield each poured millions into downballot races over the past several years, helping to complete a Republican takeover. The Democratic Party budget is $600,000 a year and that includes just keeping the lights on, said Stephen Webber, the Democratic chairman.

“We’ve been decimated in the legislature in a perfect storm of redistricting, some bad luck with Democratic leaders and with these megadonors who are hammering us,” said Webber. “We don’t have any major donors putting money into state and local races the same way they do,” he said.

Even so, Republicans argue that unions often contribute large amounts at the local level, mostly to Democrats.

Siphoning resources

Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee established joint fundraising accounts with 38 state party committees during the 2016 campaign, allowing her campaign and party committees to band together to collect six-figure checks from wealthy donors.

But critics argued state parties only kept a small fraction of the money for party building. In the key battleground of Pennsylvania, the arrangement helped the state party take in more than $28 million during the 2016 campaign. And the state party plowed most of it — $23.5 million — into federal political activity, Federal Election Commission records show.

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Meanwhile, according to Pepper, the DNC’s approach to helping the state parties ahead of the 2016 election was to increase by $2,500 a monthly stipend through a state partnership program. “I thought 'that’s it, that’s the vision of how the DNC and state parties work together?' ” Pepper said.

Under former chairman Howard Dean's "50-state strategy" during the 2008 cycle that elected Obama, the DNC helped pay for staff in various states depending on need. “After the 2008 election, it all kind of fell apart,” Harrison said.

There are some signs that Democrats may begin to draw in more money, both from crowdfunding, or soliciting small donors online, and from megadonors.

According to Brandon Dillon, the Michigan chairman, there’s been a huge increase in small donations in the past three months, in part as a negative response to the appointment of Betsy DeVos, one of their state's biggest GOP donors, as Education secretary.

Houston trial lawyer Steve Mostyn, a top Democratic donor, said the 2016 election delivered a tough lesson about the perils of neglecting local organizing.

Mostyn donated more than $2 million last year to Priorities USA Action, the super PAC that supported Clinton’s failed bid. He and his law partner wife, Amber Mostyn, also have contributed some $5 million in recent years to state groups, such as Battleground Texas, which focused on boosting Democrats’ ground game in the Lone Star State.

“Democrats have got to remember something that’s been said for a long time: All politics is local,” he said. “What frustrates a lot of voters is that a campaign runs into their community three months before the election, asking them to vote and then they run the hell out of the community.”

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend another DNC chairman contestant, said he recently met with Silicon Valley donors.

“They’re asking themselves what would be our answer to the Koch Brothers,” he said. “They’re ready to engage.”