Pollster Zac McCrary, a partner at ALG Research, has had his hands in many key races across the country for the past 15 years, from city halls and state houses to the White House. He’s helped elect Democratic Governors John Bel Edwards (LA) and Steve Sisolak (NV), and several members of Congress, including Carolyn Bourdeaux in 2020 – the only Democrat in the country to flip a Republican House seat. In addition to his work with candidates, Zac has advised the DSCC, DCCC, and DGA, as well as labor unions, major corporations, and non-profit organizations. Earlier this year, Zac launched a fabulous new politics podcast, Pro Politics with Zac McCrary, in which he interviews experienced political professionals across the partisan spectrum about their careers.
Earlier this month, Zac sat down with Blue Ripple’s Frank David to talk about Democratic donations to House, Senate, and state legislature races; which states are poised to turn blue; and where to spend time and money in 2022. We’ve lightly edited the conversation for length and clarity.
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Blue Ripple (BR): In 2020, a massive amount of donations went to Democratic House candidates all over the country, but Carolyn Bourdeaux's district (GA-7) was the only one to flip red to blue, and Democrats lost ground in the chamber. What factors are most important in identifying seats that are either flippable by Democrats or Democrat-held but under threat?
Zac McCrary (ZM): I think it used to be more complicated than it is now. Previously, there were more factors to consider, like candidate quality, running a good campaign, and having an ideological fit consistent with one's district, and it was more of a judgment call. Those things still matter, but there used to be a much wider spectrum of potentially competitive races where really good candidates could put a district in play, even if the fundamentals of the district at first glance looked really, really tough.
One of my clients, Colin Peterson from MN-7, won re-election in 2016 even though Donald Trump won his district by 30 points. That was, far and away, the Trump-friendliest district held by a Democrat until 2020, when the fundamentals caught up with him and he finally succumbed to the political DNA of rural Minnesota.
Wins like Peterson’s in 2016 used to be much more common than they are now. But today, the basic partisan fundamentals of the district really tell you almost everything you need to know about the district. So looking at the most recent presidential election results, I think any district that is much outside of mid-single digits one way or the other would really need an “X factor” to make it competitive. Everything else being equal, if a district went more than 5-7 points for Trump or Biden, then barring a scandal or something really unusual, it’s tough to argue that the district should be considered a prime pickup opportunity for the other side.
BR: One narrative coming out of 2020 is that community organizers were a big part of Democrats’ success in places like Georgia. How big a role do you think groups like Fair Fight played?
ZM: There’s a very long list of community organizing groups that were integral in states like Georgia and Arizona, and they were all very important. But what we saw in 2020 was that, yes, voters of color and younger voters turned out like never before in Georgia, but also so did Republicans. So in a state like Georgia, where Biden won by less than 1 percent, a Democratic surge that was slightly above the Republican surge made a difference.
In presidential years, you see historic turnout levels from both sides. So a midterm will be a good test to see if Democrats can leverage the underlying demographics in a consistent way. Was Trump the accelerant that created the turnout boost in 2020, or is there something much more systematic that we figured out, as Democrats, about registering and turning out voters? That’s an open question.
BR: Some of what motivates Democrats’ focus on community organizing is data that if everyone who was eligible actually voted, the country would be a lot bluer. It sounds like you don’t necessarily dispute that, but you think the amount that community organizing can move the needle is not as big as one might hope.
ZM: People have to be realistic. I’m sure I've stolen this analogy, but I think organizing, registration, field work, and get out the vote efforts are like the extra points in a football game. If it’s a 1 or 2 point race, then organizing can really make the difference. Joe Biden in Georgia and Arizona is a great example, and so was keeping David Perdue under 50 percent in the first round of the Georgia Senate race. But the fundamentals have to be pretty darn competitive for those efforts to make the difference. If a district is 60/40 Republican, you could have the best organizers in the world – Stacey Abrams and AOC and all the Obama campaign experts – and you're still not going to organize yourself to a win if the fundamentals aren’t pretty competitive in the first place. I think maybe that’s underappreciated.
A major exception is that if you're talking about a lower-turnout local race or special election, or even a low-turnout legislative election, you could make up a lot of ground by mobilizing a few thousand voters. That could make a lot of difference there in a way that it wouldn’t in a race for governor, Senate, or Congress, unless it’s laser-close.
BR: How valuable are fundraising numbers in determining whether a district is flippable or threatened? For example, what if we’re six months out from the election, and a Democratic challenger looks like a long shot in a Republican-partisan district, but is significantly outraising the incumbent?
ZM: When I started following politics closely in the mid ‘90s, and even when I got into it professionally a decade later, many people would’ve said, “Okay, well maybe the importance of fundraising versus fundamentals is 50/50.” Some might have even argued that a candidate who’s a dynamic fundraiser should be higher on the list than one who’s been sluggish in fundraising, but is in a somewhat better district.
But over the last two, three, four cycles, you really can't go wrong betting on the fundamentals of the district to win out. Of course, if a candidate is raising no money, that’s a bad sign that they're just not running a serious campaign. But otherwise, I would much rather bet on a middle-of-the-pack fundraiser in a good district than one who’s setting the world on fire in a district that is much tougher.
Some of the reason for this is that in a post-Citizens United world, candidates actually control much less of the total spending in a Congressional race than they used to, because there is so much outside money coming in from both sides. So the candidate’s finances are less about impacting the race, and more about making sure other groups are bought in and believe that the race is winnable.
BR: So are you saying that an incremental dollar donated directly to a House candidate might not be so impactful, because the campaign only controls a small fraction of the spending? And if so, how should donors deploy their resources to have the greatest impact?
ZM: No, I think campaigns are still the best way. One reason is that a campaign’s dollar goes farther than an independent group’s dollar. When Carolyn Bourdeaux’s campaign buys a TV ad, for example, they get a lower rate than when an independent group buys the same ad – meaning $100K for Carolyn Bourdeaux buys more television than $100K for an outside group.
And for campaign donations, earlier rather than later is most impactful, because campaigns can make smarter decisions if they have money earlier. Some donors wait for things to settle out, but there are many examples of campaigns that break very late, and then end up with several million dollars in the bank at the end. In the Maine Senate race, so much money came in the door so late, Sara Gideon couldn’t spend it all.
BR: Pivoting to the Senate: did Democrats donate too much to Senate candidates in 2020?
ZM: Yes. I think that Democratic Senate candidates generally had more money than they needed. And then Republicans spent a ton too, so it’s not like Democrats were drowning out Republicans in any of these seats. It raised both sides.
Imagine if you could have waved a magic wand and given 10% of what Sara Gideon and Jaime Harrison raised and spread it among Democrats in other races. I don’t want to speak for them, but I know the Democratic Governor’s Association was frustrated in 2020 that they thought they had very good candidates in Montana and Missouri, but could not get anywhere near the sort of traction online that Amy McGrath did, even though Amy McGrath never really posed a real, existential threat to Mitch McConnell.
I don’t want to be supercilious about it, but maybe donors will learn from this and think about it in a more Machiavellian way in the future. However, I think some of it just comes with the territory. These are emotional clicks – and I say that in a positive way – that people are making, because they hate Mitch McConnell, or Lindsey Graham says yes to something else that pisses them off, or Susan Collins is doing her Susan Collins routine again. I don't know what the answer is.
BR: Let's go to the other extreme. In terms of “bang for buck,” do you think Democratic donors should be spending more efforts on state legislatures?
ZM: I do. In some states, like Florida and Texas, some of those races take on the feel of a Congressional race, but often, an important legislative race could be a couple hundred thousand dollar race. So a $500 donation is a drop in the bucket in a Senate campaign and some Congressional campaigns, but it could be a really important piece of a state legislative race. Dollar-for-dollar, that may be the most efficient spend for a Democratic donor, as long as it's done strategically, in states that matter and in important races in those states.
BR: Do you think there’s any evidence for “trickle up” impact of state legislature campaigns that yield dividends for House candidates?
ZM: In a Presidential year, I think it's hard to think of a down-ballot race actually having any real impact on whether people are coming out to vote, because the Presidential race just sucks up so much oxygen. Similarly, when Stacey Abrams was running against Brian Kemp [for Governor of Georgia in 2018], that was a pretty dominant race on its own.
If there's not a big race at the top of the ticket, like President, a really hot Governor’s race, or a really hot Senate race, then a state House race that is doing a lot to bring out voters, including new voters, can have impact further up the ballot. But I think that’s probably the exception, and it has to be the right kind of down-ballot candidate who has an unusual appeal and an unusual ability to bring out new voters because of a personal connection or the energy of the campaign.
BR: Looking ahead, what state could end up being the next Georgia for Democrats? North Carolina, maybe?
ZM: I think North Carolina is probably just the next North Carolina. It’s going to stay, frustratingly, in a purplish haze with a bit of a Republican feel to it. I won't get the numbers exactly right, but the electorate in Georgia is roughly 30% African Americans, while it’s more like 20% in North Carolina. The Atlanta Metro area is much more encompassing than any metro area in North Carolina. And there are a lot more white rural voters in North Carolina, as a share of the electorate, than there are in Georgia.
Part of the issue is that Democrats have been getting trounced in rural white Georgia for 10 or 20 years, whereas Democrats were actually relatively competitive in white rural North Carolina until recently. Obama famously campaigned with bluegrass legends like Ralph Stanley in the mountains of North Carolina. Democrats, historically, have been pretty competitive there and in the eastern part of the state, even among white voters. That means there’s further for Democrats to fall in North Carolina among rural white voters, whereas they’re pretty much already bottomed out or much closer to it in Georgia. And again, there are just more rural white voters in North Carolina.
As someone who does a lot of work in North Carolina, I wish it were as simple as just waiting a cycle or two for demographics to take over in North Carolina. But I think North Carolina is very much a prototypical swing state. In the right cycle, the right Democrat can win, but it would be Pollyanna-ish to expect that North Carolina is going to follow Georgia’s lead. It’s going to be a fight every cycle, and there’s minimal room for error.
On the other hand, I am more optimistic that Georgia and Arizona might follow a path closer to Virginia, though not in a blink of an eye. Virginia was very Republican when Obama won it in 2008. I worked on that campaign, and it was groundbreaking. It was the first time a Democrat had won Virginia in a Presidential race since ‘64. Jimmy Carter didn't win it. Bill Clinton never won Virginia. And since then, Virginia pretty quickly became a pretty blue state, and Democrats have won pretty much all the races that have mattered. I don't think that Georgia will turn blue quite as quickly or definitively as Virginia did, but I do think that the demographic patterns are going to make Georgia, and Arizona to some degree, increasingly Democratic. But I think North Carolina is more stuck in limbo as opposed to moving toward Democrats.
BR: What about Democrats’ chances in Texas?
ZM: Big picture, I'm bullish on Texas. The step back that Democrats had with Latino voters in 2020 is sobering, and that is the real question. If Democrats can get back to 2016 levels with Latino voters, and match that with Biden level support among white suburban voters, then Texas is close to a 50/50 state. But if Republicans can replicate what Trump did with Latino voters, then it’s a few points tougher for us. So I'm bullish about Texas over the next decade or so, but we need to figure out this Latino problem. If we figure that out, then I'm optimistic we will break through in Texas, at some point soon, like we've broken through in Georgia.
BR: What advice would you give to Democratic donors who really want to put their time and money into races that will matter the most in 2022?
ZM: The majority is very precarious, and even more so than the numbers would indicate because Republicans have control of redistricting in some important states. So first of all, I would be hesitant to be too aggressive too soon. I know I talked earlier about the value of early contributions, but at the same time, it could take a long time before we have a good read on the maps in some states. There are certainly exceptions, like districts that are almost un-redistrictable and un-gerrymanderable, but in general, maybe donors should keep their powder dry until a little later in the cycle, because there’s so much up in the air.
Beyond that, drawing a circle around any district that Biden won that is represented by a Republican is absolutely the place to start. I think there will be a handful of those, depending on what redistricting looks like, and I would focus there. In 2018, there were 40-60 races in play, and there was a temptation, which was probably a good one, to spread far and wide. But 2022 might be a cycle where Democratic donors should resist the siren call of spreading resources too thin, because this majority is so precarious, and really focus on the 15 or 20 seats that are going to decide the majority. Somebody’s potentially going to control the House by single digits, and I would not want Democrats to get too greedy. At the end of the day, 10-15 races will decide the House in 2022, and that’s really where the action is – but it could be a year or more until we know which 10 or 15 races are the most important.