DNC Pours More Money Into State Parties And Political Tech As Part Of Rebuilding Process

The Democratic National Committee is making good on its promises by pouring more dollars into new grassroots organizing for state parties, rebuilding from the bottom up.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez announced the plans to The Washington Post on Monday, which include upping the national party’s monthly grant to state parties from $7,500 to $10,000, a one-third increase over its 2016 commitments.

We’ve focused just on the top of the ticket for too long. Not anymore—we’re making big investments in state parties. https://t.co/mxflSFfOLB

— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) July 10, 2017

“For too long, we poured our resources into races at the top of the ticket instead of organizing at the grass roots and building a deep bench of talent,” Perez said to the Post.

“This unprecedented investment in our state parties is the first major step in our effort to get back to basics and rebuild the Democratic Party from the ground up.”

The DNC also plans to create a $10 million State Party Innovation Fund to dole out grants to state parties for implementing new ideas, which include a new mobile app that state parties can use to help with door knocking and encourage extremely early voter persuasion.

“Anyone can use the app, but only Democratic state parties get the data back and already state parties have begun to take advantage of this app to get more people involved in their communities,” the DNC said in a statement to The Post.

“My sense is that it’s not how much money you raise, but how well you spend it,” said Ken Martin, the chair of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and leader of the Association of State Democratic Chairs. “We know there are going to be opportunities in 2018, 2020, and 2022. And we have a very large hole to dig out of, after years of neglect.”

This all comes after the Democratic Party’s loss of more than 1,000 state legislative seats during former President Obama’s two terms in office, with top Democrats blaming in part the lack of investment by the DNC in state races.