Bryan Woolston/AP Photo
Democratic state Sen. Charles Booker on the floor of the Kentucky House of Representatives, February 19, 2020, in Frankfort, Kentucky
Charles Booker is throwing his hat in the ring once again. Booker announced an official Senate exploration committee Monday, setting up a matchup between the former Kentucky state representative and two-term senator Rand Paul. What’s not clear is how the Democratic establishment will respond, and if they will behave differently—and more democratically—than the last time Booker tried running.
Back in 2019, the DSCC, pressed by then–Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, almost immediately threw their support behind moderate dream candidate Amy McGrath to take on Mitch McConnell. McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot and the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marines, first ran for Congress in Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District, losing to Republican Andy Barr. Thereafter, McGrath ran again—this time for Senate against McConnell, surviving a near upset from Booker’s late primary surge.
In that primary contest, Booker was the insurgent. A 35-year-old African American from Louisville, Booker galvanized progressives with the help of supporters ranging from the Sunrise Movement, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to popular sports radio host Matt Jones and Nick Offerman.
By contrast, McGrath branded herself as pro-Trump during the campaign, claiming that because of McConnell, “the things that Kentuckians voted for Trump for are not being done.” It’s notable that the national Democratic apparatus—which generally identified Trumpism as a threat to America—chose to continue supporting McGrath after such rhetoric, despite alternatives like Booker. Thanks to DSCC support, which functioned as a seal of approval for other donors, McGrath grossly outspent Booker in the primary, with McGrath’s more than $40 million to Booker’s $4.7 million. Even so, she only beat him 45.1 to 42.9.
The party establishment gambled that given the choice between a Republican and a quasi-Republican, voters would choose the latter. This was in defiance of Harry Truman’s famous dictum imploring Democrats to nominate progressives: “If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.” Almost too aptly, Truman continued: “But when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are, then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before.”
Despite the establishment boost, McConnell clobbered McGrath by nearly 20 points. McGrath spent some $100 million to McConnell’s nearly $65 million.
Democratic grassroots organizers object to the establishment putting their “thumb on the scale,” as Booker put it, but also to the impact from the neglect of long-term buildup of local infrastructure. This gap from the party apparatus, however, was another factor that drew people to Booker. “It was really clear to me that he was a really dynamic candidate who was really serious about doing what it took to stand up a campaign. But more important than that, he shared our vision for the investment in and building progressive infrastructure in Kentucky for the long haul—as he said to me, win or lose, that’s what this campaign was going to be about,” says Evan Weber, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and early initial backer of Booker’s candidacy.
Given Republican voting propensities in Kentucky, Booker was a long shot. But having him as the nominee would produce benefits squandered by the selection of McGrath. “Let’s say Booker was the nominee, but he did not win—Charles Booker would still have a tremendous incentive to be part of that party structure and help build it. Amy McGrath raised all that money, and then kind of disappeared. What if we actually made a point of investing in candidates who are committed to building the party in the long run?” says Rebecca Katz, a partner at the progressive political consulting firm New Deal Strategies.
Booker has exhibited this commitment through his organization Hood to the Holler, an on-the-ground endeavor to build a “new Southern strategy,” through efforts such as bringing people into politics for the first time, registering voters, and training Kentuckians with skills to work on and support campaigns. And this could pay off during the 2022 elections.
Of course, if DSCC-backed centrists won seats and built durable political power, it would be a different story. But they keep losing, while doing nothing to build for the long term. “Democrats have essentially been lighting money on fire over the years, where they get these milquetoast candidates, and then they give them all the money in the world,” says Katz. “And then those milquetoast candidates lose. And then the next cycle, you’re starting from zero.”
Katz points to states like Georgia, where the party establishment successfully backed progressives, as a role model, but still sees a lack on the part of the national party to build sustained infrastructure in each state. Rather, Katz sees the party picking candidates ad hoc, at the expense of long-term investment.
The DSCC formula of sweeping in and picking nominees for the locals keeps producing losses.
In Iowa, the DSCC backed Theresa Greenfield just three days after she entered the race—snubbing at least four other candidates, including Sunrise and Brand New Congress–endorsed Kimberly Graham. Meanwhile, J.D. Scholten, who was considering running for the Senate, chose to run in the Fourth District after Chuck Schumer allegedly attempted to dissuade Scholten, telling him, “We don’t need a primary.” Before the primary heated up and establishment funds truly started circulating, a wide 74 percent of voters were undecided and had not committed to a candidate. By the June 2 primary, nearly $7 million was spent by DSCC-aligned Senate Majority PAC to support Greenfield, an eye-popping amount of the about $10 million total spent in the primary. She lost the general election by about 6.5 points.
Meanwhile in Texas, the DSCC endorsed MJ Hegar, former Air Force helicopter pilot and 2018 congressional candidate, to take on Sen. John Cornyn. In doing so, the party snubbed a swath of other competitive candidates, including more progressive ones and candidates of color. The party prioritized someone who once proclaimed, “You’ll have to take [my guns] first,” and voted in the 2016 Republican primary, over candidates like Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who co-founded the Workers Defense Project and founded voter registration organization Jolt. Hegar lost to Cornyn by nearly ten points, underperforming the RealClearPolitics polling average by about three points.
In North Carolina, the DSCC propped up Army veteran and former state senator Cal Cunningham to take on remarkably unpopular GOP incumbent Thom Tillis. Though they did not officially endorse Cunningham immediately, the writing seemed to be on the wall. Three months before the DSCC endorsed Cunningham, the campaign hired DSCC Deputy Executive Director Devan Barber as campaign manager. Further, in the second fundraising quarter—before he even announced his run—Cunningham received $152,000 from over 50 New York donors, 51 of them giving the maximum $2,800. Notably, all but two had donated to Chuck Schumer, while none had given to Cunningham previously, including during his failed 2010 Senate campaign. Cunningham received this “random” onslaught of contributions while he was still running for lieutenant governor, bolstering suspicions that these establishment-associated contributions served to encourage Cunningham to take the mantle as the party’s Senate candidate.
This dynamic was particularly striking throughout the primary given that another Democrat—three-term state senator Erica Smith, who had been running since January 2019—was already shown to be leading against Tillis, and was later shown leading Cunningham. Thom Tillis wound up beating Cunningham by just under two points.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins seemed equally vulnerable as Tillis, with poll after poll convincing Democrats that the Republican would be doomed against whichever Democrat would challenge her. Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon announced her run for the seat in June 2019. The DSCC endorsed her the very same day. Betsy Sweet, another candidate who was endorsed by the Bernie Sanders–aligned organization Democracy for America, said it was “disappointing, though not surprising, that Chuck Schumer and D.C. lobbyists and operatives feel the need to tell Mainers who to support in the primary.”
It was not that Sara Gideon herself was necessarily a bad choice—she was the House Speaker, after all. But it seems the DSCC strategy of deluging the state with outsider cash and hijacking Gideon’s campaign to operate as an ad campaign against Susan Collins did not deliver. Particularly with a voting populace—and relative preponderance of political independents—that prefers word-of-mouth, relational politics, Gideon’s too-much-money-to-spend campaign overwhelmed voters with flyer after flyer. But these tactics provided little definition of what Gideon specifically stood for, and allowed Susan Collins—rightly or not—to more easily paint Gideon as an outsider paid for by outsiders.
Gideon would be bankrolled with some $23 million just during the primary, before raising another $50 million-plus throughout the rest of the election. Despite, or perhaps in part because of, Gideon’s eye-popping outside fundraising, Collins comfortably won re-election by nearly nine points. As Betsy Sweet observed in her analysis of Maine’s politics, “We’re an independent bunch; we don’t want to be told who to vote for by out-of-state interests.”
“What if we actually made a point of investing in candidates who are committed to building the party in the long run?”
This dynamic of outsider influence continued in Colorado, where the DSCC endorsed former Gov. John Hickenlooper almost immediately after he dropped out of the presidential primary, failing upwards to take on Sen. Cory Gardner. Hickenlooper, who once drank fracking fluid to prove fracking was OK, joined the race after former state House Speaker and unabashed progressive Andrew Romanoff had built standing as a formidable candidate. Beyond boosting Hickenlooper and consequently stymieing Romanoff, the DSCC further intimidated a range of firms and potential staff members from working with Romanoff’s campaign. “Pretty much everyone who checked in with the DSCC got the same warning,” Romanoff told the Intercept. “Helping us would cost them.”
Romanoff’s experience was not unprecedented. The Democratic apparatus had made waves after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee adopted a policy that essentially forbade firms from working with the DCCC if said firm was helping primary a sitting Democratic House member. However, this blacklist policy apparently did not apply to firms like Trilogy Interactive, a vendor that has worked with a PAC that has spent money to elect Republicans across the country.
As the Democrats confront the possibility of major policy proposals being hamstrung by Joe Manchin’s intransigence, they urgently need to take back every winnable seat in 2022, and the DSCC formula of sweeping in and picking nominees for the locals keeps producing losses. Evan Weber of the Sunrise Movement sees this moment as a test of the thesis underlying campaigns like Booker’s that posits the party can organize people “out from underneath the Republican base,” through a message of solidarity and opportunity. “When we unite together to build shared power, we can demand more from our government and our institutions,” Weber says.
Most importantly, Weber believes the moment brings light to the national party’s priorities—and whether they will continue this pattern of reckless influence and irreverence toward supporting local political ecosystems. “There’s a lot of other places like Kentucky that progressive groups are not building in and connected to. How many Charles Bookers are we missing out in these places that haven’t just been left behind by the Democratic Party, but also by the national progressive movement?”
The question now is whether the Democratic establishment will continue their precedent of propping up centrist candidates to no avail, or whether they will channel the energy of the progressive wing into long-standing infrastructure that has the ability to put forth and earnestly support unabashed Democrats.
After all, should Booker officially run and even secure the nomination, he faces an uphill battle in Kentucky. The value of his run would be not just in challenging Rand Paul, but building a progressive infrastructure that can continue competing beyond just this election cycle.
Organizers have expressed optimism that the party has learned from the past. New DSCC chairman Sen. Gary Peters said earlier it’s “too early to speculate” whether the DSCC will repeat its past behavior in picking sides during primaries. Time will tell whether any faith in the Democrats learning their lessons is justified.
