Aiming to play a similar role as Senate Majority PAC does for Senate races and House Majority PAC does for House races, Forward Majority is launching this week as a vehicle for winning back state legislatures ahead of the next round of redistricting in 2021.
Led by a group of Barack Obama campaign alums and veterans of Democratic politics and the business world, the organization is kicking off with a $1 million prototype effort to play in races for Virginia’s House of Delegates this year. It's aiming to raise up to $100 million to win back legislative bodies in 12 states over the next four years, according to plans shared with POLITICO.
Democrats have lost roughly 1,000 legislative seats and 27 chambers since 2008.
Forward Majority’s model includes targeting more races than most local parties or state caucuses are likely to touch. The goal is to flip chambers from GOP hands to Democratic control by using the kinds of expensive campaign tactics seldom used in such local races, including polling and message testing.
The group was founded by executive director David Cohen, a top Obama 2008 official who managed the then-candidate’s national mail program after leading his primary campaigns in multiple states, and chief operating officer Vicky Hausman, a longtime strategist at Dalberg. Its debut comes as Democrats struggle to chart a path forward from the down-ballot destruction of the past decade.
