One of the Net­roots Nation’s open­ing day after­noon pan­els addressed an issue per­ti­nent to the upcom­ing midterms: with mil­lions being spent on nation­al cam­paigns, Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates have found it dif­fi­cult to main­tain a foothold in red states. The ques­tions on every­one’s minds are: how can can­di­dates invest in pro­gres­sive infra­struc­ture over the long-term to secure repeat vic­to­ries? And how can pro­gres­sives invest in the com­mu­ni­ties that are more inclusive?

Join­ing polit­i­cal strate­gist Joe Sud­bay were Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ricky Hur­ta­do of North Car­oli­na, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Anna Eski­mani of Flori­da, and J.D. Scholten of Iowa, who ran against Steve King in both the 2018 and 2020 Con­gres­sion­al election.

Sud­bay began the con­ver­sa­tion by ask­ing the pan­elists to dis­cuss their own cam­paigns and the vot­ing trends they see in their respec­tive states.

Hur­ta­do, of North Car­oli­na’s 63rd Dis­trict, achieved a his­toric vic­to­ry in the deep-red Ala­mance Coun­ty dur­ing the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion. He was the first Lati­no to be elect­ed to the North Car­oli­na state leg­is­la­ture and one of the two leg­isla­tive seats that flipped from red to blue last year.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hur­ta­do attrib­ut­es his suc­cess to his con­sis­tent com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment with the com­mu­ni­ty, but espe­cial­ly Latine voters.

He said that one thing that set him apart from oth­er can­di­dates was his tire­less can­vass­ing efforts to rebuild trust in com­mu­ni­ties that have been his­tor­i­cal­ly ignored in the legislature.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Eski­mani, the first Iran­ian-Amer­i­can to be elect­ed to the Flori­da leg­is­la­ture, said that one of the things Democ­rats need to start invest­ing in are intern­ship and men­tor­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties for young Democ­rats beyond the cam­paign cycle.

“Repub­li­cans in Flori­da are good at tak­ing care of peo­ple,” she said. “If you’re a Repub­li­can, there’s oppor­tu­ni­ties as a young con­ser­v­a­tive.” Democ­rats, she con­tin­ued, need to start invest­ing in that same robust train­ing pro­gram to cre­ate a steady pipeline of pro­gres­sive can­di­dates to run against those efforts.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Eski­mani also cit­ed anoth­er fundrais­ing-relat­ed chal­lenge: not get­ting mon­ey ear­ly enough. When funds are donat­ed late in the cycle, mere months before Novem­ber, cam­paigns don’t have enough time to cre­ate cam­paign mate­ri­als that tru­ly uplift the can­di­date they represent.

This, she said, is no way to chase the non-par­ty-affil­i­at­ed vot­ers or rea­son­able Repub­li­cans who could poten­tial­ly be swayed to join the Demo­c­ra­t­ic camp.

As the dis­cus­sion pro­gressed, Scholter asked the oth­er pan­elists how they were able to com­bat mis­in­for­ma­tion and get their mes­sages out there, espe­cial­ly in the age of COVID-19, the dis­ease caused by SARS-CoV­‑2.

Both Hur­ta­do and Eski­mani were firm in their answer: field.

COVID-19 has cer­tain­ly proven a chal­lenge for can­di­dates wish­ing to fight mis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns. But Hur­ta­do sees this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for pro­gres­sives to engage in more com­mu­ni­ty out­reach, through phone calls and indi­vid­ual con­ver­sa­tions, to counter mis­in­for­ma­tion spread­ing online.

By engag­ing the com­mu­ni­ty through per­son­al rela­tion­ship-build­ing, he was able to cre­ate a per­son­al con­nec­tion with vot­ers so that if they were to encounter a smear cam­paign “they can look at it and say ‘that’s not Ricky.’ ”

Eski­mani agreed, and added that it’s impor­tant for local pro­gres­sives to invest in long-term com­mu­ni­ty rela­tion­ships, not just engage­ment on the cam­paign trail.

The three pan­elists also not­ed that it was impor­tant, in these con­ver­sa­tions, to address the dis­con­nect between what peo­ple per­ceive as pol­i­cy ver­sus pol­i­tics. 

Scholten recalled a poll he con­duct­ed in bat­tle­ground states to gauge the tem­per­a­ture of voter’s per­cep­tions of Demo­c­ra­t­ic candidates.

Sim­ply adding a “D” next to a can­di­date’s name could impact their pop­u­lar­i­ty by sev­er­al points, indi­cat­ing that vot­ers’ per­cep­tions of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic brand aren’t always favor­able, even if they over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port Demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues, prin­ci­ples, and pol­i­cy direc­tions, like rais­ing the min­i­mum wage.

Eski­mani said the key to bridg­ing this gap was to meet peo­ple where they were at. Vot­ers, she said, are moti­vat­ed by self-inter­est. She sug­gest­ed Democ­rats need to iden­ti­fy that self-inter­est “and tie it to the col­lec­tive good.”

“Don’t be afraid to have that wonky con­ver­sa­tion,” she continued.

Our team at NPI does not agree that vot­ers are moti­vat­ed by self-inter­est. If that were true, Repub­li­cans would­n’t win a sin­gle elec­tion, because they con­sis­tent­ly back poli­cies that help the already wealthy and pow­er­ful while oppos­ing poli­cies that would help mil­lions of Amer­i­can fam­i­lies — like the child tax credit.

There are only a few super wealthy vot­ers and a lot of low and mid­dle income vot­ers; yet we know that a lot of low and mid­dle income vot­ers reg­u­lar­ly vote for Repub­li­cans, and against their self-inter­est. That hap­pens because peo­ple vote their iden­ti­ty and their val­ues as opposed to their self-interest.

So while Eski­mani is cor­rect that dia­logue is very worth­while, appeal­ing to peo­ple’s self-inter­est is not a recipe for pro­gres­sive vic­to­ry. Instead, pro­gres­sives need to frame shift and engage with vot­ers at a deep­er level.

Vot­ers want to know what a can­di­date’s val­ues are. They want to know whether a can­di­date will gov­ern acces­si­bly and trans­par­ent­ly. Research has shown again and again that can­di­date elec­tions come down to iden­ti­ty and trust.

Can­di­dates like Hur­ta­do and Eski­mani have found suc­cess because they have built strong rela­tion­ships with vot­ers. Trust is the foun­da­tion of healthy can­di­date-vot­er rela­tion­ships. If more can­di­dates can fol­low in Hur­ta­do and Eski­mani’s exam­ple, Democ­rats are like­ly to have more suc­cess in down­bal­lot races.