MoveOn will spend $32 million to support Biden and other Democrats
The liberal action group MoveOn will spend more than $32 million this year to support President Biden and the Democratic candidates for the House and Senate, the organization's leader said this week.
MoveOn is planning what director Rahna Epting called a “house party strategy” to bring its 10 million supporters together in large numbers for in-person events for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic.
The plans, first shared with The New York Times, call for mobilizing members in seven states — six presidential battlegrounds and Ohio, where Sen. Sherrod Brown is in a tough reelection fight — along with 26 competitive House districts in the entire country.
Efforts to drum up enthusiasm for Mr. Biden's campaign and the Democratic candidates in Congress, Ms. Epting said, will focus more on recalling what former President Donald J. Trump would do if he and Republicans return to office. would come into power, than on promoting Mr. Biden's presidential election record. office.
“The most important thing that unites MoveOn members is their desire to defeat the radical right and prevent them from gaining power,” Ms Epting said. “The one thing that unites all our members is concern about the opposition and what they threaten to do to this country. And I think that's why people are turning to a national organization to take action and mobilize together.”
MoveOn's ambitious plans for this year come after it laid off at least 18 people — about 20 percent of its staff — in November as part of what it called a restructuring ahead of the 2024 election cycle.
Founded in 1998 to resist Republican efforts to oust President Bill Clinton, MoveOn is embedded in the progressive firmament in Washington and across the country. Ms. Epting is now a key player in the Democratic effort to stop the centrist group No Labels from fielding a 2024 presidential candidate.
In its effort to help Mr. Biden and other Democrats, MoveOn wants to target voters who became eligible to vote or became more active voters after Mr. Trump won the presidency in 2016. This group, which MoveOn calls “peak voters,” tends to vote for Democrats but is less attuned to political news.
Ms. Epting said that while Democrats performed relatively well in the recent elections, and Mr. Biden passed several major laws, there was a “disconnect” in which polls show many voters have a vague view of his term in office.
“There is enthusiasm for the Biden coalition. We saw it come out in 2020,” she said. “We saw it in '22, when we kept the Senate. We saw it in the Virginia elections. We've seen it in these red states over abortion bans. Our job, as we see it, is to ensure that there is enthusiasm for Biden and Harris in November.”