Obviously, in this particular election, we will focus primarily on the president ial race. We also have a nonprofit arm of priorities that is focused on how we engage in getting more people involved, particularly underrepresented people, in civic life. That includes litigation around voting rights, communicating with people of color and young people in midterm and in president ial elections to get them engaged in political life. Host how much money do you plan to spend in the election and where . Guy in 2016, we spent about 200 million. We imagine it will be in that range. Although its early to have a final budget. Right now, we are focused primarily in four states wisconsin, michigan, florida, and pennsylvania. But we expect to expand into places like arizona and north carolina. Perhaps others as we get deeper into the election. Juana in 2016, the Trump Campaign had no infrastructure to speak of and they still won. As you look ahead to 2020, they have an unlimited pocketbook, a clear voter turnout and outreach strategy. Im curious why some democrats who dont think that President Trump and his campaign can expand their base. How do you counter that . Guy please introduce me to those democrats. Im happy to disabuse them of that idea. The one misnomer about 2016, while the Trump Campaign itself didnt happen to have an apparatus, what is clear is that the rnc over the course of the previous four years under Reince Priebus actually did a good job at building infrastructure. He was also supported by a huge network of conservative organizations that had been on the ground in these states since the election of president obama in 2008. Theres no question that President Trump will have more money, bigger infrastructure in more places. In fact, they are already advertising online and on television. They are organizing on the ground. Democrats have to match that. Obviously, we have a primary. The primary will help us build our infrastructure, talking to our base, focusing on producing a good nominee. We cant afford to wait. Thats why, even though we have a primary going on, priorities is focused on general election states with general election messaging. We cant afford to give donald trump a head start when it comes to the general election. I encourage every democrat to make sure they are not only investing in organizations like ours but investing in the dnc and groups like emilys list, planned parenthood. Those of us that are focused on making sure we elect a democratic president. Alayna it seems the conventional wisdom is that voter turnout is going to be incredibly high for both democrats and republicans, which i think puts more pressure on groups like yours to try to reach some of those low propensity voters in states that you mentioned, in florida, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. On the other side of that coin, is to also try to dissuade some of the other sides low propensity voters from coming out. How do you plan to do that . Guy we fully expect there will be higher turnout on both sides. Every once in a while, we release an Electoral College projection based on our own internal analytics. Those projections presume higher turnout overall in the election. On our side, it requires work. 2018 was a good indicator of the excitement that our base has in places that we won, not just in the suburbs but in urban areas and rural areas. You saw an improvement of democratic performance that wasnt just based on ticket switchers. It was based on more engagement on the part of the Democratic Base. Theres two important things we need to do first of all. We need to make sure we are not presuming someone is a low propensity voter or low enough that we should not talk to them. Im in favor of eliminating things like vote history and analytics in determining which people in the Democratic Base we should be talking to. We should be talking to every voter possible in these targeted states to make sure were turning them out. We need to get rid of this idea that persuadable voters and base voters are fundamentally different human beings. Theres an economic message, theres a message around equity and justice that i think can reach voters whether they live in milwaukee or Macomb County or detroit. If democrats are focused less on the or and more on the and, i think we will do better going into november of next year. Juana let me ask you about the primaries. Democrats found out this week whether they would make the next debate stage. There was consternation among democratics and democratic voters about whether the dncs thresholds are the right way to handle this. Half the field is not involved in the september debate in houston. Im curious if you can talk about how you see that. Is this the right way to cull the field . Guy no matter what criteria they set up, somebody is going to get left out, whether you are looking at the number of donors, early state polling, national polling. I think overall the dnc has done a pretty good job of figuring out how to make sure that we have manageable debates, a calendar that doesnt go on forever, that we are choosing a nominee with enough time that we are prepared to take on donald trump into the general election. I would like to see less emphasis on the number of donors only because i think it it incentivizes spending that you otherwise wouldnt do. You have some democratic campaigns spending 35, 40 to acquire a one dollar donor because they are trying to meet that criteria. There are things here and there that i would quibble with. Overall, the dnc has done a pretty good job. The reality is, at some point, if you are going to win the nomination, you have to pass 2 in the polls. Whether that happens in september or october i think is nibbling around the edges. The other thing i would point out is these candidates have an opportunity to make the october debate. It will be the same set of criteria for the october debate as the september debate. They have a chance to improve their standing in the polls. They have a chance to acquire more donors. Hopefully we will see a bigger field going into october. Alayna you mentioned having some squabbles with what the dnc was doing for trying to get the criteria to get into these debates. From a campaign perspective, which campaign do you think politically and strategically is running the best right now . Which campaign do you think is doing the best job of some of the things we have been discussing . Guy the one thing i have always said is that the most undervalued thing about running for president is knowing and being able to explain why you are running for president , which i know sounds like a pretty basic criteria, but its really important. The one thing that Elizabeth Warren has going for her is if you ask elizabeth in 30 seconds, two minutes, five minutes, two hours why shes running for president , she has a clear case. Its consistent with her lifes work. I think thats a really important facet. Cory booker is building a really strong operation on the ground. If theres a chance for a second tier candidate to move into that first tier, cory has shown a strong ability to enter into these debates, come out with strong organization. I expect we will see him doing a little bit better. Certainly given how late joe biden got into the race, he obviously has high name id, but theyre building strong operations. I think theres highlights with a lot of these candidates. The key is, how do you balance the National Needs of a campaign with the fact that so much attention is placed on iowa, New Hampshire, nevada, South Carolina . The campaigns that figure out how to balance that the best are ultimately going to be the ones that are successful. Juana as you look at the map broadly as we look ahead to the general election, is there a state or two that you see that could be unexpectedly in play given areas the Trump Campaign is focusing on . Guy i think arizona on our side is a state i dont know if its unexpected anymore, but its a state that we see moving in our direction. We had some success there in 2018. I expect that mark kelly will be the next senator from arizona, which only helps us continue to put that state in play from the president ial perspective. North carolina is always on that margin. President obama was successful in 2008. Another senate race there will be really important for democrats to have the majority on our side. Lots of talk about georgia and texas, continuing to move more into the democratic direction. Those are states that we tend to keep an eye on on our side. I think we have some opportunities to grow the map smartly in our direction based on some of the recent changes weve seen as late as 2018. Alayna building off her question, what are some of the things that groups like yours and others across the board on the democratic side, what have you learned from 2016 when everyone thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win . What are you taking from that and applying to change this time around . Guy two things. From a technical side, weve gotten better and stronger in how we think about polling. Certainly there was an expectation going in, not just because of who donald trump is but because polling suggested we were going to be successful. Rethinking about how we do polling internally, what types of messaging we are testing, where were testing it. Whether were doing it online or by phone, with whom were doing it online and by phone. Theres a lot of technical pieces around that that we are better at, having been through the 2018 election. The other thing that is really important is for us to stop thinking about people solely in the bucket of persuadable or turnout. There are gray areas. One out of every five of our persuadable targets in florida is hispanic or latino. The fact of the matter is when you look at the 2018 election, in some states, as many as 10 of africanamericans voted in 2018 but did not vote in 2016. We need to think about how we expand the playing field. How do we make sure we are building a Broad Coalition of fairminded people that oppose not just the policies of this president but who president is . This president is . Stop thinking about microtargeting. Stop thinking every africanamerican cares first and foremost about criminal justice to the exclusion of other things, every hispanic voter cares first and foremost about immigration to the exclusion of other things. In some ways, weve dumbed down our politics to our own detriment. Speaking to people in a holistic way, stop treating them as caricatures of who we think they are are really important. Thats not just a lesson from 2016. Frankly, weve been held hostage by data. We havent been letting data inform us. Weve been abusing it in a way that has shrunk our coalition. I would like to see us do more to change that as well. Juana when you look at the enormous amount of spending the Trump Campaign has done, particularly in digital, are you worried about democrats being able to catch up . As you correctly point out, you guys have a primary. He will be the partys nominee. He has a lot of time. Guy one of the reasons were already up i mentioned before that we are up online, not on television in those four states is because we recognize the importance of digital, not just to communicate but to organize. We recognize it is something that President Trump did well in the last election. Its also important to recognize a significant portion of the trump spending is not happening talking to persuadable voters, talking to our base. The largest portion of the trump spending is actually around list building and talking to his base. For example, two of the four biggest states for trump spending are california and new york. That is not because the Trump Campaign thinks they can win california. Its because they think they can sell maga hats and Plastic Straws and whatever else they are selling in their store because they are list building for future fundraising. Our areas of concern should be how are democrats list building so we have the capacity to raise at those levels going into the general election . How are we responding when donald trump talks to targeted voters on the democratic side . How do we do that in the context of a very active primary where most of our candidates are focused on the primary election . Our focus at priorities for the next six months is going to be on how we make sure not just that we are responding to donald trump but also prosecuting the case online and around the country. It is something we are concerned about. Its important to be concerned about it in the context of what is actually happening. Not just the fact that they are spending a lot of money online. Alayna what are the issues that you think resonate most with voters . Democrats often say they won 2018 because it was based on issues, not on talk about impeachment and things along those lines. What have you found resonates most . Guy in 2018, health care was a huge issue. Whether you were in a suburban district, an urban district, a rural state, the fact of the matter was, health care continuously was a number one, number two issue among voters of every demographic. I suspect that health care will continue to be a top issue. The other thing we are seeing more and more is that americans are expressing concern about their economic wellbeing and concern about the economy at large. Voters up until this point in the Trump Administration have had a relatively optimistic view of the economy, based largely on employment numbers, but two thirds of americans say their own income is not keeping up with the cost of living. Not keeping up with the cost of education, the cost of health care. We are really focused on making sure we are talking about the harm the president is doing on health care, the harm hes doing with his tax cuts, with other economic policies. If i could mention two others, we see an increased interest in gun policies. Talking about gun safety and talking about what we can do on the outbreak of Mass Shootings and the increase in Mass Shootings around the country. And Climate Change continues to be really important for a host of voters. While our primary focus is on issues around the economy, it wont be exclusive to that. You mentioned the president s potential vulnerabilities. Do you look at the vulnerabilities of those that are running for the democratic nomination . Guy we havent. Most of our focus is on donald trump and on preparing for donald trump. As we get closer into the general election, deeper into the primary, we will start thinking more about the comparison between the candidates that are on the ballot. Right now, our focus is on, how do we make sure donald trump doesnt get to define this race on his terms . How do we make sure we are talking to general election voters while the primary is going on . Once we get deeper in and we have two or three likely nominees instead of 20 candidates, we will talk more about those comparisons. Juana candidates are clearly trying to figure out whether its more effective to respond to some of the things that the president says or does, whether it be comments about immigrants, his policies, what have you, and then talking about issues like the economy and health care. How would you advise a candidate trying to find that middle ground . What message resonates best with primary voters . Guy there will always be a balance. No president ial election is going to be around any one particular issue. There are events that happen in the course of our daytoday lives that bring things to the forefront. There is the behavior and activity of the white house, thats always a challenge. Frankly, theres what the news media covers. Its very difficult to get most cable news to cover the economy, to cover anything outside of maybe a snippet about jobs or the quinnipiac poll which talks about how more americans are concerned about the economy. To have story after story about what americans are facing at the ground level to make ends meet. The reason why we focus on the economy so much is because we have to be intentional about it for it to get coverage. There are so many other things going on. To get people to focus on these particular things is always a real challenge. Just setting aside the policy for a minute, the one thing we see more and more around peoples concern with this administration is the chaos. The ongoing chaos that comes every single day. Picking fights with allies, trade wars and tariffs, issues around race and justice. We continually see not about ideology. People just want our leaders to stop and pause. They dont want a new crisis manufactured and created by washington every day. I think its really important that while we need to take donald trump on, that our candidate and the nominee have a Forward Vision for the country. And that they project stability. And resolve at a time when so much of our politics seems to be about chaos and cruelty. Alayna to go off of that, in 2016, there was a lot of chaos. Candidate donald trump running, we saw that a number of people who no one expected would stay with him ended up voting for him because they liked his policies and didnt care about the chaos. Do you think that will change in the next election . Guy one of the big differences is people are actually being harmed by his policies. Its not just about a campaign platform. Look at farm bankruptcies and wisconsin. Look at plant closures. Look at the challenge that our Automobile Industry is having. Look at the skyrocketing of cost around pharmaceuticals. The increased cost around health care. The fact that tens of millions of americans have been kicked off of their health insurance. With no real access to another option, another plan. Theres a difference between saying you will do something and People Living the experience. I think that will make a really big difference. The second part of that is, people have decided whether or not they believe donald trump has the temperament to be president. People have made a decision about whether or not they believe donald trump is racist or sexist or whatever attributes are assigned to him by over half the country. I think theres not that much more to gain by making that the center of the conversation. Its already a part of the conversation every day. Its not to say that these other issues arent important. Its to say that we have to b