Welcome you to our first Major Press Conference at the d. L. C. Headquarters. Having a room full of reporters and National Coverage of an event is a milestone for us. And quite frankly its attention that the d. L. C. Wasnt getting two or three cycles ago. The major driver of our growth has been our president jessica post who i have the fantastic job of introducing today. Jessica has spent most of her professional career working in the legislative space and is a master resource on state legislatures. To quote a politico piece published last night, they wrote, steering democrat vati to win back state legislative powers jessica post, an operative who is little known outside Democratic Campaign circles and has spent the last five years turning the once sleepy d. L. C. C. Into a juggernaut. So without taking any more of your time, im going to turn it over to jessica who will share exactly how we turned the dlcc into a juggernaut and our plan to win more state legislatures in 2020. Thanks so much, matt. I really appreciate it. And are we on oh, should i unmute here . Yeah. Ok. Great. The line is open. Thanks, everybody. The juggernaut is definitely powered by a lot of coffee and a lot of hard work. So i really i appreciate everybody coming here today. As matt said im jessica post. Im the president of the dlcc. Were today announcing our flip everything 2020 campaign in the 2018 cycle, we started our effort to flip everything and we flipped 10 chambers red to blue and well talk a little bit about that today. And weve done that since Donald Trumps election and well also talk about who we are, how we can flip another 10 state legislatures red to blue this year and why state legislatures matter, especially coming into the key 2020 election cycle. So we will a little more about the dlcc. Were the official Democratic Party organization charged with winning americas state legislatures. And these arent just words on a page for me. For me this is personal. In the 2010 election cycle, i was the National Field director at dlcc and was a junior staffer. So i saw what happened in 2010 first hand. In the last 28 days of the election i was sent to harrisburg, pennsylvania, to help preserve the democratic majority in the Pennsylvania Statehouse which was a critical state for redistricting. And it was a tough road. At dlcc i saw late spending in states we couldnt lose like wisconsin going into the election cycle and it was really hard. I was on the ground on Election Night in harrisburg and the news came out that we had lost so many elections across the country. We had lost one state after another. And the republicans really were prepared. They spent 30 million to our only 10 million of the dlcc that cycle. So the worst news of all came when we lost pennsylvania. And i got a call from one of our colleagues back in headquarters, and she said we had lost 21 other state legislative chambers. That news threw me to the sidewalk outside of the smoky barn in harrisburg and you can still smoke in some bars in pennsylvania that was news to me. In 2010 you certainly could. And so i walked out of the smoky bar covered in smoke, and curled up on the cold harrisburg sidewalk and it was a rainy horrible night. And i cried a few tears. But i took myself back up and made a promise to myself in that moment as i walked back into the bar and popped open a budweiser while presumably karl rove was popping an expense he have bottle of champagne. And i made a promise to myself in that moment that if i had anything to do with that, i would fight like hell in 2020 to take back state legislatures around the country. And fortunately i had the opportunity to do that now with the dlcc. We are better prepared than ever going into 2020 and flip more chambers going into the next election cycle. I also today want to recognize our chairwoman, new york majority leader andreas cousins. This is one of the chambers we flipped red to blue in the 2018 election cycle. And she shares my vision and our vision at the dlcc for flipping state legislative chambers red to blue all across the country. She would be here with us today but one of the benefits of winning new majorities is that you can pass great Public Policy and so shes passing automatic Voter Registration in new york and other great policy including bail reform up in new york. Were excited to see all of that progress. Voting rights do get expanded when democrats win majorities and democratic gotches sign those bills for us. But the truth is new york isnt alone. Since Donald Trumps election we flipped 10 chambers from red to blue. And here are those state legislative chambers. Weve also flipped 436 seats including victories in 425 districts that trump won. Across the board we made gains in 45 out of 50 u. S. States. The 2018 election was a sea change that we continued into 019. Democrats control at the very least the state legislature. In addition to that state democrats govern nearly 15 of he nations total g. D. P. And there are 24 fortune 500 companies where democrats control the legislature. It is a significant footprint on the american economy. With the addition of virginia and the wins that were had, we now have 15 democratic. The combined population, a democratcontrolled legislature is 140 million, almost half of the u. S. Population. Lets talk about our trifecta, virginia. In var, there november, we showed no signs of slowing down. We flipped six seats in the house and two seats in the state senate. This is the first democraticcontrolled assembly in 25 years in virginia. And its the first trifecta since 1993. And were already seeing incredible progress just yesterday and this is something that actually brought me to tears to be very honest when i was driving home. I listened to the wmae story where they where i heard eileen fillercorns voice someone we worked with so closely to work the state legislature count being the votes to pass the equal rights amendment. Something that in my mothers generation we thought had stalled forever. And now passed the virginia legislature. It was impossible to pass with republican control. House and senate. And now they did it. So were excited and i think well see further progress in virginia. There have been bills filed in virginia moving gun safety legislation, lgbtq protections and a wide array of democratic priorities. This is a state where were going to see dramatic changes. The numbers are impressive. But we would like to show you what this actually looks like. The faces these were the members serving before 2017. And now lets show you the members in the exact same districts that are serving after 2019. This is a remarkable change. Lets see that one more time. Lets see that one more time. Before 2017, and now, after 2019, so this is the sea change in terms of representational democracy in virginia. And this is the most general diverse General Assembly in virginia history. And this isnt just true in virginia. Nationally were leading across the country on diversity. Theres absolutely no comparison between democrats and republicans. Since 2017, weve elected 3,262 dems to state legislatures. Of those more than 1, 00 are women. Thats 40 of roughly 40 of folks that were recently elected. More than 1,000 people of color. And more than 100 are lgbtq. Openly lgbtq. So this is dramatic. Weve made significant changes in terms of the face of power in the United States in state egislatures. This is an important poip line to develop folks who can run up ticket. The republicans know that were on the offense. In fact, in an interested parties memo they sent to d. C. Lobbyists they said that virginia is a harbinger of what theyre up against. They were struck by the dramatic spending. Now, they havent changed their policies or havent taught their candidates to raise maloney online and major problems for them in virginia. But the truth is they know that significant spending is coming their way. Significant spending is coming their way and they are doing everything they can to warn their donors and corporate allies. While these results have been amazing, the work hasnt been easy and has been on this journey, its been tough, right . Heres some of the things that we have done that have taken the level of focus. Building out robust analytics and increased our political staff and built up communications and finance and did a lot of work strengthening our Partnership Working with others to make sure our priorities are aligned. Lets talk about candidates and instate partners. One thing i knew we had to do was making sure there were improve the instate infrastructure, making sure there were strong campaigns being run in states across the country. Staffed with high quality talent and had the quality. Some of that capacity as has atrophied. We are doing a lot of that and making early investments in states allows a strong team in the states to partner with us to recruit candidates that are diverse and reflective of their communities. Lets talk about what the changes we made in data. Data analytics. When i returned in 2010 it was like comparing apples to oranges. We would look at one pole and l. Mpare it to a different pol that was the wrong way. As a result, when i came back, i said we need to standardized and put them in one platform to figure out what is the best chamber opportunity to flip and what are the best races and what are races we may be missing out on. We partnered to build out a platform. We use online panel survey data, district demographics and past Election Results at all levels of the ballot. Our Analytics Platform has been more predictive than polling. The performance that secretary clinton received were passed on their own. This is the most predictive tools and part of our competitive advantage. And we apply to the voter files in states and allows us to target mail, digital and others things effectively and states. It helps us determine which seats to target. One great example is ross tylers seat out in virginia. We expected that seat initially to be safe and we were not pulling it. As we looked at our Analytics Platform, the data flagged that it was vulnerable. We won 5149. This is the way we select our investments and identify opportunities and challenges across the state. Earlier i mentioned our five regionsal political directors. In virginia for the first time, we had a staffer dedicated to the commonwealth. ,he was working in richmond absolutely integrated into all of the campaigns decisionmaking processes. We will embed a staffer done in texas where we have an opportunity to win key special election on january 28. I will be down there doorknocking this week. Beto orourke has been involved. And great to hear from him and his efforts and secretary castro will be down motivating folks to come out for that race and mayor bloomberg has been knocking. That indicates the importance of state legislative races and we have engaged high profile allies that have their own following to highlight the opportunities in special elections. We have unified special communication and messaging plans for states on tv, mail, digital. We have made a lot of early investments in field and we are spending closely with the Virginia HouseDemocratic Caucus. Every time we spend in a state, we want to see what is the existing plan to spend money to win elections and how can we be supplemental and complementary . We share the best messaging but we have encouraged candidates to focus on Kitchen Table issues, what are the things that folks say to you. What are those issues . Those are the issues you should be reflecting about. You know that education may be challenging in your district or people are searching for jobs. We dont set down national messaging edicts but want to make sure folks focus on local messaging. That is playing out in the texas 28 special. One candidate in virginia, the first thing shell talk to you about is relieving the traffic on route 28. I once saw her on the right target red carpet. Demi lovato brought her to the grammys. Reporter said what , are you most focused on and she said route 28 and the reporter had no idea but how laser focused she has been. Danica is focused on the issues that are core to her constituents and that has been important and used her national profile. In addition to that, record amounts of Financial Investments in states. We announced in virginia of Million Dollars of december of 2018. That was the earliest investment we had ever done. We spent 2 million in virginia between inkind and Campaign Campaign services. Virginia has open finance laws so we were able to coordinate closely with the campaign. We run 50 states finance laws. So often we have to examine the laws to make sure we are in compliance but make sure that our strategy follows the Campaign Finance laws. We have been able to do all of this because of our fundraising. From 2010 when i was on that harrisburg sidewalk to 2017, we had a 7 million increase. We have doubled down. We grew from 17 million to 36 million last cycle and we are on track to spend 50 million this cycle. We have already raised more than 17 million last cycle, 17 million this cycle. That was the last time a president ial campaign was on the ballot. This july, we outraised in the Republican Leadership committee. We continue to be on a path to financial parity with the republicans. Which is something we couldnt say in the 2010 election cycle. As i mentioned earlier, there has been unprecedented on legislative races from our democratic groups because of our work. Many other organizations are growing their work in the state legislature. Many of these groups have committed to 2020 spending. Many of these groups have not spent at the state legislative level before and they are following our lead and they are following our lead. That is an overview of the programs we have developed and i want to share how we will implement them in 2020. The dlcc is sharing our target. We have never done it before. We have talked about potential targets but we have never really released the real target list like you might see at some other places. We are excited to do this right now. Lets move and talk about the targets. We are working in all 50 states to support caucuses and elect democrats. The stripe states are on our expansion list. We are trying to break the supermajority. Lets talk about kansas. Many of you may have heard the governor. Of the our interest is to break the supermajority in the kansas state house and only need to flip one seat. That would allow the governor to veto more bad bills and veto bad redistricting maps. She was able to get a person to cross over but she needs stable support in the state legislature and we are interested in providing that. In addition to that, we will be watching to move some of these states like georgia and florida that are competitive states. We want move them on to our top target list. This is 19 chambers across 1 across 13 states. As you can see here, we are on complete offense. These are all republican chambers. We feel confident about holding the chambers that democrats won. This election is a once in a generation to flip state legislatures. Only every 20 years do we have a president ial election on the preredistricting election. This is significant. There will be record voter turnout this year and this is a 20year opportunity. The next time we will have this opportunity, i will be 60 and likely be retired. Our focus in life will be different from that 20 years from now. Our targets are in line with the president ial battle grounds. We are building early infrastructure by building up strong legislative campaigns and will benefit the nominee. And this makes sense if you think about the 134 legislative seats in a place like minnesota, folks running smaller campaigns across that state and mobilizing their friends to vote. That will surely benefit democrats at the top of the ticket. In addition to that, we know we have the momentum to surpass our progress in the mid terms. 122 Million People voted in 2018. 156 million are expected to turn out in 2020. That is a 28 increase in turnout. That would be a tidal wave compared to 2010. We have this generational opportunity to change the composition of state legislatures while building out great infrastructure across the country in order to help the president ial nominee from the bottom up instead of the top down. Now, our targets, these are on our list east to west. First, North Carolina. There is a democratic governor in North Carolina. In 2018, we broke republican super majorities in both chambers and that has proven vital in state budget battles. We are now competing on a competitive map after redistricting litigation forced new maps in the state. The governor in North Carolina does not have a veto over redistricting so it is critical that we flip one chamber red to blue. We only need six seats in the house and five in the senate. Cooper is backup for election. Huge senate races. The filing deadline has closed in North Carolina. We made early investments in the state to make sure strong candidates were recruited. House democrats have filled 117 of the 120 seats on the ballot and Senate Democrats have filled 50 seats out of 50 on the ballot. One of the things we did in virginia we learned after republicans failed in recruitment that we were on a stronger path to switch from red to blue and we knew that. We knew that asked we knew that as soon as the deadline. Lets go to our next target. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, a huge state for redistricting and opportunity to have the next democratic after democratic trifecta after virginia. There is a democratic governor, tom wolfe. We won a special election here in april of 2019. This is a preview of what is to come out of pennsylvania. A 20year navy veteran flipped a district that trump had won by five points. That is significant. That is a significant change and will hold that state senate seat. In redistricting, winning the legislature will have fair maps and democratic Supreme Court. We only need nine seats to f