While nearly every prominent Democrat in Sacramento and Washington has backed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s snap-gerrymander, one group seeded by wealthy foundations and progressive donors is staking out its own strategy.
The Progressive Era Issues Committee, a year-old committee whose funders include Democratic fundraiser and donor Quinn Delaney, has entered the conflict over Proposition 50 by working to mobilize lower-propensity left-leaning voters who they say are inclined to tune out Newsom and the nationalized combat he embodies.
“Democrat versus Republican battles — they don’t feel that’s their battle,” said Ludovic Blain , director of the California Donor Table, which coordinates giving to progressive causes. “So we’re funding groups to make sure people who don’t feel a part of partisan battles feel what’s at stake, which is pushing back on federal fascism, making sure voters can pick the politicians they want, and protecting American democracy.”
The new outfit is a much leaner effort than Democrats’ principal Prop 50 committee, which has pulled in more than $15 million just from the national party and labor unions (plus $250,000 from Delaney). The Progressive Era Issues Committee has thus far raised around one-tenth of that total, relying on a handful of wealthy liberals and nonprofits that have in turn been backed byaffluent individuals like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, who together gave $1 million last week.
“They reach and fund and resource and empower the groups that other funders in my similar situation don’t,” said Karen Frances Grove, a California Donor Table board member and longtimeabortion rights supporter who has channeled more than $1 million into California campaigns in recent years and sent Progressive Era Issues Committee $50,000 last month.
The committee’s involvement in Prop 50 marks a major turnabout for the PAC, which this time last year was putting money behind ballot measures that would create an independent redistricting process for Los Angeles city offices and school-board districts. (MeasuresDD andLL both passed.) Now they’re hoping they can convince voters statewide that temporarily overriding independently drawn district lines is worth it.
The Newsom-led committee has elevated familiar Democratic faces in an effort to polarize the electorate along partisan lines, and is enlisting organized labor for a sprawlingground game to make reliable voters aware of the offseason election.
Such campaigning tends to overlook a large chunk of the Democratic coalition, Blain argued, especially voters of color. They are more likely to be reached by the type of local organizations that the Donor Table backs than the type of pop-up get-out-the-vote effort being launched by the Newsom juggernaut and its labor allies.
“Once you’re in the bucket of a low propensity voter,” Blain said, “campaigns don’t talk to you.”
Blain’s group is looking to take a different approach. The California Community Foundation, a venerable Los Angeles nonprofit that has reported more than $2 billion in assets and kicked in $200,000 to pass Prop 50, said it is backing the campaign to inform voters “in areas that typically have low participation, especially in off-cycle elections like this one.”
The voters targeted by the Progressive Era Issues Committee are unlikely to see advertising built around polarizing Democratic messengers like Newsom. Instead, they should expect doorstep visits from canvassers ready to emphasize how the outcome of Proposition 50 could shape their lives.
California Donor Table co-founder Steve Phillips said their Prop 50 strategy builds on a yearslong effort to push areas like Orange County, San Diego and the Inland Empire to the left by maximizing turnout among left-leaning voters who often stay home.
“California has a multiracial progressive majority in its electorate,” Phillips said. “It takes more energy, effort and intentionality to get that whole electorate to be able to participate.”
