Tag Archives: DGA

Where are the Battlegrounds?

   Party committees — whether it be the Democratic National Committee or your local county or township committee —  serve three basic functions in politics.  First, they try to find good candidates to run for office — preferably candidates that the committee views as having a strong chance at winning in the general election.  This function can become controversial when other folks also want to run and people start complaining about the party trying to rig the race or stack the deck.  Second, the party committees raise money.  Particularly at the national level, where big money is involved, this function sometimes looks unseemly as both parties typically offer access to party leaders to big dollar donors.  Finally, the parties decide what to do with the money they raise.  Some of this money go to basic party building activities, paying for voter databases and committee staff that help all of the candidates.  But, at both the state and national level, there is money to go for staff for field offices in certain states and certain areas of states and to spend on party sponsored ads.  Similarly, the campaign of the presidential campaign also has money for staff and ads.  The question for the party committees and the presidential campaign is where to put the staff and where to buy the ads.  That question turns on conclusions about where the most bang can be gotten for the buck — which states are the battleground states, those with a close battle where the extra resources could potentially swing the election.

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