{"id":702,"date":"2026-06-23T17:38:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T17:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=702"},"modified":"2026-06-23T17:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T17:38:35","slug":"downballot-democrats-are-smashing-recruitment-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=702","title":{"rendered":"Downballot Democrats Are Smashing Recruitment Records"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When the Kansas legislature<\/span> took up a bill in early 2026that would strip transgender residents\u2019 driver\u2019s licenses and bar them from government bathrooms, Bobby Joe Robertson Jr., a financial analyst at apetroleum refinery in the small town of McPherson, about an hour north of Wichita, decided to write her state representative a letter.\u00a0<\/p>

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\u201cTechnically, I wrote three,\u201d Robertson says. There was the original letter, asking her legislator if he\u2019d be up to meet with her, a trans woman, to discuss the painful effects the law would have on her family. And then a follow-up asking the legislator if he could please respond. \u201cThe third one,\u201d she recalls, \u201cwas me telling him that I\u2019m going to take his job.\u201d<\/p>\n

It will be an uphill battle. President Donald Trump carried McPherson by a more than two-to-one margin in 2024, as Robertson\u2019s current Republican state representative was running unopposed in HD-73. A different Republican legislator had run unopposed in 2022. And 2020. And 2018. But this year, the incumbent has chosen not to seek re-election\u2014and Robertson has been knocking doors after work for months, organizing her neighbors, and raising money for the race ahead. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll be a landslide or anything,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think I have the potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robertson is one of 18 Kansas Democrats contesting a state house seat this fall that went unopposed in the last election. Some of these districts have gone years without even token Democratic opposition\u2014two will feature their first contested election since 2006<\/em>. You have to go all the way back to 1990 to find this many Democrats running for Kansas\u2019\u00a0legislature\u2014incidentally, the last year they won a majority. Most of these races, in deep-red areas, will likely stay out of reach for the party. But Brandon Woodard, the Democratic minority leader in the lower chamber, believes another goal is achievable: that at least five out of the party\u2019s more than 100 local recruits can flip districts\u2014enough to break the Republicans\u2019 supermajority\u2014while turning out extra voters to keep the governor\u2019s mansion in Democratic hands.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Kansas. <\/span>Across the country, Democrats are smashing downballot recruitment records, fielding more candidates in more races than they have in decades\u2014or ever. For the first time, the party has a candidate for every Minnesota state legislative race, as it hopes to build on a one-vote majority in the state senate and break a 67\u201367 logjam in the house. In Texas, where Democrats are looking to make inroads in a Republican-dominated legislature and get out the vote for Senate candidate James Talarico and other statewide candidates, the party is also fielding candidates for every legislative seat for the first time in history. They\u2019ve got candidates in every race in North and South Carolina (where the party hopes to break Republican supermajorities), and in Arizona (where it\u2019s seeking to flip both chambers).<\/p>\n

And in New Hampshire, in a bid for a governing trifecta, Democrats are contesting every state senate race, and at least 361 of 400 state house seats\u201457 more than Republicans. According to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which invests in state-level downballot races, the party is also contesting a 21st-century record number of races in Indiana and Georgia.<\/p>\n

As I reported previously, the DLCC has ambitious targets this fall, with hundreds of seats in play across the country. Democrats have been buoyed by dominant showings in 2025\u2019s off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey, and a string of victories and overperformances in special elections\u2014including, this spring, a win in the Florida state house district that includes Mar-a-Lago. DLCC president Heather Williams has argued this November has the potential to be \u201c2010 in reverse\u201d\u2014a reference to Barack Obama\u2019s first midterm shellacking, when Republicans picked up 700 legislative seats that allowed them to gerrymander their way to enduring majorities in states like North Carolina. Now, with both parties in the midst of a redistricting arms race, these elections could help determine which politicians control the next stages of the battle\u2014a significance that will be felt far beyond any state\u2019s borders.<\/p>

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\u201cOn the other side of this election, we\u2019re going to sharply go into a continued conversation about redistricting, the need to shore up the path to the presidency, and ensure that our voting laws and our certification processes are strong as we go into a big 2028 presidential cycle,\u201d Williams says. \u201cOn top of all of that, this Republican administration continues to move policy work of dealing with the issues of today into the states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe power that is built in November in our state capitals is not only going to affect those that live in those communities,\u201d Williams adds. \u201cIt is going to have a national impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downballot recruitment <\/span>is no guarantee of success\u2014particularly in the sorts of ruby-red areas Democrats like Robertson will be contesting. Republicans\u2019 power in Kansas\u2019 legislature will likely hinge on a small number of competitive districts. But the presence of candidates in almost every race isa useful barometer for an energized base and party organization. In Kansas, Woodard said, the numbers reflect, in part, a strategic shift. Last year, his caucus hired a political director earlier than it ever had, as the state party launched a tour of Republican-dominated areas to drum up interest from local parties and activists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re having a wave year, some of those districts that are having the candidate on the ground doing the work might end up in picking up a seat that maybe wasn\u2019t on our radar,\u201d Woodard says. \u201cMore than anything, if we can move the needle on a district that we lose by 20 percent, and someone does the work and we only lose by 15 percent, that\u2019s a win in my book as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Kansas Democrats, like Pete Ferrell, a rancher and self-described \u201cformer Eisenhower Republican\u201d who threw his hat in the ring for a seat east of Wichita, are running for less tangible reasons. No one has contested the district in ten years, and while Ferrell told me he hadn\u2019t raised any money and wasn\u2019t yet sure what his campaign would look like, to him it\u2019s about the principle of the thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 73. I\u2019ve probably got no business doing this,\u201d he said. \u201cBut my God, I wasn\u2019t gonna open that ballot up and not see a Democrat.\u201d<\/p>

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\u201cMy God, I wasn\u2019t gonna open that ballot up and not see a Democrat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nDownballot Democrats Are Smashing Recruitment Records - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=702\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Downballot Democrats Are Smashing Recruitment Records - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cMy God, I wasn\u2019t gonna open that ballot up and not see a Democrat.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=702\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-23T17:38:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ce1e51b9bf7ea82d31866f2ed19e354a.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1125\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=702#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=702\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"Downballot Democrats Are Smashing Recruitment Records\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-23T17:38:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=702\"},\"wordCount\":1107,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=702#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/6d4ed6742fada764ace9384c7fecb482.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=702#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=702\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=702\",\"name\":\"Downballot Democrats Are Smashing Recruitment Records - 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