A State Party Primer

   

A State Party Primer

• Ben
• November 14, 2018
• 2 Comments

Summary

The State Party doesn’t control campaigns, they control the Party.
Most State Party money comes from the RNC, and they’ll take it away if they disapprove of the Chair’s actions.
The real drivers of state outcomes are the CO Senate and House leadership funds.

Colorado Republican Organizations

After every election, regardless of the outcome, the chatter turns to what a terrible job the Colorado Republican Party did and how they’re to blame for every shortcoming that befell our party.

This makes sense, of course. Because, the next election is right around the corner — the race for State Party Chair.

I’m always struck by how little people, even “insiders”, seem to understand the State Party. This leads to candidates for State Chair misleading people with all kinds of wild claims about what they’ll accomplish. At the end of the day, the State Chair’s chief responsibility is fundraising. Anyone who is talking about something else shouldn’t be a serious contender for the job.

Why’s that? Well, let’s take a look at what the role of the State Party actually is.

The Role of State Party

What the Party Should Do	What it Shouldn’t Do
Run a smooth nominating process for candidates – the caucuses. Contribute money to targeted races. Turnout Republican voters.	Strategize about “messaging.” Create strategy for campaigns. Attempt to drive the message in lieu of campaigns.

And to make clear – this isn’t up for debate. Many people have a lot of beliefs about what the State Party is or should be. But believing, doesn’t make it so. This view is analogous to buying a single McDonald’s franchise here in Colorado and declaring “A year from now, whenever someone thinks McDonald’s… I want them thinking shawarma!” It just isn’t going to happen. And that’s essentially what the State Party is, a franchise of the RNC.

People think that the State Party and the State Chair should be some sort of “man-behind-the-curtain.” They think the State Chair should be directing the coordinated efforts of every campaign in the state, doling out cash and launching massive advertising campaigns. But the reality is that no campaign would ever consent to take total direction from the State Party. And, because of campaign finance, the Party has almost no money to mount big advertising campaigns or really even to exist at a capable level.

So what gives?

Organizations of The State Party

Most people think of the State Party as something like this:

But, the reality is that the “State Party” is actually a collection of different organizations. And each of these organizations has its own rules about where they can raise money from, how much they can raise, and what they can spend it on. It looks more like this:

State Party Financing

Looking at the amount of money that an individual can contribute to each of these organizations should give you a sense of their influence. But for further perspective, look at how much money flowed into each piece of the “State Party” in this past cycle:

The Federal committee of the Party makes up most of the money that flows into the State Party every year. However, this doesn’t show the entire picture. The vast majority of the money that comes into the State Party’s Federal committee is not raised by the State Chair. Most of the money that comes into the Federal committee is transferred from the Republican National Committee or from other campaign entities in order to finance a specific operation that they have tasked the State Party with carrying out.

When you break out the amount of money that comes from individual donors you get a more accurate picture. It looks like this:

All of the values in blue are financing the party receives to carry out operations on behalf of other entities. The State Chair can’t steal that money for their pet projects without facing consequences. That means that the Chair has around $1.9 mln to run party operations for two years. That’s the equivalent of two major TV ad buys or one struggling gubernatorial campaign.

With that $1.9 mln the Chair has to pay staff, office rent, production and rental costs for the State Assembly and Central Committee meetings and make contributions to any competitive candidates. The beginning elements of that list are essential to the State Party’s continued existence. As such, when a Chair attempts to re-prioritize the budget the first thing that gets hit is the Party’s ability to contribute to competitive candidates.

But what about that biggest chunk of money? The $2.1 mln that the State Party got from the RNC, the Stapleton and Coffman campaigns, and others? That easy money is something potential State Chairs salivate over.

RNC Control

Folks who have had extensive dealings with the State Party tend to think the internal staff organization looks something like so:

But, this isn’t quite accurate. The largest and most visible part of the organization, the Victory field operation, only exists inside the party to the extent that the RNC is feeling generous. The real organization of the State Party looks more like so:

So why does this matter? Well, say a new Chair starts feeling ambitious and attempts to misappropriate any of that Federal money for projects that the RNC doesn’t like. The RNC has a pretty powerful stick to keep the Party in line. If the RNC doesn’t like what’s happening they can always just do something like this:

In this scenario the RNC just keeps the reins of their organization and that just under $2 mln that the State Party was receiving up and vanishes.

This would devastate the State Party. Not only would it cut the cycle operating budget by more than half but it would eliminate some critical portions of the budget. You see, money in the Federal account cannot be spent to support State candidates. Federal money can only be spent to help our Congressional and U.S. Senate candidates. However, it can be used to support party operations that help all candidates. For example, paying rent on offices and driving overall Republican turnout.

The Blueprint

By now some of you are probably wondering, if the State Party has such a narrow directive and such compelling constraints on its operations how are we expected to mount a winning effort? The answer is by relying on the campaigns and other entities.

We are all aware, at least obliquely, that because of Colorado campaign finance, the real entities that dominate elections are the 527’s or Independent Expenditure Committees. The groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of our candidates as long as they don’t coordinate with them.

It is through the use of these entities that Democrats first began to dominate Colorado politics over a decade ago. Republicans have caught on to this as well. We have two principle independent committees. The Senate Majority Fund and Values First Colorado. These are dedicated to winning our competitive State Senate and State House races. Republican leadership in the State Senate and State House run these committees.

Take a look at their income relative to the State Party’s actual state-level income:

Looking at this graph it should be obvious which organizations are going to be best able to drive improvements in the outlook for Republicans in the coming cycle.

This is also why the State Party needs to stick to its narrow list of responsibilities. And why it’s best to remain wary of candidates for State Chair who promise sweeping reforms beyond a well-run nomination process, an efficient turnout operation and max-out contributions to our competitive races.

A State Chair’s primary job is raising money, not reinventing the party. Anyone who doesn’t realize this is unlikely to succeed.