Former President Barack Obama plans to headline a Democratic fundraiser for the party’s redistricting efforts Thursday.
The fundraiser will be a closed-door event and will be hosted by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. The move comes as part of the former president’s desire to “build the bench” of the future Democratic party, a strategy he outlined shortly after President Donald Trump won the 2016 election.
“Tomorrow’s president is today’s state senator. And he knows that very personally,” Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez told The Washington Post about why Obama plans to attend the fundraiser. “When you lose 900 state legislative seats, those are people who could have been the next governors and senators and cabinet positions, and that is something that he’s very committed to.”
The group’s director didn’t share how much the fundraiser is expected to raise for the movement, but executive director Kelly Ward said the former president “still has a microphone” and will be able to convince national donors to invest in state-level races in an attempt to build the future of the Democratic Party.
Voting districts around the nation will be redrawn after the 2020 census is completed. State legislatures around the country are tasked with redrawing the lines so that a proportionate number of people are represented by each congressman in the state House and in Washington, D.C.
In order to have a say in the redistricting process, Democrats will have to win local races across the country in 2018 and in 2020, something that Republican Congressional Leadership Fund executive director Corry Bliss doesn’t see happening.
The strategist asserted that the Republican Party already had several different groups working on the redistricting effort, adding “I am confident they will be well funded and well run.”
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