This Democrat wanted to take Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes down a peg. How did he do?

A Democratic political group raised $8 million in its efforts to bring Republican candidates down this year, rejecting the typical political wisdom that calls for investing only in swing districts.

Instead, it used its capital in an effort to defeat Republicans like Rep. Kevin McCarthy in deep red districts.

Andrew Janz, a Fresno prosecutor, founded the Voter Protection Project after he lost to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, by a competitive five points in 2018.

He had narrowed Nunes’ margin of victory — which was typically 30 points or more — and was hoping to do the same to both Nunes and McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, in 2020.

“Spending some money there moved the numbers a little bit, and we also had a really good candidate,” Janz said. “It’s clear that if we do spend money in smart ways we can move the needle even in tough districts.”

Janz said spending in smart ways in 2020 meant showing voters the ties between Trump and both McCarthy and Nunes. Janz admitted that beating the two would be difficult, but expressed a desire to “plant the flag” in McCarthy’s district especially, so people would no longer think of him as unbeatable.

McCarthy’s lead did shrink in 2020. Votes are still being counted in his race, but currently he leads over Democrat Kim Mangone by 22 points. In 2018, McCarthy won by 27 points. In previous years, he won by 40 to 50 points, and sometimes more.

But while the strategy of tying McCarthy to Trump probably helped the effort, the 2020 margin still isn’t enough to consider the district competitive, said Jeff Cummins, political science professor and interim dean of the College of Social Sciences at Fresno State University.

“When we start seeing registrations and victory close to five percent, we consider it a competitive district,” Cummins said. “But in McCarthy’s case, while the margin has gone down, it’s still not anywhere near a competitive district.”

It makes more sense in Nunes’ district, Cummins said, where Nunes is currently beating Democrat Phil Arballo by about eight points (ballots are still being counted). But district trends there have shown that the Republican voter majority in that district has dropped, from about 10 points favoring Republicans in 2016 to five points now.

Redistricting also means California’s congressional districts change in the 2022 elections, Cummins pointed out. It’s still hard to say what those districts will look like, but there could be a situation where Nunes’ or McCarthy’s districts look more blue than they do now, in which case investments in those districts will be more important in the upcoming election cycle then they were leading in to 2020.

“You can make the case it’s a waste of money with McCarthy right before redistricting,” Cummins said. “The district is going to change next time around, and we don’t know how much it’s going to change. So the argument against investment in that district is stronger.”

But Janz and Danny Kedem, senior strategist for Voter Protection Project, say they’ve learned how to be more effective both in purple and deep red parts of the country: by continuing to show the GOP’s ties to Trump, even when he’s no longer in the White House.

“The hangover of Donald Trump isn’t going to go away just because he’s no longer president,” Kedem said. “We helped build a multi-million organization for people who care about our democracy. We’re only going to continue to grow, and get louder and more prevalent as time goes on.”

They also saw 2020 as a building year, they said. The pandemic prevented them from knocking on voters’ doors and holding big rallies, but now they have the groundwork laid out to beef up their operation further for 2022, when the pandemic has hopefully receded and more normal elections can take place.

“In 2022 we’re going to see more of that,” Janz said. “It was important to us to lay that groundwork, to tell people and their neighbors that if we organize we can start to win races.”

Even sooner than that, Janz and Kedem said to look for the Voter Protection Project in the Georgia Senate runoff races, where they expect to spend $1 million to $2 million to support the Democrats and deliver control of the Senate to the party.

“I don’t think there will be any shortage of money in those races, but every little bit helps,” Janz said. “We need to be all hands on deck.”

This story was originally published November 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.

Kate Irby

McClatchy DC

202-383-6071

Kate Irby is based in Washington, D.C. and reports on issues important to McClatchy’s California newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee, Fresno Bee and Modesto Bee. She previously reported on breaking news in D.C., politics in Florida for the Bradenton Herald and politics in Ohio for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.