Democratic grassroots group to target more than 60 races with ambitious canvassing effort

A Democratic grassroots organization seeking to conduct at least 500,000 substantive conversations with voters this year on the battleground map announced Thursday that it is expanding its list of targets to more than 60 contested congressional and state elections.

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The group, Swing Left, is expanding its slate of targeted races from 33 House battlegrounds to 63 House, Senate and gubernatorial races this fall, as it expands its “Ground Truth” program — which began as an ambitious effort to knock on every door in battleground neighborhoods, not just those in targeted households, where campaigns often target more limited resources.

“Our job at Swing Left is to dedicate people’s time and money to the most competitive races in the country, where grassroots efforts can really make a difference,” the organization wrote in a strategy document titled “The Big Swing,” which was shared with NBC News. “The breeds in question have changed a lot.”

Swing Left has classified the races into three distinct categories: must-win races that Democrats must win to win a majority, must-win races that Democrats also cannot afford to lose, and “reach”—districts or states that would be good to win but are not necessary for a majority.

Most of the House races added to their target list fell into the reach category, including Alaska’s at-large congressional district, a part of Arizona that includes much of the Navajo Nation, a slice of suburban Philadelphia still represented by a Republican, and open seats in Iowa, Maine and Texas, among other races.

The entire Swing Left Senate and gubernatorial slate is newly targeted.

The organization said it was expanding its reach because of President Donald Trump’s declining approval ratings and Democratic electoral success in recent months. Although the party has experienced redistricting setbacks in recent weeks, the group maintains Democrats remain on solid footing for widespread gains in the fall.

“Virginia and this rollback of the Voting Rights Amendment is keeping us up at night because of the long-term effects,” Yasmin Rajy, executive director of Swing Left, said in an interview. But, she said, “we’re going to win a majority in the House unless a political asteroid hits our party or, I don’t know, Trump converts into someone he’s not.”

On the Senate side, a prime target is Alaska, where Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is on a collision course with former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in the fall. Swing Left believes the state is one of four must-win seats for Democrats to regain the majority, while it believes the Texas Senate race, long an obsession for Democrats seeking to turn the state red blue, is a goal worth pursuing.

Radjy said that’s because the group feels “really, really, really optimistic about the infrastructure being built in Alaska.”

“Everything is definitely moving in the right direction,” she said. “Texas is just a lot more complicated. … There are a lot more hills to climb.”

Swing Left, which launched in the wake of Trump’s first election in 2016, focused on building networks of volunteers to engage in voter outreach efforts, including phone banking and door-to-door canvassing.

He entered this election cycle seeking to revamp Democratic voter outreach efforts with his Ground Truth agenda, as Democrats explore how their massive direct outreach effort failed in 2024 compared to a Trump campaign that made it a priority to narrowly target so-called low-propensity voters.

Swing Left hopes to raise $25 million for its efforts and enable its volunteers to engage in more than 500,000 conversations of at least 10 minutes with voters. These conversations would be recorded via voice memo and analyzed with artificial intelligence, with the results shared with campaigns through a relaxation of Federal Election Commission rules allowing for better coordination between candidates and outside canvassers.

“To achieve a lasting governing majority, we cannot simply attack Republicans, we must build trust in Democrats and in government itself,” the group wrote in its memo. “This is a harder and bigger problem than winning a single election. This challenge is compounded by the way the Democratic brand has been damaged in recent years. Convincing people to vote for Democrats, not just Republicans, will require rebuilding voters’ understanding of what Democrats stand for, in addition to being anti-Trump.”

In the first quarter of 2026, Swing Left conducted a pilot program of its Ground Truth operation in 29 targeted congressional districts, surveying nearly 12,000 households and making more than 187,000 calls. The organization was able to hold more than 4,400 of the substantive conversations it seeks.

According to data provided by Swing Left, volunteers had such conversations in more than 20% of homes visited.

“About 40% of our conversations took place at doors that Democrats would normally never knock on,” the group said in the memo.

Democratic officials worked alongside Swing Left. In March, Swing Left hosted a canvassing event with Reps. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. Sen. Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, said he was “grateful for Swing Left’s support” after his race was added to the group’s list of targets.

As it makes clear in its strategic document, the group’s objectives go beyond the simple promotion of candidates mid-term. He lays out a plan to win the 2032 presidential election, focusing on positioning Democrats ahead of redistribution after the next census. Demographic trends in some of the largest Democratic- and Republican-leaning states could reliably cause Democratic states to lose Electoral College votes after 2030 while Republican states gain them, thereby altering the path to the presidency.

“It blocks the minimally viable path to the White House that Democrats have counted on for years. To win the presidency, Democrats will have to fight on a much tougher map, with states like Texas, North Carolina and Georgia becoming necessities, not aspirational goals,” the group wrote. “Making these states permanently blue will take years of work and investment. We must start now.”

In the interview, Radjy said the group was “really concerned” about the size of the upcoming redistribution.

“Part of what we do in the midterms is try to win the midterm elections,” she said. “Part of what we’re trying to do in the midterms is think big picture again, on the map, and think longer term… about the electorate, and not just talking to the rank-and-file Democrats, but also the Democrats who are moving away from us, the Republicans, the independents, so that we’re well-positioned for much tougher cycles to come.”