Points of Consensus

On a surprising number of points, there was broad consensus among participants about changes that would lead to stronger and more effective parties. This consensus establishes the core of a blueprint for healthier parties, though there remain some questions for further debate and research.

Participants from across the political spectrum described state and local party institutions as organizationally hollow.

• County and state parties are “run down,” one campaign activist said, operating out of facilities that are “not modern offices,” with most money flowing to digital ads rather than organizing infrastructure. A former Hill staffer described watching local committees become “a waste of time” and ”performative anger echo chambers.”
• “The tent goes up and down,” one participant noted. Party infrastructure materializes during election cycles and vanishes between them, while nonprofit organizations, including issue advocacy groups, maintain year-round operations and ongoing connections to members.
• Other participants noted “immense variation in state parties” and the need to examine why some remain functional while others have collapsed.

The dysfunction takes different forms: In Democratic-leaning areas, local parties are often simply inactive; in Republican areas, several participants noted that local committees have been captured by ideologically extreme activists. In other communities, new activists—particularly women energized by the 2017 Women’s March—revitalized local parties by running for precinct positions. But this revitalization has not occurred where entrenched machines persist.

Participants agreed that a high priority in building a healthier party system would be to strengthen the organizational capacity of existing and emerging political parties.

A key role for parties, historically and in theory, has been to develop paths for leaders both within the party and as candidates for office. The organizational crisis is also a human capital crisis. There is no clear pathway from local activism to state leadership to national influence, either within the party organization or as a candidate.

• One scholar framed it as a selection problem: Because “instrumental benefits [of participating in party work] are low and barriers are high, you get people who get a weird expressive benefit from participation.”
• An experienced party leader described talented members of Congress who retire early, frustrated by their inability to demonstrate value beyond television appearances: “Good people have been elected but retire early. We have to create opportunities for members to do good.”
• Another Hill veteran observed that members need ways “to regain their status as local party leaders through productive means,” but that rule changes have limited those opportunities.
• A scholar proposed political fellowships because “most people can’t afford to quit their jobs and run for office,” meaning working-class candidates are structurally excluded.
• Another attendee noted that parties no longer play a central role in recruiting political talent: “Candidate recruitment is driven by consultants going out and finding candidates—it’s not a strategic decision that gets made in a room.”

The result is a vicious cycle in which weak organizations cannot attract capable people, and without capable people, organizations cannot rebuild.

An essential merit of political parties, in theory, is that they have an interest in their own long-term health and the survival of the policies they advocate for beyond the terms of office of individual elected officials. Even when parties invest resources, those investments orient almost entirely toward the next election cycle.

• “Everything is in service of winning the next election,” one longtime activist noted, through negative polarization and base mobilization.
• “Party blobs are too short-term,” one participant noted: The loose networks of consultants, vendors, and activists operate on quarterly timeframes at best.
• A leader of an emerging party reported bluntly that “donors aren’t focused on mid- and long-term solutions right now.”

Rebuilding party capacity requires sustained investment over years, but every incentive rewards immediate electoral returns. There is “too much short-termism from donor communities,” one scholar noted, while another observed that this is a global pattern and that “mainstream parties are struggling globally” partly because they “have neglected party organization.” Here, too, state party organizations that lurch from election to election could learn from those that have a more sustained presence and longer-term perspective.

Political scientist Adam Bonica’s research indicates that in 2026, campaigns will spend more on fundraising infrastructure than on communicating with voters.

This projection captures the gathering’s strongest shared concern. Bonica presented data showing that more than 50 percent of money raised by parties now goes to consultants and fundraising operations rather than organizing or messaging. The tactics themselves are “borrowed from elder fraud schemes” and are designed to identify “marks” who can be repeatedly exploited. Approximately 90 percent of repeat small-dollar donors are over 70 years old.

• “It is a grift,” one former Democratic activist said.
• Others noted the long historical trajectory: Direct mail “drove the rise of the new right in the 1970s” and “was the central issue in the 2005 college Republican national chairman race.”
• A former director of a party committee connected fundraising to positioning: “You had to run to the right or left to fundraise for small dollars.”

The deeper problem is that parties are building relationships with supporters on a foundation of manipulation. “The party is a brand,” Bonica noted, “and you don’t build trust by scamming.” Hollow organizations have nothing to offer except financial transactions, and predatory fundraising further alienates the people parties need to rebuild.

At their best, parties can connect citizens to governance, whether by advancing a policy agenda, helping people navigate governing choices, or even helping constituents access services. But convening participants agreed that a gulf has emerged between party activity and governing capacity: “Are parties decoupled from governance?” one scholar asked.

• A political scientist presented evidence that state-level party competition correlates with better outcomes, such as fewer opioid overdoses and fewer police killings. “Competition stimulates responsiveness in governance.”
• Another political scientist observed parties’ declining capacity to constrain presidential power and manage cultural conflicts—a governance function they historically performed.
• A former staff director for congressional committees described basic infrastructure gaps: “Most state legislatures have no system for handling constituent relations.”

Here, too, some state and national legislators can learn from others. “There are a lot of well-run states that don’t get credit,” one participant noted, citing Utah, Georgia, Arizona, and Virginia as examples of states that continue to produce competent administrators through political channels. But one philanthropic advisor noted that foundations had invested between $50 million and $60 million in congressional capacity-building over a decade with mixed results: “Increased funds end up going to comms.” Whether party dysfunction causes governance failure or governance failure causes party dysfunction remains contested.

“Eighty to ninety percent of congressional races aren’t competitive,” one participant reminded the group, asking, “What does it do to a party to not have to compete?”

• “The entire responsible party system,” as developed in the middle of the twentieth century, “depended on party competition—competition is essential,” a scholar noted.
• Another pushed the implication further: “You can structure the rules committee however you want, but what does that matter to people in uncompetitive districts?”

The leader of an emerging party suggested a strategic response by focusing on “unchallenged downballot races.” Whether noncompetition is a cause of party dysfunction or is a symptom of deeper forces—like geographic sorting, nationalization, and gerrymandering—remained contested. So too did potential solutions—redistricting reform, more parties, proportional representation, or fusion voting.

Multiple participants acknowledged that the quickly evolving structure of organized and social media affects how citizens understand parties and, in some cases, displaces party organizations. 

• Media is “on the outside but fits into everything,” one scholar noted. “The way people interact with politics was direct mail, then social media, and their image of the other party becomes even more distorted.”
• Information, fundraising, and polarization are intertwined: Supporters’ understanding of the opposing party becomes caricatured when the primary message is “Can you believe the crazy thing Trump/Dems did?” 

The question of whether local party presence can overcome nationalized media distortion or whether intensive local organizing has become structurally irrelevant divided participants without resolution.

Philanthropy, whether through foundations, large or small donors, advocacy organizations, or other nonprofits, could help strengthen parties, but in their current form they do not. 

• One longtime leader of such groups observed that “advocacy groups have become unbelievably accountable to philanthropy, which itself is in an extremely rigid ideological place.”
• Nonprofit groups are “presented to donors as the place connected to the voice of the people, but they’re still suffering from the same pathologies and disconnection as the parties,” according to another participant.
• Another scholar noted that many funders “empower local advocacy and organizing groups that challenge existing parties,” sometimes undermining rather than strengthening party capacity.

One participant proposed democracy vouchers, such as those offered for contributions to candidates in Seattle, specifically to “break the reliance ‘c3’ organization-building groups have on philanthropy.” Donors at all levels should be thoughtful about how their support of organizations that cannot be political parties, for legal reasons, affects the health of parties.

New America research published with Protect Democracy has shown that the structure of our winner-take-all elections shapes the political gerontocracy and limits opportunities for younger voices. Participants agreed that parties reinforce this gerontocracy and seem irrelevant to younger people.

• A public opinion researcher reported that young people “can’t imagine parties doing anything other than asking for money.” Their civic engagement occurs through channels—Twitch, Reddit, TikTok —that parties don’t occupy.
• Economic despair shapes political alienation. A professor reported that her students “say they’ve given up on Congress because they say they’re never going to own a house.”
• An organizational leader cautioned against condescension: “Strike ‘low-info voter’ as a term. They are swimming in information—and they’re smart.”

Whether the generational disconnect is a result of parties’ failure to reach young people (which is fixable through better outreach) or is a result of structural economic conditions that parties cannot address through organizational reform alone remains an open question.