Democratic leaders have argued for years over how best to allocate resources between the Midwest and the South during election years.

But this year — with control of Congress within strike and President Donald Trump’s approval at the lowest of his presidency — frustrations are palpable.

In interviews with Southern-based lawmakers, campaign staffers and grassroots organizers, the party apparatus is hailing the 2026 midterms as a watershed moment for its levels of investment and support unlike Democrats have seen in the region in recent memory.

But an aggressive mid-decade redirecting push by Republicans and a rollback in voting rights protections by the Supreme Court has grassroots organizations frustrated by a lack of funding to turn out Black voters, a critical voting bloc that makes up a sizable portion of the population in major Southern cities.

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a voter mobilization group headquartered in Atlanta, told MS NOW she’s “damn never livid” that her organization and other groups focused on Black voter turnout received less money this cycle than it did in the 2022 midterms despite the uproar caused by the Louisiana v. Callais decision.

“In the moment that is the greatest fight in my lifetime,” Brown explained. “I am frustrated at the fact that the South is still treated like the stepchild and not invested in as a battleground.”

“The big party machines — those are not the ones that are necessarily driving the vote,” she said. “It makes me even wonder: Do you want to even expand the base? Or are you just trying to win an election?”

Howard Franklin, who leads Ohio River South, a bipartisan public-affairs firm based in Atlanta, says “when the dust settles on the midterms, I expect the ledger to show record investment by Democrats in the South.”

“But a close reading of campaign disclosures will also reveal that most of those dollars arrived late — more like a last-ditch effort to press their advantage than an early, sustained investment,” Franklin said. “Early and off-year money buys grassroots organizing, voter registration and relational trust, all of which keep compounding long after the ads come down.”

Democratic South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, a political juggernaut in the party, told MS NOW’s Chris Jansing that he’s been “yelling for a long time” about the issue.

“I think that the Democratic Party has now recognized what a lot of us have been saying to them,” Clyburn said. “You need to break out of this mode that we’re in. You need to look South, look South. This is not a Westward movement anymore. It’s a Southern movement taking place.”

Clyburn’s campaign manager, who also happens to be his grandson, said campaign funding isn’t what will motivate everyday Southerners to vote.

“This has been a type of movement across the South where people are just sick and tired,” said Walter A Reed Clyburn. “Even though I believe that the Democratic Party has put a lot of money into the South, it’s really a populist, a people-based movement that are getting people to the polls.”

Reyna Walters-Morgan, the Democratic National Committee vice chair for civic engagement and voter participation, agrees.

“The money piece is only a portion of it,” said Walters-Morgan, who lives in North Carolina and founded the Help America Vote Alliance. “We’ve seen instances where people and campaigns and outside organizations spend a ton of money, and it doesn’t necessarily move the needle.”

Case in point: Florida Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon, a progressive firebrand, who upset her Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee-backed opponent, Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, with a stronger ground game. She won her primary despite being outraised by over $15 million. She still faces an uphill battle on Election Day.

Campaign cash

This year, two widely-regarded Southern battleground states, Georgia and North Carolina, feature well-funded Senate nominees in incumbent Jon Ossoff and former Gov. Roy Cooper, who currently hold an edge over their Republican opponents, according to MS NOW’s polling partner FiftyPlusOne.

Ossoff and Cooper have raised more than $136 million and $49 million respectively in their states, according to Federal Election Commission campaign disclosures. The Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, says North Carolina has evolved  from being one of its most expensive states in the 2020 election to being one of their least expensive in 2026.

After initially announcing $42 million in TV ads in the Tar Heel State this summer, the political action committee pulled those resources amid growing confidence in Cooper’s candidacy. Mississippi and South Carolina, whose Senate races appear to be tightening, also received funding from the super PAC in the final two weeks before Election Day.

In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico — a former teacher and Presbyterian seminarian — has become a formidable challenger in the Republican stronghold against Trump-endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose campaign has been embattled from the start by scandal and national headwinds. But he has had to work to address criticism that he’s not doing more to court Black voters, who overwhelmingly tend to support Democrats.

Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Talarico’s main primary opponent, recently told a local North Carolina television station that she believes Talarico’s campaign is more focused on persuading Republican-leaning constituents than boosting turnout among Latino and Black voters.

Texas, she notes, has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country. “I personally believe that my state is a non-voting state,” Crockett told WCNC. “I said, ‘Man, if we can just get more Black folk, more Brown folk, more people of color in general, because we are a majority-minority state, if we can just get them out and get them to vote, we should be able to win.’ That was my path.”

Joel Montfort, a Texas-based political consultant, says that lingering tensions between Talarico and Crockett have been a “big distraction.”

“Anytime you have a big wedge right up the middle where the left and the other left are pointing fingers at each other. It’s not helpful in a state where we have no power,” Montfort said.

Looking ahead

Black Democrats, in particular, hope that lessons learned from 2026 lead to a sustained commitment to the region. In mid-August, the DNC created a Southern States Resource Hub intended “to address years of underinvestment in Southern state parties.”

The committee’s two most recent meetings were also held in the South, including in Austin, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. “I am proud that the DNC has made unprecedented investments in Southern states while building the infrastructure necessary to win races up and down the ballot,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “The DNC has expanded the map, put Republicans on defense, and put Democrats in position to win in 2026 and beyond.”

Many Democrats point to Georgia’s Senate delegation as evidence of what long-term dedication to voter engagement can result in. Amy Morton, who leads Democratic political firm Southern Majority, predicts 2026 will be a “historic election” season for the South.

“This cycle looks and feels different,” said Morton, recalling a time in years past when out-of-state would rely on activists in Georgia to phonebank for their campaigns. “The perception was we could not win here, and so we should spend our energy doing that.”

“It wasn’t a bad call at the time; but the trend has transformed, and now people are supporting candidates here,” she said.

As the party’s attention will very soon turn to 2028, Crockett recently told a crowd in South Carolina, the party’s first-in-the-nation primary host, that presidential hopefuls shouldn’t just be visiting the state because they see “an opportunity in the primary.”

“I want them to look and be running to South Carolina because,” she said, “they know that South Carolina can do it again for them in the general.”

Chris Jansing and Hunter Woodall contributed to this report.

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