Flip or Flop
It’s 9 a.m. on a Monday in early August, and the chief architect of the Democratic Party’s strategy for reclaiming the House of Representatives steps into a sunlit conference room two blocks from the Capitol where about two dozen staffers are paging through thick binders or fidgeting with their cellphones. Dan Sena, the 43-year-old executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, takes his seat at the head of an oval table. “Thirteen weeks to go,” he says. “We have a big week ahead.”
In less than 24 hours, voters in central Ohio will begin casting ballots in a special election to replace retiring Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi. Although Republicans have controlled this seat for nearly four decades, recent polling shows the Democratic challenger, Danny O’Connor, trailing by a single point, presenting the tantalizing possibility of a big upset in Trump country.
Wearing jeans and a blue button-down shirt, Sena has a beefy frame and an easygoing rapport with his staff. Together, they begin hashing out their game plan. Setting expectations in the press, Sena agrees, is key; after all, in a district with about 100,000 more Republicans than Democrats, a narrow loss is really a victory. “Basically the entire battlefield,” Sena says, “is better than Ohio 12.” Let’s pay close attention, he continues, to voter participation in the most heavily Democratic areas, looking for signs of increased enthusiasm. And you know what? Win or lose, let’s do a postmortem focus group with former Trump and Romney voters who supported O’Connor.
After 15 minutes of back-and-forth, Sena sends his team to work. “Okay, everybody,” he says. “Thirteen
