The Progressive Group Hunting for a New Voter Contact System

A nonprofit that provides data and tech support to progressive groups is moving closer to testing a new voter data and contact system amid a larger conversation on the left about tech infrastructure.

The Movement Cooperative began soliciting proposals for what it hopes will be a “next generation” voter contact constituent relationship management – or CRM – system in February. Since then, according to the group’s CEO, they’ve gotten dozens of responses, including from both commercial entities and “value-aligned organizations.”

“I’m really optimistic,” Julia Barnes, TMC’s chief executive, told C&E in an interview last month. “I think we can find a set of structured solutions that really makes members feel like their data is safe and secure; that their needs are prioritized.”

The group’s program is set to enter an initial pilot phase next month, when selected vendors will be paired with TMC’s member organizations for focused testing, according to a request for proposals sent out in February. An expanded pilot phase is slated to begin in August. 

Contract negotiations with vendors who successfully complete the pilot program are expected to begin sometime in the fourth quarter of the year, with TMC members beginning to migrate to the new system in the first half of 2026. 

An Ambitious Undertaking

Barnes acknowledged that the program is ambitious. But she argued that the current set of tools available to progressive groups and organizations on the left “just isn’t keeping pace with the kind of innovation that we want to see.” In other words, the systems currently available to organizers and progressive groups, simply can’t support the kind of rapid innovation in tactics and political tech happening on the ground.

“We’re at the very beginning of this,” Barnes said. “But I think we can find a set of structured solutions that really makes members feel like their data is safe and secure, and that their needs are being met.”

“We have to start building for the next 10 years,” she added. “And we can’t do that with tools that were built for door-to-door canvassing and phone banking.”

While Barnes said TMC’s effort is geared toward meeting the needs of its member organizations, it also comes as Democratic and progressive operatives weigh the future of the party’s tech infrastructure, most notably NGP VAN, the voter database that Democrats have relied on for years to power their campaigns.

The Future of Democratic Data

The New York Times reported last month that problems with NGP VAN during the 2024 election cycle prompted top Democrats to intervene in order to keep the system functioning. In a statement to the Times, NGP VAN’s general manager defended the voter database, insisting that it remained the “gold standard of political organizing tools” and “enabled the largest voter outreach program in human history without stability or downtime issues.”

Some Democrats have also expressed concern over NGP VAN’s acquisition in 2021 by the private equity firm Apax Partners and subsequent cost-cutting and layoffs at the company.

Yet, for many Democrats, NGP VAN has simply become too big to let fail. There’s not yet a similar full-service platform on the market, and even if there was, migrating to a new system and hammering out any kinks in it would take time – time that most campaigns and outside groups don’t have before the 2026 midterm elections.

Still, Democratic operatives have begun discussing the future of their tech and data infrastructure with more intensity in recent months, including during a recent meeting in Puerto Rico. One person who attended that meeting said that there’s a desire for more competition in the market.

“We should be incredibly grateful for NGP VAN, because it’s been such a powerhouse for us for so long,” the operative told C&E. “But look, I think we’re also getting to a point where there can be other options – where there can be some competition in that space.”