The Blue Bench Training Project

About the Blue Bench Project

The Blue Bench Project is a training program for anyone of any age that wants to run for office or serve the party as a staff member on a campaign or officer at the county level. 

The Blue Bench Project is about taking substantive action and making sure Democrats have the training needed to be strong candidates and grassroots party leaders.

The Nebraska Democratic Party is building our bench for races up and down the ballot; as well as ensuring we have diverse folks in age, race, and economic backgrounds serving as leadership at the county party level and on campaign staff teams.

Our Blue Bench trainings are hands-on and emphasize action. We learn from one another as we all prepare to win elections for Democrats.

Since 2018 we went from 504 Democrats elected across Nebraska, to 902 elected Democrats across the state showing that the work we are doing is effective. 

Watch our Mobilize page for upcoming trainings you can be a part of– we host trainings all over the state and at each of our quarterly meetings. To schedule a specific training for your group or to find out the upcoming trainings contact us at: info@nebraskademocrats.org.

The Nebraska Democratic Party partners with the National Democratic Training Committee, who provides trainings and resources to party leaders and candidates all over the country.

Upcoming Candidate Trainings: 

The NDP provides a series of three core trainings for candidates, party leaders and campaign staff. The trainings lay the groundwork to establish a candidate support channel, especially for candidates and campaign staff, to ask questions and receive answers quickly and with ease. The core trainings we provide on a rotating basis include:

The Basics: Introduction to key tools the NDP offers including the voterfile (VAN), texting (e.g. Hustle and GetThru), phone bank (e.g. HubDialer), events (Mobilize), Candidate MOU and Training Manual, Voter Scores, Voter Guides, Block Captains and coordinated campaigns.

VendorFest: Bringing in vendors to speak about services and costs so there is transparency and access as well as hands on training for the tools and services most used by campaigns.

Pillars of a Successful Campaign: Creating a winning campaign, with best practices, in field, communications and fundraising.

NDTC Training: Sign up for a free online training account to get access now to critical information with the National Democratic Training Committee.

NDP Candidate Manual + Trainings: Once candidates announce they are running or contact the state party about running, they can get access to the candidate manual, code of conduct, and MOU. We do not publish these on the website. Candidates must first complete the MOU — please email ronr@nebraskademocrats.org.

If you or someone you know wants to run for office, please promote this link. Once a person completes this form, staff holds a meeting with the candidate and then they get added to a listserv and trainings