NGP VAN provides tools used by Democrats, from the White House to local school boards, to raise money and mobilize voters. But with new management in recent years, it has been stripping its operations to the bare bones.

The potential decline of these tools — which have given Democrats a significant technology edge over Republicans over the past few cycles — would be so threatening to operations that a handful of top Democratic digital firms recently called a roughly hourlong Zoom meeting with leadership of the company to seek answers. Among their demands: reassurance that NGP VAN wouldn’t dismantle one of its top products, an online organizing and fundraising tool called ActionKit. Without it, Democrats worried about their prospects during the 2024 cycle and beyond.

“I’m hoping that I’m wrong, that we’re all wrong, that everyone’s fine,” said a former NGP VAN employee, granted anonymity to speak candidly about their former employer. “But this could mean something really bad for 2024.”

(via Instapundit)

[This sounds a bit overblown, but if not, it exposes some bad strategic planning by Democrats. Organizations can’t put this much strategic risk into a single set of hands, especially hands outside the control of the organization. If there was this much strategic risk, Democrats should have had backup options, or taken the effort in-house instead and used donor money to create their own platform. — Ed]