Democrats target over 26,000 local races to unseat Republicans

• There are 520,000 elected offices in the country.
• As many as 75% go uncontested, per the group, ceding many of those seats to Republicans.

State legislatures, which oversee everything from infrastructure to gerrymandering to abortion laws, are particularly important. State maps identifying congressional districts are set to be redrawn before the 2022 midterm elections. That means local candidates elected in 2020 will help determine future congressional battlegrounds.

• During Barack Obama's presidency, Democrats lost at least 1,000 state legislative seats, which they're still working to recapture.

"The GOP is no longer going to get a free pass at the local level," said Kelly Dietrich, founder and CEO of the National Democratic Training Committee.

By the numbers: The group is working to find and recruit progressive candidates in five battleground states: Florida, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina, and Iowa. Contest Every Race is banking on personalized attention and texting technologies to make it easier to identify and prepare Democratic challengers.

• "Filing for your first political office can be intimidating, to say the least,” said Shameria Ann Davis, a local school board member in Texas who was elected in 2018. “The consistent texting, information, and friendliness of Contest Every Race was immeasurable.”
• When Democrats concede the field in down-ballot races, it tends to depress turnout, said Yoni Landau, CEO of Resistance Labs. "We need to build a bench to take state legislatures."

• "After nearly a month of stonewalling, it appears clear that the President has chosen the path of defiance, obstruction, and cover-up," the letter reads.

The state of play: Several White House officials have told Axios' Alayna Treene that the administration has no plans of complying with the committees' demands for interviews or documents without a full House vote formally approving an impeachment inquiry.

The big picture: The Trump administration's initial refusal to turn over the whistleblower complaint on the president's interactions with Ukraine is what led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to finally support a formal impeachment inquiry.

Go deeper: Trump letter dares Pelosi to hold vote on impeachment inquiry

• Johnson asked the Justice Department earlier this week to look into links between Ukraine and Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. His letter questioned the narrative that Biden's actions in Ukraine had nothing to do with his son's connection.
• However, it was also discovered that he signed onto a 2016 letter that mirrored Biden's work to reform Ukraine's prosecutor general and judiciary.
• There is no evidence that Biden's reform work in Ukraine was to protect his son's business dealings, as the president and some of his allies allege, or that he committed any form of corruption.

The state of play: Sondland, a Trump political appointee who donated $1 million to the president's inaugural committee, denied that there was a quid pro quo between the Trump administration and Ukraine's government in a series of text messages that former Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker provided to a group of House committees investigating the Trump-Ukraine matter.

• "I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, texted Sondland.
• Sondland texted back: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind."
• The New York Times reported that Sondland's response came only after he spoke to the president.

Go deeper: House committees release texts from former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker