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While impeachment is likely to be the nations primary focus for the foreseeable future, Democrats must also sharply turn their attention locally, to directly target President Donald Trumps base across the Midwest if they want to win in 2020. Thats why my organization, American Bridge 21st Century, has launched a multimillion-dollar effort to do just that.

Launching a targeted strike to peel off Trumps white, working-class support in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and winning the 2020 election is how we will defeat Trump and save our democracy. While congressional Democrats are upholding the rule of law, the party cannot afford to hemorrhage white, working-class voters in the way that we have in the last several presidential cycles and still hope to win the electoral college.

Luckily, we dont have to choose between motivating our base and peeling off the presidents core supporters in these swing states. Electrifying a diverse coalition that represents the New America will be the eventual Democratic nominees job, but until that nominee is in place next summer, our partys allied organizations must fill the void by communicating with these voters and persuading them to not support Trump in 2020. We must do both and if you dont think a modern Democrat can do that, just look at what Andy Beshear did in Kentucky on Nov. 5.

Although a comparison between a statewide and a presidential election has its caveats, Beshear was able to defeat incumbent Republican governor Matt Bevin in a state that Trump won by 30 percent; Beshear did so by both surging his urban and suburban support and cutting into Bevins rural margins. Pike County, whose population is more than 97 percent white and mostly rural, serves as a prime example of this. In 2016, Pike County voted for Trump by more than 62 percent, a margin of more than 15,000 votes; last week, Beshear narrowed that gap to about 22 percent, losing the county to Bevin by just under 2,000 votes. By surging his margins in Fayette County, which encompasses Lexington, and reducing his margins in rural counties like Pike, Beshear eked out a victory against a highly unpopular Republican governor by just about 5,000 votes.

In 2020, were up against an incumbent president who is a lot more popular in the swing states, and who has an operation that is a lot more formidable. For the past three years, the Trump campaign and GOP apparatus have built out an operation in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania akin to a political Death Star. In the third quarter of 2019, the Trump campaign raised a record $125 million to fuel a gargantuan reelection campaign that has remained on the ground in swing states since his election.

But they arent just trying to win back these voters, theyre trying to surge their support with this group into the stratosphere. Nearly 500,000 white, working-class voters in Wisconsin did not turn out to vote in 2016, and the Trump team is currently spending millions in a highly sophisticated voter contact effort to turn this group out in even greater numbers. If Trumps operation succeeds in boosting their turnout by even just a little bit, it will be ballgame no matter how high the Democratic turnout is.

Democrats lost Wisconsin by less than a percentage point in 2016 because Trump surged his margins with white, working-class voters in rural regions across the state, and our turnout in urban areas like Milwaukee wasn't strong enough to counter his gains. This difference between a President TrumpDonald John TrumpMost Americans break with Trump on Ukraine, but just 45 percent think he should be removed: poll Judge orders Democrats to give notice if they request Trump's NY tax returns Trump's doctor issues letter addressing 'speculation' about visit to Walter Reed MORE and a President Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonThe Memo: Centrists change tone of Democratic race In 2020, democracy will be decided at the margins Michelle Obama presents Lin-Manuel Miranda with National Portrait Award MORE came down to a rail-thin margin.

That tiny margin in 2016 meant the difference between a president who banned transgender troops from serving in the military and one who would have enacted the Equal Rights Amendment into law; a president who has irreparably damaged farmers in an ego-inflated trade war with Beijing and one who would have held a steady hand on the global stage; a president who welcomes foreign interference in our elections and one who would work to prevent it. The list goes on.

In 2020, with a president openly extorting foreign powers to investigate his political opponents and a Republican Senate that appears set to let him off the hook our democracy will live or die by these margins. It will be to our own peril to ignore this group of voters any longer. We must engage now if we want to make Trump a one-term president.

Bradley Beychok is the co-founder and president of American Bridge 21st Century, a progressive super PAC that supports Democratic candidates and is an opposition-research group for the Democratic Party. Follow him on Twitter @beychok

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In 2020, democracy will be decided at the margins | TheHill - The Hill