September 2022
BRINGING IT HOME TO WIN THE MIDTERMS!
“Midterm elections are all about turnout, and nobody does turnout better than community-based grassroots groups.”
--Zo Tobi, Movement Voter PAC
Labor Day marks the traditional pivot to the home stretch in electoral politics. After the dedicated year-round work of listening, engaging and persuading, and turning non-voters into voters, it’s time to mobilize for victory in November! Airlift Partners are ready to do just that–expanding their chapters and membership, training organizers and volunteers, and launching their biggest outreach efforts ever–on doors, on phones, online, wherever folks gather. Let’s support our partners and win–here in our home base of California and across the country!
SWEET HOME CALIFORNIA
The roadmap to keeping the US House blue runs right through California—particularly in several competitive races in the San Joaquin and Coachella Valleys and Orange County. Airlift partners Communities for a New California (CNC) and OC Action were actively engaged in redrawing the congressional district maps in these areas. The revised maps provide Democrats with the opportunity to flip five seats from red to blue, and to retain Democratic control of four other competitive congressional districts. Guided by their impressive grassroots savvy and data analysis, CNC and OC Action have mounted large-scale voter contact programs in these areas, and will continue to engage, register, and turn out voters for the November midterms.
Communities for a New California – Getting Out the Latinx Majority Vote
CNC staff and volunteers are working in 13 counties across the San Joaquin and Coachella Valleys – home to 2.4 million voters. If you eat nuts, fruit, or vegetables, they are likely grown and harvested in these important agricultural regions.
The new congressional district maps include six districts with majority Latinx and other non-white populations. Dominant issues of concern include economic fallout from the pandemic, livable wages, affordable housing, air pollution, and clean drinking water. The overturn of Roe adds reproductive rights to the mix. CNC Director Pablo Rodriguez notes that “Latina women are the most powerful untapped voting bloc and the driving force.” While they may not be abortion activists, they are definitely pro-Roe.
CNC is working to flip three seats from red to blue, and to retain Democratic control of three other seats. The Democratic candidates in several of these primary races out-polled the leading Republican candidate. But victory in November depends on turning out Latinx voters–especially women–including the increasing percentage of Latinx voters registered as independent. In the first half of 2022, CNC’s army of phone bankers and canvassers made over 130,000 contacts with voters in these districts, and are ramping up their efforts even more for November.
OC Action – Motivating the Latinx and Asian-American Vote
Forget your pre-existing assumptions about Orange County. It is no longer majority white or dominated by conservative politics. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both won a majority of the Orange County vote. The population of Orange County is 62 percent people of color. Large Latinx and Asian-American communities are playing increasingly influential roles in Orange County elections. In 2018, these communities turned out in large numbers to help Democrats win all seven congressional seats in the county, including Katie Porter’s dramatic come-from-behind victory over an entrenched and well-funded incumbent. Republicans learned a lesson, winning back two seats in 2020 by running well-known Korean-American candidates. OC Action is focused on winning back these seats, and returning Katie Porter to Congress.
Congressional redistricting in Orange County creates challenges and opportunities. Seventy percent of Katie’s Porter’s district is new, and includes more conservative Huntington Beach. Porter nevertheless comfortably out-polled her lead Republican opponent in the June primary. Victory will once again depend on getting out the Asian-American vote in Porter’s Irvine base, and in introducing Porter to voters in new areas of the district.
A Vietnamese OC Action partner is implementing a "hearts and minds" campaign supporting Prop. 1, which will enshrine reproductive rights in California’s constitution. OC Action has 60 full time canvassers who made 60,000 personal contacts with OC voters before the June primary. Currently up to 80 canvassers are raring to go–in four languages!--for the midterms. Their impressive ground game is key to victory in November.
“MAGA Republicans don't have a clue about the power of women. Let me tell you something—they are about to find out.”
-- Joe Biden, 8/25/22
Abortion rights are on the ballot: In deep-red Kansas, voters overwhelmingly rejected stripping abortion rights from the state constitution. The Democrat who campaigned on a strong pro-choice platform unexpectedly beat his Republican opponent in a special election for New York’s 19th congressional district. And now Alaska too! Women are outpacing men in new voter registrations nationwide. The backlash to the Supreme Court’s cruel and chaotic overturn of Roe v Wade has shifted the electoral landscape in favor of candidates who will protect reproductive rights. (Not to mention our democracy. Surprise, surprise--there’s an overlap!)
Abortion rights are on the ballot in Airlift territory, too. Maintaining control of the US Senate and House will thwart forced-birth proponents from imposing a federal abortion ban, and quite possibly will instead codify national abortion rights even in the absence of constitutional protection. Democratic governors can veto anti-choice state legislation, and our partners’ focus on local elections means a better chance of restoring balance to these fanatical chambers who are currently throwing their constituents' lives into turmoil. State legislatures and State Supreme Courts are more important than ever as the last word on whether our rights stand or fall.
Mobilization is the key. Some of our partners actively champion abortion rights, such as New Georgia Project’s Reproductive Justice Campaign. Others frame the issue as one of many important rights and freedoms. All Airlift partners know what’s at stake, and excel at mobilizing the kinds and numbers of voters we need to make sure right-wing extremists are defeated up and down the ballot.
Which states are you following? Here is a quick overview of key competitive races where abortion is a factor in states with active organizing by our Airlift partner groups (in parentheses): S=US Senate / H=US House / G=Governor / Other
S: Defend Kelly v Masters
H: Defend AZ-02, 04, 06 Flip AZ-01
G: Flip (open seat), Hobbs v Lake
- State legislature needs a net gain of two seats in each chamber to flip to D control
H: Defend CA-09, 13, 25, 47 Flip CA-21, 22, 45
- Pass Prop 1: amends the state constitution to ensure access to abortion and contraception
Florida (Dream Defenders)
S: Flip Rubio v Demings
G: Flip DeSantis v Crist (long shot)
Georgia (New Georgia Project)
S: Defend Warnock v Walker
H: Defend GA-02
G: Flip Kemp v Abrams
Michigan (Michigan Liberation)
H: Defend MI-07, 08, 10 Flip MI-03
G: Defend Whitmer v Dixon
- Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative would provide for a state constitutional right to reproductive freedom (pending appeal to State Supreme Court;
- Republican members of state Board of Canvassers blocked placing it on November ballot despite the fact that far more signatures than needed were verified);
- Defend D’s narrow majority on State Supreme Court; State House of Representatives needs net gain of 3 Ds to flip to D control
Nevada (PLAN)
S: Defend Cortez Masto v Laxalt
H: Defend NV-01, 03, 04
G: Defend Sisolak v Lombardo
North Carolina (Carolina Federation, Down Home NC)
S: Flip (open seat), Beasley v Budd
H: Defend NC-01, 06, 14 Flip NC-13
- Defend D’s narrow majority on State Supreme Court;
- Prevent legislative GOP supermajority to protect D governor’s veto power
Pennsylvania (PA Stands Up)
S: Flip (open seat), Fetterman v Oz
H: Defend PA-06, 07, 08, 12, 17 Flip PA-01
G: Defend (open seat), Shapiro v Mastriano
- State legislature results will determine whether or not a constitutional amendment restricting abortion will proceed to ballot for voter approval in 2023
Texas (MOVE Texas)
H: Defend TX-15, 28, Flip TX-34
G: Flip Abbott v O’Rourke (long shot)
Wisconsin (LIT)
S: Flip Johnson v Barnes
H: Defend WI-3
G: Defend Evers v Michels
Based primarily on ratings from Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. For an interesting analysis that takes into account the full racial diversity and voter turnout rates by racial groups in US House districts, see The New Majority Index.
MOMENTUM + MONEY = MOBILIZATION FOR VICTORY
“This election is now winnable if . . . we all dig in and double down on the hard work that delivered us the House, Senate, and White House in the last two elections.”
--Dan Pfeiffer, The Message Box, 8/9/22
The more money we raise, the more organizers our partners can put on the ground to turn out the big, beautiful, blue voter numbers we need to win. In a time of tight job markets and inflation, your generosity is especially important–progressive groups across the board have needed to stretch their budgets to be fully ready for Midterm Mobilization. In addition to those all-important person-to-person ground troops, here’s what else your generosity supports:
Distributing digital content
Mail
Printing language-specific voter guides
Election protection work
Mobilizing poll watchers and monitors
Rapid response teams
Cash on hand to fight contested elections
Improving our chance to win and create a better country!
Donate by Check. Set up automatic payments to Airlift with the Bill Pay service at your bank, or send a check directly to: Airlift, PO Box 617, Corte Madera, CA 94976
Donate Online at ActBlue. Just click the button:
For Tax Deductible Giving. Email Ruth Jaeger at ruth@airlift.fund.
Host an Airlift@Home Party on Zoom or in your home:
“We had an Airlift Zoom house party in June that was so fun and satisfying! It felt great to be joining people we know from different parts of our lives, work, family and friends, and from different parts of the country. Bringing them a message of hope - especially of real and effective actions to confront voter suppression - felt like the most generous thing we could do right now for the people we care about! And doing it on Zoom, especially with the advice of the Airlift team, made the whole thing very manageable. But without a doubt the greatest thrill did not happen during the event itself – it happened weeks later when the first of my invitees told us they, too, were having their own Airlift house party. The movement grows!”
- David and Anne
For more information, contact Alison Whittaker at alison@airlift.fund.
Spread the word! Tell your friends and family about Airlift and our events. Share this newsletter and the link to our website.
Thanks!
COMING IN OCTOBER!
We will be joined in October by headliner Robert Hubbell: Citizen. Optimist. Realist. Author of Today's Edition Newsletter, a reflection on today's news through the lens of hope.
FIELD NOTES
Dream Defenders endorses, then gets out the vote to help progressive Maxwell Frost win FL-10’s US House primary. He’ll soon be the first Gen-Z member of Congress!
Michigan Liberation mobilizes for the midterms while continuing to help eligible returning citizens expunge their criminal records under the Clean Slate Act ML helped pass. Read more.
PLAN, which strongly endorses reproductive justice, has also won rights restoration for formerly incarcerated people, deportation defense for immigrants and their families, and expanded access to the ballot box. PLAN’s advocacy for safe and affordable housing, a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, and holding extractive industries accountable for polluting the land and water will mobilize voters in November.
LIT is hyper-focused on increasing youth voter turnout in Wisconsin. Earlier this year, they helped elect three progressives to the LaCrosse School Board and organized a petition in support of Governor Evers’s veto of the notorious “Riot Bill” passed by Wisconsin’s right-wing state legislature.