Feel-good update: 40,000!!
40,000 young people have told us they want to run for office — 20,000 of them since Election Day 2018. WILD
Last week, we launched an amazing new tool that allows potential candidates to look up all possible offices they could run for. Thousands of people took advantage of it, and as of today, ~40,000 young people have told us they’re interested in running for office. The best part: 20,000 of those folks have raised their hands since Election Day 2018. The momentum after 2016 has kept up.
We’ll be getting in touch with every single person who signed up last week to make sure they know what the next steps are. And as a reminder: This tool is a critical part of our $50k ad campaign recruiting candidates in Texas ahead of the 12/9 filing deadline. Lots to do!
In other candidate & alumni news…
Last week, Saige Martin and Jonathan Melton were both elected to the Raleigh City Council, becoming the first openly LGBT representatives to hold that office. And even better: Their elections were finalized on National Coming Out Day.
We honored Everton Blair with the I Am History award for being the first black and youngest ever member of the Gwinnett County School Board in GA. He made history again when he came out last week.
Eliz Markowitz, candidate for TX state house this fall, and Ali Brown, candidate for Indianapolis City-County Council, shared their coming out stories with the Advocate.
“I had no plan to do this,” Ward admitted about his decision on running to represent Poughkeepsie’s 32,000-plus residents. “It was one of those, oh shit, I think I’m about to throw absolutely everything I was going to do out the window on the slim and radical chance that the City of Poughkeepsie will believe we can do better.” — I love this interview with Joash Ward, the 24 year old running for mayor of Poughkeepsie, NY
Jason Mraz wrote a song supporting Morgan Goodman, who is running for VA House of Delegates in the district Jason grew up in. This is a jam.
MIT Democrats have endorsed two RFS candidates for Cambridge City Council, Burhan Azeem and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler.
PA state Rep. Sara Innamorato wrote a powerful op-ed about the need for harm reduction strategies to combat the opioid crisis. For her, it’s personal: She lost her dad 10 years to opioid addiction.
In related reading: The Center for American Women in Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers put out an awesome report on why & how women run — it’s worth reading.
Thanks for making all this possible. We’re just a few weeks out from the 2019 elections, when more than 150 Run for Something candidates will be on the ballot. If you’re looking to volunteer, check out your options.
Grateful for you all (and go Nationals!)
Amanda
P.S. Friend-of-the-org, actress, & badass activist Piper Perabo is celebrating her birthday this month, and to celebrate, she’s asking folks to chip in to us! Watch her video on why she’s pumped.