Feel-good update: Happy Thanksgiving!
Fun fact: Holiday season actually started last week with National Run for Office Day.
You may think the holiday season officially starts on Thursday — you’d be wrong: Last Tuesday, we joined ~70 other partner groups to celebrate National Run for Office Day!
Last year 2,500 people signed up on the holiday. This year, we set an internal goal of 5,000 new candidates recruited. Instead, more than 8000 people signed up with us to say they want to run for office in under 24 hours. The blue wave is just beginning — these folks are the next class of leaders who will, pardon the metaphor, bring it ashore.
Watch the National Run for Office Day video, featuring a whole bunch of people you might recognize…
In other news:
With a few more results in over the last week, we’re up to 201 wins since we started <2 years ago. Our candidates are responsible for 10% of all the flipped state legislative seats.
In Maine, Chloe Maxmin flipped a House seat in a very rural area by doing something remarkably simple: Talking to people about what mattered to them.
Blavity had 21 questions for Malcolm Kenyatta, the first openly gay black state legislator in Pennsylvania.
Rui Xu flipped a seat in the Kansas state legislature, winning his race by 121 (!!!) votes.
“From the start, two organizations gave me the training and resources I needed to navigate the world of campaigns as a first-time candidate: The Arena and Run for Something. They helped me craft a campaign plan, raise funds, find staff, reach press, find pro bono mentors for everything from speech-writing to fundraising, and make decisions based on the smartest data.” — Lina Hidalgo, in a thoughtful & surprisingly candid note about who played a part in her incredible win for Harris County Judge in Texas.
Will Haskell, 22 years old, beat a Republican who’d been in office nearly as long as he’d been alive. Teen Vogue’s on it.
The NYT highlights some of the young new lawmakers, including RFS candidates Cassandra Levesque, 19, and Zach Wahls, 26.
The News Review looks at Rachelanne Vander Werf’s race for American River Flood Control District Board of Trustees.
Brianna Titone made headlines for her history-making victory as the first transgender lawmaker in Colorado.
In podcast-land, Ross spoke to the Resistance Dashboard & I talked to McClatchy — download for your holiday travels.
I say it constantly — but with Thanksgiving on Thursday, I truly mean it: Thank you for what you’ve done to make all this possible. Have a good few days off — we’ll be back at it next week!