RFS feel-good update (11/13): Moms for Liberty lost & we all won

(But especially RFS candidates, who really really won!)

Hi all -

First, ICYMI: The initial updates from Election Day!

As of this morning, we’re up to 170 winners — with a few dozen left to call, we’re at at least a 56% overall win-rate for Election Day. There are at least 4 candidates headed to run-offs and 3 who have end-of-year general elections still to come.

Some of the many many heartwarming stories from last week:

• Shoutout to Ruthzee Louijeune, who not only handily won re-election (and was the top vote-getter!!) but will now be president of the Boston City Council — a hugely important position for an incredibly impressive leader.

• Obsessed with this lit from Justin Douglas, who flipped the Dauphin County Commission when he won by ONLY 42 VOTES. This flip means pro-democracy folks will be running the 2024 election in this critical PA county. Justin told Bolts Mag that he’s eager to expand ballot access, install more drop boxes, and allow ballot curing (something the county did not allow in 2020 or 2022…)

42 votes in a county race in Pennsylvania in November 2023 decided the conditions of the 2024 election — when I say “to win the big elections, we have to win the small ones,” that’s what I mean. That’s why Clerk Work, which resulted in 77% of our pro-democracy candidates winning, including 15 specifically against anti-democracy opponents, has been so important!

• In Chesterfield County, VA, Erin Barr beat an incumbent county attorney who’s office had dropped charges against a pastor who was caught trying to meet up with a teenage girl who turned out to be an undercover detective.

• Meet Nick Roberts, the 23 year old who won a seat on the Indianapolis City-County Council, whose team knocked more than 20,000 doors — he personally did half of those.

• A quick hit-list of some of our other young folks who won big:
  
  — 26-year-old Janelle Astorga, School Board, District 1, Albuquerque, New Mexico
  —19-year-old Gavin Scott Griffin, City Council, At-Large, Titusville, Pennsylvania
  — 27-year-old Brandon Sakbun, Mayor, Terre Haute, Indiana (who beat a Republican incumbent!)
  — 23-year-old Dylan Liddle, City Council, District 2, Lawrenceburg, Indiana (who beat an incumbent!)
  — 19-year-old Isaiah Santiago, School Board, At-Large, Rochester, New York
  — 26-year-old Brandon Holdridge, Town Supervisor, Chester, New York (who beat a Republican incumbent! Noticing a trend??? Young candidates can beat out incumbents + flip seats!)

• The Saint Paul City Council will be all women, all leaders under 40, six will be women of color and four will be RFS alum. That’s how we do it.

  

• Mount Clemons, MI, has embraced Spencer Calhoun, who won his race for city commission a few years after he was kicked out of his parents’ home for being gay. Spencer won against an anti-democracy candidate in a role that oversees election administration.

• Juan Jaramillo, a 30 year old son of Colombian immigrants, will be the first Latino and only non-white official serving on the 11-member city council in Revere, MA — a community whose Latino population has increased 4x in the last 20+ years and is now 55% people of color. 👀

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Let’s talk school boards.

Moms for Liberty had a bad cycle — losing nearly everywhere. (You can read more about how they ate shit hard in MSNBC or Salon, among other places.)

Per WSJ, "roughly a third of candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty won Tuesday or were leading in contested races, down from 45% in prior races." The 1776 Project, a comparably dangerous political organization, had a 59% win rate.

Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of Run for Something school board candidates’ won, including every single one of our candidates who was up against someone endorsed by Moms for Liberty.

From an article aptly titled “How to keep wingnuts off school boards:”

A typical race might look like the one in Henrico County, Virginia, in which high school teacher Madison Irving, endorsed by Run for Something and the Campaign for Our Shared Future, was vying for a seat against Eleina Espigh, who has described herself as “anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-abortion … the school board’s worst enemy.” Irving defeated Espigh on Tuesday: 10,108 votes to 7,484.

One schoolteacher who voted for Irving told the Henrico Citizen that she had canvassed for him too, in part because “I don’t think that [Irving] stands for any type of banning of books. He wants all children to be represented.” Another voter said he cast a vote for Irving largely because “Republicans suck.”

This race, like others that played out this week, illustrates a broader principle. These campaigns don’t have to be complicated in order to prevail; when the Republican-based candidates are so openly unhinged, their opposition need only not be.

What this tells us is: When we run, we win. That means the key to success is candidate recruitment — which is exactly what the 50 State School Board Strategy is.

And it’ll be even more important to dig in on, because, again from the WSJ:

“Undeterred by Tuesday’s setbacks, Moms for Liberty will increase training for school board candidates moving forward and try to rally more donors to support them. “We’re just getting started,” [MFL founder Tiffany] Justice said.”

I loved this read-out from Amelia McMillan, who flipped the school board in Central York and beat extremists:

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The last year has been hard for any number of reasons. In spite of that (or maybe because of it), I am so proud of what we’ve done — and even more committed than ever to keeping the momentum into 2024 and beyond, because somehow only 7 years in and we’re just getting started.

You’ve made that possible. Thanks.

- Amanda