Hi all -
More updates from November’s Election Day!!! (You can catch up on the last two rundowns here & here.)
We officially crossed a huge milestone: Run for Something has elected more than 1,000 people since 2017. 🎉🎉🎉
On school boards: With all but 2 school board races called, our school board candidate win rate topped 72%. Moms for Liberty barely hit 30%. 😎😎😎
On Clerk Work: Our team played a role in recruiting 233 candidates throughout 2023 in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. 78 of those won outright this spring. 59 of them were on the ballot this fall. Overall, we won 138 races throughout 2023, including 34 wins against anti-democracy candidates - a 59% win rate (our best yet!).
In Virginia: 19 Run for Something candidates won, including five in key battleground state legislative races that helped flip the state house and hold the state senate.
2023 was our best election year yet: 54% (218!) of our endorsed candidates won.
That was only possible because of the incredible Run for Something team, which has grown by leaps and bounds this year and was able to dig in deeper and do more with our candidates.
You made this possible. As we approach Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for you and for this community. Your support is changing the country and the world.
This is one of my favorite stories from this cycle: Justin Douglas flipped the Dauphin County Commission by fewer than 100 votes. His win will save lives and could save democracy.
Douglas was recruited to run for the office by Run for Something, a progressive organization that recruits candidates to run for local offices and provide them the support they need throughout their campaigns.“ …
In the broader picture, Douglas’ victory will be a boon for Democrats in a county that often votes blue in presidential and statewide elections, but has had trouble making inroads in offices further down the ballot.
This victory will allow Democrats to oversee how elections are conducted in Dauphin County for next year’s presidential election.
Over the last three years, an interconnected network of political action committees (PACs), largely funded by billionaires who support school privatization, has begun to transform the nature of local school board elections across Texas. …
[D]ozens of ultraconservative school board candidates around the state have been backed by PACs that collectively employ a handful of conservative political consulting firms.
Viewed together, the connections among these individuals and organizations reveal a network of major funders and political operatives focused on winning control of the state’s local school boards. The strategy this network employs has been trumpeted in the right-wing press as a blueprint for school board takeovers: Create a PAC, endorse candidates willing to run on politicized issues, hire a consulting firm with ties to the Republican Party, raise enough to outspend opponents, and if victory is secured, pass policies that align with statewide party priorities. The biggest known backers of this network are conservative billionaires who generally don’t live in the districts being targeted but all of whom support school privatization efforts.
The timing of the network’s activities corresponds to revived efforts by Governor Greg Abbott and Republican lawmakers to support vouchers for private schools in the 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions.
Relatedly: RFS alum TX Rep. James Talarico and a bipartisan coalition in the state house have killed aforementioned Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher scam that was intended to defund public education.
Some related reading & good news:
From Salon.com: “We also don’t have to limit ourselves to playing defense. Run for Something has been doing a great job of promoting progressive candidates from the bottom up, and their model provides a path for going on offense as well. It can be quite liberating to realize that presidential politics doesn’t have to dominate your life. You can choose where to put your time, energy and resources, can give presidential politics no more than a few minutes of effort on Election Day — and can still work effectively to save America from Trump.”
In USA Today: Gen Z is running for office! The new wave of leaders will inspire you.
Two RFS alum have announced they’re running for Congress!
WA Sen. Emily Randall, who won her first race by a hair and then came out ahead in one of the most expensive & competitive re-election campaigns of 2022 - and has been on the forefront of the fight for reproductive health - is running in WA-6! We need fierce pro-choice leaders like her in D.C.
VA Del. Suhas Subramanyam is running for VA-10!
Also in VA: Del. Brianna Sewell is running for VA-7!
Have a wonderful and restful holiday. You deserve it.
- Amanda