RFS feel-good update (6/6): A big milestone
Our best recruitment year yet!
Hi all -
First, let’s do the bright spots! 2022 is officially Run for Something’s best recruitment year yet.
In the last five months, more than 25k people have signed up to run for office — that’s more than the entirety of 2021, our previous best recruitment year so far.
The future can be bright if we work to make it so.
And we’re doing the work: We’ve got 46 candidates on the ballot this week across California, Iowa, Montana, and New Mexico. Check out who we’re tracking and keep an eye out on our social media accounts to see election results when they come in.
In less cheery news, some key stories related to Run for Something’s Clerk Work program…
County commissioners in Colorado and Nevada are working to subvert election results by doing things like de-licensing voting technology and reverting to hand-counting paper ballots, which could wildly delay results and allow for dangerous narratives to take power. CNN reports: “the moves, if successful in just a handful of localities, would result in delays and chaos and potentially open the door to election subversion efforts.”
Meanwhile, the GOP & Steve Bannon’s precinct-by-precinct strategy is becoming more clear: “The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.” This is why pro-democracy local election administrators with backbones are necessary in every single community.
If that’s not scary enough, election conspiracy theorists are organizing a “cavalry of activists” to monitor upcoming elections, including directly attacking and harassing state and local election officials.
Then there’s this new profile of Steve Bannon…
“How, specifically, does Bannon propose that his audience use its agency? By taking back their government from the ground up—as election inspectors, as school-board members, and, most practically of all, as precinct-committee members. Bannon may be the country’s biggest exponent of the “precinct strategy,” first developed by the Republican lawyer Dan Schultz, which encourages interested citizens to sign up for the grunt work of elections, because it can lead to the big stuff, like helping decide who oversees them. War Room regularly features citizen activists who have figured out how to work the system. After each segment, Bannon asks: “How can people get to you? How do they find out more about what you’re doing?” And they provide Twitter and Gettr handles, websites, on occasion even a cellphone number. … This is the Democratic Party’s nightmare scenario, the hobgoblin that visits at 4 a.m.: The infrastructure of civil servants on the state level, which barely held the United States together in the aftermath of the 2020 election, comes entirely undone through democratic means.”
All of this reinforces what we’ve been saying for over a year now: Election subversion in 2022 and 2024 will not look like a mob storming the capitol — it’ll be a single canvassing board or a county commissioner who undermines the entire process. It’s why we’re running massive recruitment and support campaigns to help local election administrator candidates run and win everywhere, and why we need your help.
If you want to dig in more on Clerk Work, I joined Marc Elias for his weekly Twitter Space on defending democracy; the recording is free to listen to so pop it on in the background anytime.
Some RFS community updates…
PA Rep. Nick Pisciottano introduced legislation to stop corporate price gouging.
NYC councilmembers Tiffany Caban and Marjorie Velazquez are introducing legislation to make New York City a Safe City for anyone seeking abortion care.
AZ state legislative candidate Analise Ortiz is speaking up about the need for affordable housing in Phoenix.
OH Rep. Phil Robinson helped lead on legislation that would end the state’s current requirement that students repeat the third grade if they don’t score at least “proficient” on the English standardized test — a consequence that has had no impact on older kids’ reading skills, and was instilling unnecessary pressure on kids.
The mayor of Helena makes the case for Jacob Torgerson for House District 81: “Jacob is an underdog — 19 years old, who comes from a blue-collar, working-class family. Just like me, Jacob understands the importance of hard work and knocking on doors to learn the issues that all Helenans care about. Since declaring his candidacy in May of 2021, Jacob has knocked on over 2,000 doors and has had hundreds of conversations with his constituents, which proves that he is not only willing to work actively on the ground but, when elected, he will be a fierce advocate not only for HD 81 but for all Montanans.”
Gwinnett County Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson, councilmember YT Bell, and Gwinnett county solicitor general candidate Lisamarie Bristol talked with Insider about the experience of running for office in Georgia as Black women and the kind of absolute bullshit they’ve had to endure.
We just love to see this kind of teamwork.
Hawah Ahmad explains in the Reno Gazette Journal about why she’s running for Washoe County commissioner: “I’m not a politician; I’m a policy person who knows that no law matters unless it is implemented properly on the local level. Our lack of transparency and accountability in local policy has fractured the relationship between government and the people, but it is a fracture I can mend.”
James Coleman - current South San Francisco city councilmember and candidate for CA state assembly - is being praised for his meaningful commitment to fixing the state’s housing problem; he’s the only major candidate in the race not taking money from private developers.
NY Sens. Alessandra Biaggi, Jabari Brisport, and Samra Brouk have successfully led on passing a Right to Repeat law for New York, making it easier for folks to repair their own technology.
Young people speak up in support of state legislative candidate Joe Vogel’s plan for reducing gun violence: “State delegate candidate Joe Vogel has laid out that kind of bold vision that should be adopted by the legislature: using increased taxes on ammunition to fund evidence-based violence intervention programs, legally requiring the safe storage of firearms, implementing microstamping technology, and requiring liability insurance for gun owners.”
In related reading:
We talked to Parents magazine about how parents can and should run for office — there are certainly structural barriers in the way but we’re proud to have worked with so many caregivers who are much-needed leaders in office.
We also talked with NPR about our work on school boards — I know I shared this last week but it’s just such an inspiring story and I’m really really proud of this program. I especially love that they spoke with a young woman who came through the RFS pipeline: “A lot of people who run for school board are parents or teachers; 19-year-old Maryam Zafar is neither. "I have a lot of like, really close experience to a big chunk of the people that we are supposed to be serving as a school board … and just because of my age, people automatically know that I have a unique perspective, whether they've heard it or not."
Moms for Liberty’s network is growing fast and getting deeper into school board races across the country. This is what we’re up against.
As foreshadowed: the Proud Boys are taking over local politics one county party at a time. Read about what’s happening in Miami-Dade.
Some event news!
ICYMI, last week we hosted Run for Roe — hundreds of folks signed up and joined for a powerful conversation on what local elected officials can do to protect and expand abortion access. Thanks to Cecile Richards for kicking it off and to FL Rep. Anna Eskamani, RI Rep. Tiara Mack, Washtenaw attorney Eli Savit, and TX house candidate Becca Moyer DeFelice for inspiring us!
![[ID: This is a screenshot of a zoom room]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFUNurFyWQAATF34.jpg)
Next up, on June 15th, we’re hosting Party for Something in D.C. — we’ve announced two big speakers, VA Del. Danica Roem as our emcee for the evening and the inimitable Rep. Anna Eskamani from Florida as one of our special guests. Get your tickets now!
On June 22nd, we’re hosting “See Yourself Running: Pride” - a call specifically for LGBTQIA+ folks thinking about running for local office for the first time. This is 100% free; help us get the word out!
Thanks for making all this possible. June’s going to be a wild ride of a month but we’re glad to be doing this work with you.
- Amanda