Ready to help protect democracy? Swing Left connects you with high impact ways to get involved in the most competitive races near you.

Democrats can win the midterms, despite what Republicans want us to believe. There’s a lot at stake this year — from expanding Democrats’ razor-thin majorities to protecting our democracy from the increasingly radical and anti-democratic GOP — and we know early engagement is key to electoral success. Elections are our thing, and we’ve been working around-the-clock to understand which races will determine the balance of power in our country and where our community can have the biggest impact.

Simply visit swingleft.org/targets, enter your zip code, and we’ll match you with your nearest competitive race and suggest high-impact volunteer and donation opportunities. We’ve also included incumbent and eventual challenger information, and what’s at stake if Democrats win or lose to give you a better sense of these target races.

This year, we’ve identified 47 U.S. House races and six Senate races in roughly 20 states, five gubernatorial races, and seven state legislatures which will help deliver a Democratic win. And as maps become finalized after redistricting, we’ll update this information regularly to make sure Swing Left is your one-stop-shop for taking action in the midterms.

Winning will not be easy. Midterms are not usually won by the party in power, and the GOP’s efforts to suppress the vote are unyielding. But midterms come down to one thing: turnout. Whether it’s donating to support eventual Democratic nominees, joining a local Swing Left group, or writing letters and making calls, your early involvement is key in helping turn out more Democratic voters by November 8.

Democrats are helping move the country forward. In the last year alone, we’ve seen a strategic COVID-19 response and vaccine rollout, unprecedented funding to improve our roads, bridges, broadband, and drinking water, historic job growth amid a pandemic, and crucial reproductive health and voting rights legislation enacted in states led by Democrats. But these victories are just the beginning. We must expand Democratic majorities and deliver the GOP a historic defeat at the ballot box.

To #WinTheMidterms, it’s going to take all of us doing our part. Go to swingleft.org/targets today and find your nearest competitive race where you can help Democrats win.

Share how you’re helping Democrats win in November by using the hashtag #WinTheMidterms and tagging @swingleft.

Democrats can win the midterms. You can make it happen. was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today is one year since a mob of more than one thousand Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Election. It’s also almost five years from the day that I and some friends of mine, similarly dismayed at the results of the 2016 election, had a very different response: we launched Swing Left.

These events are, of course, connected. Trump’s authoritarian bent was clear long before his election, which was why Swing Left and so many other organizations emerged in response. We created Swing Left to support you all, the newly mobilized Democratic grassroots, in helping deliver the wave of voters that took back the House in 2018, and then the Senate and White House in 2020.

The Republican grassroots response to the 2020 Election, so different from our own, makes clear the challenges we still face. When our side lost in 2016, we organized, we mobilized a majority of voters, and Democrats won fairly in subsequent elections. When Republicans lost, they cried foul and built an ever-expanding web of lies, which they are using to try to change the rules so they can win future elections without those majorities. January 6, 2021 was not the last gasp of a president desperate to hold onto power, but the warning bell that a new, higher-stakes phase in the battle for American democracy had begun.

Election Day — November 8, 2022 — is just 10 months away, and the work to protect our democracy continues. It might seem like we’re up against insurmountable odds, but all across the country, civic organizations and Democratic campaigns are fighting back from multiple fronts, including advocating for voting rights legislation, putting pressure on members of Congress, and pursuing litigation for fair maps. At Swing Left, we’re focused on electing more Democrats to national office, and building democratic power in key states — and your participation is the only way we can win. The best way to end this anti-democratic, radical movement in the Republican Party is still to beat them at the polls, to show them that democracy itself is an opponent they cannot defeat.

How do we do it? We’ll be getting more granular in the coming months, but the answer is still pretty simple: midterms are about turnout. So we’ll call voters, write Vote Forward letters, knock doors, and raise grassroots dollars for candidates up and down the ballot — all in the name of turning out more voters in November 2022 in the key races where we need them to win.

Swing Left 2022 target races

What can you do today? On this anniversary of one of the darkest days for American democracy, you can send a message to the traitorous GOP House members who voted to overturn the election by donating to support their eventual Democratic challengers. (Of course, only those who will be running in Swing Districts; this is Swing Left, after all.)

More to come, soon. For now, let’s use today to remember where we’ve been, where we are, and fortify ourselves for the work ahead. 2022 will be a pivotal moment for this country and our democracy. I, along with the whole Swing Left team, am grateful to be doing this work alongside you.

In solidarity,

Ethan Todras-Whitehill
President and Co-Founder
Swing Left

January 6, one year later: A message from Swing Left co-founder Ethan Todras-Whitehill was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In a mass email sent out three days after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Swing Left announced three new U.S. Senate targets — Texas, Kansas and South Carolina — plus nine “critical state house races,” in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas. “We’re constantly adding state legislative race targets (those most likely to flip control of state house and senate chambers). Supporting these down ballot candidates will help boost turnout for the Senate and presidential races.”

Rita Bosworth, founder of the grassroots Sister District Project organization, whose sole focus has been on state races since its inception in 2017, put it another way. “We’re not taking away from the work that we need to do to elect Biden/Harris; it’s just enhancing that work,” she told host Steve Pierson. “If you get out the vote for a state legislative candidate, and get them to the polls, they’re gonna vote for the top of the ticket — right? You’re not gonna leave that blank. That doesn’t always happen in reverse.”

It certainly didn’t happen in the 2016 election in constituencies where Hilary Clinton won the presidential vote while the party’s congressional candidate lost. For example, in Virginia, which Hilary won by five points, while Republicans retained control of its congressional delegation. Both the State House, Senate and congressional delegation, flipped in 2018, in good measure thanks to the laser-like focus of Sister District. Along with a Democratic governor, Virginia became what Bosworth called a “trifecta” state producing, among other changes, a new voting rights act, stricter gun control laws and a rollback of abortion restrictions.

“I can’t overstate the power of local and state elections” and [the elected representatives] that are making decisions,” said Bosworth. “This is actually the stuff that affects people on the ground.” Not to mention redistricting and its offshoot, voter suppression, both the purview of state representatives. “We started Sister District, in order to really drill down on this issue of redistricting unfairness.”

Neither the media, nor, it must be said, the centralized Democratic Party, have paid much attention to state races, at least until recently. ‘Arizona Democrats have their best chance in generations to grab some power at the state Capitol” — both in the state House and Senate noted the Arizona Republic earlier this month. That would be a first in 54 years.

‘Ginsburg’s death brings new uncertainty to the battle over voting rights,’ the Washington Post headlined three days after RBG’s passing. “As Democrats and voting rights advocates seek to lower barriers to voting during the pandemic, the Supreme Court has largely deferred to local and state officials, showing a reluctance to upend rules close to the election.” Yes, local and state officials may have a critical say on the future of American democracy.

Other well-funded groups have sprung up recently, like Way to Lead PAC, whose “mission is to support candidates for public office (in 59 primarily state races, in 12 primarily battleground states) — from prosecutor to mayor to state senator to congresswoman — who are committed to seeking justice for all communities and creating a democracy that is truly accountable to its people.” On Thursday Daily Kos published its Elections State Legislative Open Seat Tracker. “Overall, Democrats are contesting more seats at the legislative level than Republicans, and fewer of the party’s incumbents have opted to retire, suggesting continued optimism about Team Blue’s chances across the country.

“This will be an important year for state legislative races, especially with redistricting right around the corner, and these open seats could end up playing a big role in races to control legislative chambers across the country.”

On the day of RBG’s death, Rita Bosworth sent out this email. It reads in part,

The world stopped spinning on its axis for a moment today. We are heartbroken by the news that we have lost Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There are few words to describe what she meant to the progressive community, and what her absence will mean for the future of this country.

I cannot sugarcoat this — it is an incredible loss at an incredibly precarious moment in our history. And the weeks ahead are going to be even tougher than expected. But know this: the future is not written yet.

Mourn her death, but continue moving forward. Do not let this extinguish your hope; rather, let hope burn brightly as a reminder that your actions matter, and we have the ability to continue making progress, even against all odds. She certainly did.

-Andrew S. Ross

How We Win Digest: Down Ballot with Rita Bosworth was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week North Carolina was the first state to mail out absentee ballots, two months ahead of Election Day. Next week, Minnesota will be the first to launch in-person voting. With dozens of other states following suit in the next days and weeks, “the voting window has very much expanded,” Jessica Barba Brown, senior advisor to We Can Vote, told How We Win host Steve Pierson.“The window of time is no longer election day, it’s election season.”

Despite the fears, concerns, suspicions — Covid-19, voter suppression, the kneecapping by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy of the service he’s supposed to ensure delivers mail-in ballots on time, not to mention the existential threat the President of the United States poses to the sanctity of the electoral process — voters seem to be embracing the new era. “About six in 10 registered voters nationwide say they want to cast their ballots before Election Day,” according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, “a significant departure from previous years that will force the candidates to reshape how they campaign in the election season’s final weeks.”

However, the poll also finds, one-third of “registered voters are unsure who is allowed to vote by mail in their state, whether election offices will automatically deliver ballots or ballot applications, and when ballots must be submitted.”

Which is where organizations like We Can Vote come in. In addition to information on its own site, its Healthyvoting.org spinoff provides updated state-by-state information on registration, deadlines and other voting matters, plus “common sense precautions” for voters using the mail, drop boxes or voting at polling places. They include wearing a mask, social distancing, especially at polling stations, and (of course) “before and after voting, wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.”

“We cannot let fear stop us from voting this year,” said Brown.“We really want to empower folks to go out there and do it in the safest way possible.” Beginning now, and all the way to November 3rd. The same goes for Swing Left.

Knowing the closer we get the more crucial the outreach. Swing Left, along with other progressive organizations, is calling now for volunteers to sign up with its The Last Weekends initiative, a mass mobilization drive focusing on the last three weekends before Election Day. A similar initiative leading up to the 2018 midterms, recruited 140,000 volunteers, contacted two million voters, and we know the result.

This time Swing Left is looking to raise the bar even higher, and make the outcome even better, despite the obstacles current events (and Republicans) have hurled in democracy’s way.

“I’m now feeling a little better about this,” said Pierson at the close of the podcast. “There’s been a lot of agita about this, but there really are a lot of options for people to vote safely. And so let’s make sure every voter knows they exist.”

-Andrew S. Ross

How We Win Digest: Healthy Voting In The Age of Trump was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Swing Left is excited to announce that Tori Taylor and Catherine Vaughan will be stepping up into the role of Co-Executive Directors of Swing Left, while Co-Founder Ethan Todras-Whitehill will be stepping into the role of President, focusing on external work and long term strategy while Catherine and Tori handle most of the day-to-day management.

These moves will strengthen Swing Left’s national leadership team heading into the fall, as we remain laser-focused on our mission to drive a massive wave of strategic, impactful grassroots activism to win the elections that matter most to securing Democratic majorities up and down the ballot. Tori will leverage the depth and breadth of her political leadership to grow Swing Left as we head into the 2020 election and beyond, while Catherine’s deep experience in management, social impact, and organizational strategy will help springboard Swing Left into the next phase of our work.

For the past year, Catherine has been serving as Swing Left’s Chief Operating Officer. She joined Swing Left when our organization merged with Flippable, where she served as CEO and Co-Founder. Flippable helped elect 78 Democrats to state legislative office during the 2018 cycle, and has served as the core analytical muscle for Swing Left’s engagement in state legislative work in 2020. Prior to entering politics in 2016, Catherine received an MBA from Stanford and served as a strategy consultant for companies like McKinsey, Teach for America, and Partners in Health.

Tori, meanwhile, has been Swing Left’s Chief Political Officer, where she has been overseeing our political and organizing programs. She takes this new role at Swing Left with over a decade of political experience, including three presidential campaigns, managing multi-million dollar voter contact and political communication programs for Democratic candidates, and serving in leadership roles at organizations like EMILY’s List, Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the Democratic National Committee.

We’re excited to have these two dynamic leaders stepping up to help us defeat Donald Trump, win back the Senate, and flip state legislative chambers across the country come November.

Exciting Changes at Swing Left was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Determining where and when political donations can have the greatest impact is no small feat. But in a year like 2020, Democrats can’t afford to miscalculate. And with COVID-19 radically altering the electoral landscape, the stakes are even higher and the risks even greater. Our democracy is threatened at all levels of government, from abuse of power in the White House to obstruction in the Senate to gerrymandering and voter suppression in the states. And Republicans are exploiting this pandemic to make it even harder for Americans to make their voices heard.

Swing Left has been hard at work developing a new way for Democrats to give in 2020 — one that helps win elections in the short term and build a stronger democracy in the long term.

Today, we’re thrilled to launch our solution: Blueprint.

The first of its kind, Swing Left’s Blueprint is a hub for high-impact political giving that brings together competitive state legislative and federal races plus nonpartisan civic organizations working to register, protect, and mobilize voters in swing states. Blueprint’s dynamic portfolio updates every quarter as strategies shift over the electoral cycle and new Democratic nominees emerge in key races. No matter when or how much you give, Blueprint ensures that your donations always go to the civic organizations and candidates who need them most.

In May 2019, Swing Left joined forces with Flippable, a leader in the movement to flip states blue. During the 2018 midterm cycle, our organizations raised nearly $15 million to help Democrats win a total of 140 seats in the U.S. House and state legislatures. Ninety percent of those dollars went to candidates in races decided by single-digit margins — the result of bold, high-impact investments in strong candidates running in the most competitive districts.

Blueprint takes Swing Left and Flippable’s combined expertise in targeting state and federal races to the next level. Our sophisticated return-on-investment (ROI) model powers Blueprint’s quarterly targets, providing timely infusions of funding when they’re most impactful for candidates and civic organizations. You can read more about the methodology behind Blueprint here.

What we’re solving

In order to win, Democrats up and down the ballot need a strong grassroots volunteer base — and financial resources. Unfortunately, fundraising on the Left is often lopsided: high-profile federal races dwarf support for down-ballot races and critical civic organizations. For example: Beto O’Rourke raised $80 million in an expensive bid for Texas’s U.S. Senate seat in 2018. That year, the same amount was spent across all the state House and state Senate races in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin combined.

Democratic spending also has real consequences for our democracy. As long as the GOP significantly outspends Democrats in state-level races, Republican lawmakers will maintain the power to pass voter suppression policies and draw gerrymandered electoral districts. Changing the balance of power in our state legislatures in 2020 before redistricting in 2021 will shape who controls our states and Congress for years to come.

How Blueprint transforms political giving

After the 2018 midterms, we started digging into how we could make it easier for Democrats to maximize the impact of their political giving. The power of grassroots donors was impressive: ActBlue — the online fundraising platform for progressive candidates and causes — processed 42,093,173 contributions in 2017 and 2018 for a total of $1.6 billion, or double the amount raised during the 2016 cycle.

But through conversations with grassroots donors, we learned Democrats needed a more guided approach. It takes time, data, and expertise to find the best investments among the thousands of state and federal races on the ballot. And the process of selecting and supporting voter registration, protection, and mobilization programs from an expansive field of nonpartisan organizations is just as demanding. This much was clear: to make consistently effective political donations, donors needed a year-round strategy they could trust.

Blueprint makes it easy to invest in transformative majorities and long-term voter power throughout the election cycle. Here’s what sets Blueprint apart:

• Quality candidates and civic organizations, all in one place: Blueprint lets you support candidates in competitive state and federal races as well as nonpartisan civic organizations working to register, protect, and mobilize voters. With a single donation, you can help move the needle in swing states while making a lasting impact on our democracy.
• Quarterly recommendations for maximum impact: Our team selects targets based on robust ROI modeling, so you can leave the spreadsheets and number-crunching to us. Every quarter, we update the portfolio with our newest recommendations informed by the election calendar, campaign fundamentals, electoral data, and quarterly campaign finance reports.
• Personalized giving based on your priorities: By choosing the primary focus of your Blueprint — either candidates or civic organizations — you can invest in the portfolio that’s right for you. You can also request a custom Blueprint to support even more targets based on your goals.
• Need-to-know updates, not a flooded inbox: Every quarter, we’ll share a report showing the impact of your Blueprint investment along with our updated recommendations. Blueprint also brings you closer to candidates, movement leaders, and other political experts to break down what’s happening on the ground.

Our Q2 strategy, explained

Last quarter, during Blueprint’s beta period, donors contributed over $220,000 to candidates and organizations, laying the groundwork for success in critical 2020 battlegrounds. Our Q1 targets zeroed in on early investments toward flipping state legislative seats across North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas; winning the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina; and registering voters in Arizona and Wisconsin.

With Blueprint’s Q2 targets, we’re expanding the map:

• Organizations conducting voter registration in Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin plus programs to combat voter suppression across the country. With the coronavirus pandemic upending traditional means of organizing, voting, and administering elections, funding these nonpartisan civic organizations is critical to ensuring a participatory and protected election in November.
• Mark Kelly’s race for U.S. Senate in Arizona along with the Iowa and Maine Senate races, where Democratic nominees will be decided in upcoming primary elections. These are three of Democrats’ best offensive opportunities to flip the Senate, and it’s critical to close funding gaps against their GOP opponents.
• Competitive state legislative races across Arizona and Pennsylvania, where Democrats have the chance to win control of both chambers in each state. In Pennsylvania, flipping the state legislature blue would secure unified Democratic control of the state government.

Our democracy needs a winning investment strategy this year. Start giving with Blueprint today to maximize your impact on the races that matter most.

Democratic dollars go further with Blueprint was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Right now, a lot of students are adjusting to the challenges of online classes, working to secure stable housing and income, caring for loved ones, and facing the heartbreak of not having the graduation they had hoped for. On top of all this, college students who are claimed as dependants have been left out of Congress’s COVID-19 relief package.

We understand that for many folks, organizing for the 2020 elections has taken a back seat while transitioning to our new reality. For others, this public health crisis further underscores the need for bold change in our government. November 3rd presents the chance to create another reality — our chance to take back the Senate, win the presidency, and flip the script in our states.

These are ambitious goals, no doubt. But just as we’re flattening the curve with our actions, we also continue to have real power to impact the elections, despite the new challenges we face. We’ve developed these college-specific resources so you can continue to make a difference in the ways that work for you. Here are some options for effective, virtual actions you can take between now and November:

1. Write letters to voters in Super States: Writing letters is one of the most effective ways to turn out voters, and our friends at Vote Forward have made it incredibly easy to do. You’ll need access to a printer, paper, stamps, envelopes, and a pen to get started. (If you don’t have envelopes and stamps handy, you can write your letters now and prepare them later.) Check out this guide for writing letters with Vote Forward, individually or in virtual groups. You can also sign up to host your own letter writing party, or join our weekly letter writing party.
2. Check out Swing Left’s Take Action tool: We’ve updated our Take Action tool to help connect volunteers with virtual opportunities and educational content on Swing Left’s 2020 strategy.

Resources to help your virtual organizing efforts:

1. Join our Slack community: The Swing Left College virtual organizing community on Slack is a space for all Swing Left College staff and student leaders to connect with peers across the country, share organizing experiences, collaborate on new ideas, and generally support each other. Email College@SwingLeft.org to request to join.
2. Meet with your group via Zoom: Zoom is a video conferencing service that makes it easy to organize meetings for your group. We’re offering Swing Left’s Zoom Pro accounts, free of charge so you can host virtual organizing events like group meetings, letter writing parties, or phone banks. To request the use of a Zoom Pro account, just email college@swingleft.org with “Zoom account request” in the subject of your email. Please give as much notice as possible, but at least 48 hours, before the time you’d like to use the account.

Organizing in this environment is unprecedented and uncomfortable, and we’re figuring this out together. If you’re looking for inspiration, here’s what some of Swing Left’s College Network and Fellowship program students have to say:

• From Sophia in California: “It’s difficult to organize in this environment for a lot of reasons, but for college students COVID-19 has been particularly impactful: most of us just lost our jobs, and some of us are now homeless, in abusive households, or sick. Our focus as organizers should be on taking care of each other during this scary time.”
• From Paola in Texas: “As a senior in college, this is not how I envisioned my last semester, having to evacuate from NYC after my mom and I sacrificed so much to get me there. I did not expect having to finish my semester from home, helping my mom make ends meet after her boss suspended her without pay. Like you, I’ve been following the news. I saw my Lt. Governor in Texas say that our grandparents are willing to sacrifice their lives for the stock market. I saw Trump call coronavirus a hoax. I saw Dr. Fauci facepalming at the lies and nonsense of the administration. I anxiously read reports of medical professionals running out of personal protective equipment (PPE). But more importantly, I read about Elizabeth Warren fighting to include anti-corruption measures in the coronavirus relief package. I saw Bernie Sanders fighting to protect unemployed workers, like my mom. I saw Nancy Pelosi, time and time again, bringing our interests to the table. That’s what keeps me going, that’s why I organize. Because in moments of crisis like these I want the people that have my interests in mind.”
• From Meredith in Washington, D.C.: “When everything in our lives has been turned upside down, organizing with the Swing Left community has been a constant for me. When I talk to volunteers about taking action, I center community because staying connected to each other and our common goal of taking back all houses in 2020 reminds me that I am not alone in believing in a better future.”
• From Matheo in Florida: “For me, the biggest thing keeping me going during this time of isolation is the constant reminder that we need to be better. From the White House to every state legislature, it is more evident now than it has ever been that we need responsible and accountable leadership. I’m staying focused on our goal of electing Democrats up and down the ballot to ensure that we have a better America for my generation, and for those to come.”
• From Anna in Ohio: “I think in times of crisis people want to be able to do something. Swing Left was created in the wake of the 2016 election and the overwhelming response it received proves this. In a pandemic, there’s not much we can do — except stay home — so I think having another tangible, important goal to work on, like registering voters and getting out the vote, gives people a purpose. Personally, it feels really good to know that I am able to help students continue to organize during this time, especially as we’re seeing that who’s in office really does dramatically affect these events and people’s lives.”
• From Holly in California: “It’s important to remember that there’s no “normal” environment for organizing — we have to be constantly adjusting to new circumstances and world events, and sometimes those new circumstances are even more reason to do what we do. In times when the whole country is scared, it’s up to us — more than ever — to step up and try to make change, even when we don’t have all the answers.”
• From Madeleine in Georgia: “It’s easy to feel scared, lonely, and helpless when our lives are turned upside down. But virtual organizing with Swing Left is helping me feel connected, hopeful, and like I can make a difference. Through the College Network, I get to stay in touch with student leaders across the country through Slack channels and Zoom calls as we all figure out what campus organizing means when we’re not on campus anymore. I can call voters to turn a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin blue and write letters to register new voters in the Super States. I can’t solve a pandemic, but I can organize students to make sure we don’t lose momentum in our fight to elect a better government this November.”

I hope their words resonate with you as much as they do with me. And when you’re ready to get back into action, just know that we’ll be here to guide you. In the meantime, keep in touch! We’re all in this together, and we’ll get through it by staying connected and supporting each other.

How Swing Left College Is Moving from Campus to Digital Organizing was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The last few weeks have been unlike any other we’ve known. It’s scary that our families, friends, and neighbors are threatened by Covid-19, and our way of life is changing as a result. Social distancing doesn’t just impact our work and put a strain on our economy; it’s hard on our relationships and mental health.

During this time, the wellbeing of our community is what matters most. A lot of folks are facing serious financial hardships, caring for neighbors and loved ones, or stepping up to support local businesses and organizations in their time of need. We understand that the 2020 elections may not be top of mind.

Still, Swing Left’s mission is to transform our government — and that mandate feels more urgent by the day. We’re doubling down on the critical work that needs to be accomplished before November 3rd. We’re building new scenarios into our plan to win up and down the ballot. And we’re expanding our tools and resources for remote organizing so that our volunteers can continue to have an impact on the races that matter most for our democracy.

Today, we launched our Virtual Organizing Hub, a comprehensive guide to how you can help Democrats win from the safety of your home. Here’s a quick rundown on the remote actions you can take between now and November:

From the hub, you can start writing letters to voters in battleground states, alone or in virtual meet-ups. This is one of the most effective ways to turn out voters remotely, and our friends at Vote Forward have made it easy. Register now so you’ll be ready to write.

You can also learn how to host a Virtual House Party. Bring together your friends and neighbors. Create space to talk about our political climate, why you’re inspired to take action, your experience (or lack thereof) with volunteering or activism, and how best to adapt in a virtual world. Then, make a plan to take action together.

Picking up the phone is still a safe and effective way to help turn out Super State voters. Right now, we’re encouraging our volunteers to call voters in Wisconsin. The State Supreme Court election on April 7th will be pivotal in the fight for fair elections in Wisconsin as well as our nationwide effort to roll back Republican gerrymandering in the next round of redistricting in 2021.

Covid-19 has left countless organizations, food banks, small businesses, and individuals in need of financial support. If you’re able, consider making a donation. Democratic candidates in competitive districts will also continue to need grassroots dollars, so if that’s your preferred mode of engagement, we’ve built tools for it as well. By raising money prior to primary elections, we can provide a vital infusion of funding for candidates right after they secure the Democratic nomination. This is a highly effective way to mobilize your network and bring additional resources to the candidates who need them most, especially in down-ballot races. Be sure to check out our fundraising toolkit for resources, guidelines, and tips to get started.

If you’re ready to take action now, we’ve updated the Swing Left Action Finder to point you to virtual activities like the ones mentioned above. It’s a one-click source for the smartest ways to maximize your impact from wherever you are.

Already, Swing Left team members, local group leaders, and grassroots volunteers are finding creative solutions to meet this crisis head-on while marching toward our goals for 2020. I’m inspired by what they’re accomplishing, and I hope you will be, too:

• Swing Left Greater Boston is hosting at-home phone banking to call Maine voters every Sunday afternoon. They start with a check-in via video call and end with a virtual cocktail hour. Their goal is to help Maine Democrats finesse their messaging to flip Susan Collins’s Senate seat and build a volunteer list for door-to-door canvassing later this spring.
• Swing Left Indivisible Sacramento and Swing Left Marin are hosting regular virtual training sessions to help volunteers learn how to write voter turnout letters with Vote Forward.
• Polk County Oregon Swing Left and Swing Left East Bay have started virtual letter writing parties so volunteers can join a video call and socialize with one another while writing letters to voters.
• Many of Swing Left’s partner groups, like Lean Left Vermont, Turn PA Blue and Michigan’s Indivisible Fighting 9, continue to meet virtually and coordinate local teams to support our Super States of Michigan and Pennsylvania.
• Neighbors on Call, a Swing Left-affiliate group in North Carolina, is getting volunteers excited about their state legislative races by hosting virtual Q&A sessions with candidates and elected officials.
• Swing Texas Left held a virtual forum with Houston-area candidate Ann Johnson, who is running to flip District 134 in the Texas State House. Volunteers heard from Ann first-hand and brainstormed ways to keep momentum going on the ground through November.

These Swing Left groups are in good company. Find your closest group — or learn how to start your own — right here.

A number of our partners are rising to this moment in important, innovative ways. Thanks to them, and the larger progressive movement, the prospect of a brighter future feels all the more within reach. I’ll highlight just a few, and ask that you help us share additional resources far and wide:

• Indivisible: Community Building During the Coronavirus
• EMILY’s List: Digital Training Center
• Run For Something: Candidate Support Hub
• Sister District: Virtual Organizing Guide

Finally, in the spirit of allyship, I encourage us all to be kind, understanding, and generous while many members of our community experience outsized consequences of this pandemic. This is another page in a dark chapter for our county, but we will get through it by doing what we do best: building better government — together.

Keep going, Swing Left.

How Swing Left is Adapting to Our New Reality was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Voting rights are too important to talk about once every 4 years. In his new book, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again, former Senior Advisor to President Obama Dan Pfeiffer argues that Democrats need to address this issue up and down the ballot, because “the only way to unrig the system is to ensure that every eligible voter makes their voice heard.”

Republicans have a tried-and-true playbook. First, they drum up fears about nonexistent voter fraud to justify making it harder to vote. Second, they attack any proposal to make voting more accessible as a Democratic plot to steal elections by making it so undocumented immigrants, dead people, and other scary groups can vote.

This strategy has too often cowed Democrats from doing the right thing for democracy (and the Democratic Party).

WINNING ELECTIONS = WINNING MORE ELECTIONS

Elections are run by state governments — not the federal government — which means that we have a patchwork of laws and processes and a sliding scale of democracy based on where you live. If you live in California, your government wants you to vote. If you live in almost any state in the Deep South, not so much.

This makes close to zero sense, given how far we have come from being thirteen separate colonies. But thanks in part to a Supreme Court that gutted the Voting Rights Act, we are stuck with an antiquated system of electoral federalism, which means the best way to fix our elections¹ is to win more elections at the state and local levels.

These down-ballot races have too often been ignored by too many in the Democratic Party and donor community. Organizations like EMILY’s List and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee have been the exception, not the rule. Republicans have spent years recruiting, training, and funding candidates to run and win at the state and local levels. But that is starting to change, thanks to groups like Swing Left, Run for Something, and the Arena that sprung up in the wake of Trump’s victory.²

It begins with winning those races, but it doesn’t end there. Expanding the vote must be the top priority for these newly elected Democrats.

Every Democrat up and down the ballot should sign onto a voting expansion agenda that includes a series of long-discussed, widely accepted, but rarely implemented ideas to make voting easier, including

• automatic voter registration;

• same-day registration;

• vote by mail;

• expanding early voting;

• restoring voting rights to ex-felons who have paid their debt to society;

• making it easier for college students to vote.

All of these ideas are proven to increase turnout, and there is no reason they shouldn’t be done. There is good news on this front — most of the states run by Democrats have instituted automatic voter registration and other elements of a voter expansion agenda. In 2018, voters in Florida passed an amendment to restore voting rights to felons.³

California has put in place a model for how to make voting easier that every state should emulate.

Traditionally, your voting location is based on where you live. This location, which is often a school gym, church, or firehouse, is the only place you can vote. Your voting location can change every election. If you show up at the wrong location, you can be turned away. Making someone vote near their house instead of their job when Election Day is a workday is painfully stupid.

A few years ago, California passed a law giving counties the option to eliminate neighborhood polling places in exchange for voting centers where anyone could vote, drop off a mail ballot, register to vote, and get a replacement ballot. The voting centers are open seven days a week and convenient for people to visit before and after work. Five counties experimented with the new law in 2018, and guess what?

Are you sitting down? It turns out if you make voting easier, more people vote.⁴

For too long, Republicans have defined the conversation around voting. They screamed about fraud, and we whispered about suppression. A 2016 Washington Post / ABC poll found that 46 percent of voters believe voter fraud happens “very or somewhat often.” Voter fraud is a myth. A 2014 study also published in the Washington Post found that between 2000 and 2014, there were thirty-one incidents of voter fraud out of more than one billion ballots cast. Donald Trump repeatedly blamed his popular-vote loss to Hillary Clinton on baseless claims of “massive voter fraud.” With much fanfare, he appointed a commission to look into these allegations. He staffed the commission with some of the worst partisan hacks.

That commission eventually disbanded without finding any evidence of voter fraud — which hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to blame his popular vote loss on voter fraud.⁵

Republicans loudly made their case in the public arena, and we quietly fought back in the courts. This was a strategic choice. Democrats looked at the polling around issues like requiring an identification to vote and decided we couldn’t win the argument. Democrats believed (with reason) that talking about how hard it is to vote would discourage some people from voting. So we stayed silent, and Republicans were able to disenfranchise millions of their own constituents without paying a political price.

The reason that Democrats haven’t won the argument on voting is that Democrats haven’t made the argument. That has to change. Democrats need to make a consistent and aggressive case to voters about why Republicans don’t want them to vote. The best political arguments (and all arguments) have a who, a what, and a why. They have to tell a story. Here’s how I would tell that story:

The Republican Party is trying to stop you from voting. They are the party of billionaires, corporations, and Wall Street banks. Republicans know their agenda of giving tax breaks to the rich and paying for it by cutting health care, Medicare, and education is not popular. They know that if you areallowed to vote, they will lose power. Voter suppression is not just a strategy to keep Republicans in power. It is a strategy to ensure the corporations, lobbyists, and the rich continue to call the shots in America. Democrats believe in giving power to the people, not the powerful. The only way to unrig the system is to ensure that every eligible voter makes their voice heard. You should ask yourself, Why doesn’t the Republican Party want everyone to vote?

Democrats must explain why Republicans are trying to stop people from voting. The public has a well-worn suspicion about political motivations. They aren’t surprised that a politician would do something nefarious to keep themselves in power. These lowered expectations help explain how Trump won despite several swamps worth of corruption. Therefore, talking about the larger context of why Republicans will go to such extreme lengths to remain in power, who that power benefits, and who it hurts is critical. The argument for a stronger democracy and against suppression has to be part of the larger story Democrats tell about America. It’s not a side issue. It’s the issue. Everything flows from who gets to vote. We have to make the argument proudly and repeatedly.

Democrats have to define themselves as the democracy party — the party that wants every eligible voter to vote and believes that America is at its best when all its citizens participate.

Pre-order Un-Trumping America today!

[1] Fix as in repair, not rig (that’s what Republicans do).

[2] The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has been doing yeoman’s work in this area for years, but they are finally getting some help.

[3] The Republicans in the state legislature are undermining it by instituting a Jim Crow–era poll tax, which is another reminder that Republicans hate democracy.

[4] No shit.

[5] Why let facts get in the way of a sad self-justification in order to fill a bot- tomless well of insecurity.

How Do We Fix Elections? Win More of Them was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hey Swing Left,

2020 is only 4 days away. We’re incredibly excited (and admittedly a little nervous) about what the next year holds. With the chance to flip the White House, the Senate, and the state houses key to ending Republican gerrymandering all within our reach, the upcoming election will be the most important of our lives.

We know if we work together, we can win. Here’s a look at some of the things we worked on in 2019:

In the 2018 midterms, we had Swing Districts. And this year, we have Super States — where the key fights of 2020 will be won or lost.

We announced Swing Left’s targets for the 2020 cycle after finding that the most important battles to win the presidency, the Senate, and the once-in-a-decade fight to control redistricting are concentrated in the same few states — what we’re calling the “Super States.”

By focusing our volunteer time and our donations here we can maximize our efforts, by working on many or all of these important contests at the same time.

—

When Democrats are divided, Trump and the GOP win. But when we work together (like we did in 2018), we can do really big things. In the spirit of unity, we teamed up with Crooked Media to release the Unify or Die Fund — raising early money for the future Democratic nominee for president.

While Democrats battle it out in the primary, Trump has been building his war chest. Whoever earns the nomination will face a serious financial disadvantage. We created this fund to help close that gap by pooling as much grassroots money as we can for future Democratic nominee — which we’ll hand over right when they need it most. With this fund, we started working to elect a Democratic president over a year before the general election.

—

This loss still stings. Judge Lisa Neubauer ran for a state Supreme Court seat, and a victory here would have paved the way for fair maps in Wisconsin — one of the most gerrymandered states in the country.

We lost this battle, but we’re still fighting tooth and nail to roll back Republican gerrymandering in Wisconsin and across the country.

—

Republicans have schemed for decades to win control of our state-level governments, impacting everything from who gets elected to Congress to who’s being stripped of their reproductive rights. They use their majorities to pass harmful bills and draw partisan gerrymandered maps that rig future elections in the GOP’s favor.

We have a huge opportunity to tackle this systemic injustice, so we teamed up with the experts. In May, Swing Left welcomed Flippable, a fellow grassroots organization focused on flipping state governments from red to blue, into our family. Flippable has a stellar track record: they helped 82 Democrats win super-close down-ballot races in the midterms, by directing 91% of the funds they raised to races that were decided by 10 points or less. By joining forces, Swing Left and Flippable make a one-stop-shop where you can find the smartest ways to make a difference up and down the ballot.

—

Using Flippable’s data-driven expertise, we jumped into the biggest state legislature election of 2019: Virginia. All 140 state legislature seats were up for election, and Democrats only needed to win 2 in each chamber to flip the entire legislature.

Swing Left volunteers went all-out to flip these seats. Together, we knocked over 88,000 doors, wrote 229,000 voter turnout letters, and raised $863,000 directly for our 20 candidates.That hard work paid off. We flipped the Virginia state legislature, giving Democrats total control in the state government. Our new majority has the power to pass life-changing legislation and redrew Virginia’s gerrymandered maps. Not only that, but winning Virginia sent a big message to the GOP: We’re ready to win in 2020.

—

Since starting Swing Left, we’ve operated on one simple premise: helping everyone find the most effective things they can do to win the most important elections. So in 2019, we launched a tool to connect volunteers and donors all over the country with their most strategic opportunities to take action. We call it the Action Finder.

The Action Finder connects volunteers with ways to help from home, or at canvasses and letter writing parties near them. It also points donors to strategic funds to win the state houses, Senate, and the White House. The result is one place where anyone can make an impact on the most competitive races, from wherever they live.

—

The above highlights just a few things Swing Left did in 2019 — in addition to running not one but two college programs to help young people get involved in politics, helping defend House Democrats who are supporting Trump’s impeachment, starting a podcast, and so much more.

And absolutely none of this would have been possible without you. We’re proud to be part of such an amazing community of committed volunteers and donors, and excited to tackle 2020 with you by our side.

Happy holidays!

Looking back on 2019 was originally published in Swing Left on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.