The State of the Race and Time for Action
(Excerpts from remarks by Janet Singer, CGB Political Director, at the Midterm Rally)
We have 49 days left until the Midterm Elections and there is a lot that is giving me hope and some things that keep me up at night.
When we started working on the 2022 election, the wisdom was that it was going to be a Red Wave, a bloodbath for the Democrats, which made historical sense. Midterms are typically a referendum on the President and his party.
But, there were always rays of hope. In both the 2018 and 2020 elections, the anti-MAGA majority movement brought the highest voter turnouts seen in US elections in a century. We knew we would need that force, united as a pro-democracy coalition, to turn out again this year. So, at Crimson Goes Blue, we built Action Teams in the critical states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In the last few months, the election has shifted from one where we would go down in defeat, to one where the election is very competitive and Democrats are favored to hold onto the Senate. The overturning of Roe has been a game-changer — greatly raising Democratic enthusiasm and voter registration of women and younger voters. Election prognostication relies heavily on precedent. Yet there is no precedent for an election centered on the elimination of a constitutional right affirmed a half-century before. Gas prices have been falling steadily for the last 3 months, taking some of the bite out of Republicans’ messaging about inflation; crazy weak candidates–the Trump ticket–have been nominated in Republican primaries. And we’ve had legislative breakthroughs like the Inflation Reduction Act, student loan forgiveness, the Chips bill, and gun safety legislation, all of which have given folks more confidence in the Democrats and Biden.
Historically, high disapproval of a President leads to big losses in the midterms. But, in a phenomenon that has never been seen before, recent surveys tell us that disapproval of Biden does not mean folks are going to the other side. And then there is Trump – who is pretty much destroying his own party. With the revelations from the Mar-a-Lago search and January 6 hearings shifting media focus from President Biden to Donald Trump, we now have a choice election. And when Americans have a choice, they typically choose the more moderate option. With Republicans defined as the party taking away our freedoms, pushing a 10-year-old rape victim to carry her baby to term, they are the radical extremists. If there’s a moderate party in our country right now, it is the Democrats.
So what still keeps me up at night? I worry about the threats to our democracy – the active effort by MAGA Republicans to make it harder for certain people to vote and, worse than that, their willingness to use violence and intimidation to interfere with the certification of free and fair elections. I am reassured by the giant effort I see from those of us in the pro-democracy coalition working against these forces. Our Voter Protection team has been a mighty force doing research on election deniers at all levels of government in the places where election sabotage is a real threat.
But, the biggest thing that keeps me up at night is wondering if volunteers like you will show up to do the labor-intensive work of talking to voters. We know that, along with giving money strategically, talking to voters is the most important thing we can do.
Democracy is not a spectator sport.
So how can you get involved? Go to our website’s Act page and at the top are buttons for three things you can do right now: Sign up for canvassing, Donate, or Join our weekly phone banks. To be properly plugged in, you want to be a part of at least one team, and you can join by clicking on the Join Now button at the bottom of the page.
We truly believe that we have opportunities for everyone in Crimson Goes Blue to find a role. Introverts, extroverts, busy, retired, our democracy needs us and the privilege of our Harvard education demands it. The anti-MAGA pro-democracy coalition won in 2018 and 2020. Yes we did. So yes we can, and with your efforts, yes we will.
Click here for video of the phone banking and canvassing experiences of Crimson Goes Blue members Faulkner Fox ‘85, Licia Hurst ‘84, Monty Bruell ‘83 and Maya Fonkeu (intern).
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