Indivisibles,

With everything from impeachment to last week’s Iowa caucuses to releasing new general election plans, this week might be shaping up to be another busy week for our movement. So before we get into this week’s to-dos, we wanted to pause and take a look at the amazing response.

We want to give a very genuine thank you to our movement for your ability to come together in times of crisis. The amount of engagement and support we’ve seen for this project has been overwhelming: over 28,000 people have stepped up to fund this work in just a week and a half. Over 137,000 people have visited our website. More than 35,000 people have signed up to be part of this campaign. But our work isn’t over -- we’ve got nine months to supercharge the movement that will take back the Senate.

A few quick updates:

If you haven’t seen it yet, our Payback Project website is officially live! It’s a great hub for details on our plans, tactics, and targets. We all have friends and loved ones who are angry or hurt or scared and don’t know what to do -- this website is a great place to send them to get started fighting back.

Since we launched, just 16 days ago, we've raised over $812,000 in grassroots donations. That's an average of over $50,000 per day. 

This has been by far our biggest campaign for recruiting new grassroots donors with almost 12,000 first-time gifts.

Supporters have gotten involved from every single state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. And the most common occupation of our new donors… wait for it: public school teachers!

Also, did we mention volunteers have already sent more than 89,000 texts so far to Colorado voters to hold Sen. Cory Gardner accountable for his acquittal vote and will start texting Arizona voters this week? 

Ezra, one of our co-executive directors, was on All In with Chris Hayes last Wednesday night to talk about our work, and we heard great feedback. Take a look at the clip, then share it with your social networks to help us get the word out.

Look, we weren’t able to stop Republican senators from "acquitting" Trump despite the mounting evidence, but what we can do is vote Trump and all his GOP flunkies out of office and take back the Senate and White House from these traitors. 

The impeachment process is just the latest in a string of GOP injustices. Senate Republicans have been working for years to destroy democratic norms and hold up progressive change in favor of benefitting a few super-wealthy interests. It’s time to fight back -- and we are.

Ready to talk about how we’re going to win? Here’s our plan:

1. Build awareness & accountability.
2. Boost local political power.
3. Organize to win.
4. Get out the vote.

Give now to defeat these Republicans and fund our work to take back the Senate!

And now, let’s get to those to-dos (only a few this week as we watch and wait for more primary results):

 Your weekly to-dos 

1. Vote on the Payback Project’s first newspaper ad. We’re going to place a full-page newspaper ad in one of our target states, showcasing a senator’s bad vote on impeachment and funneling people directly into our payback plans. Who do you most want to see voted out? Vote and let us know.
2. Text PAYBACK to 977-79 and join this fight right now. Even in the two weeks since we launched this project, we’ve already seen twists and turns and had to drop everything to respond to new Republican schemes. We know that’s not going to stop, which is why we need even more folks texting, donating, and joining local groups as we continue to get payback from now until the election!
3. Send a Letter to the Editor calling on the Senate to pass H.R. 1. Watching Donald Trump get off scot-free was a sad moment for our democracy. Now we need to focus on what we can do to repair our Democracy. The House has already passed H.R. 1 (the For the People Act), a major pro-democracy bill, but Republicans in the Senate refuse to bring it up for a vote. That's where you come in. Our friends at the Declaration for American Democracy have put together a helpful Letter to the Editor tool that you can use to raise this important issue with your local newspapers.
4. If your group has endorsed a candidate locally, nominate that candidate for a national endorsement! We have five more waves of endorsements planned in March, April, June, July, and October. We’ll accept nominations on a rolling basis throughout the election cycle. If you’d like to submit for the next round, groups have until 11:59pm PT on Thursday, February 20, to submit candidates for the third round of endorsements.

 2020 Update 

Last week, the Iowa Caucus officially kicked off the 2020 Democratic primary season! And if Iowa gave us any indication of how the rest of the process will go, we’ve got a long and contentious road to the nomination. Not sure what we’re talking about? Read on to find out what went down in Iowa and what you can do to get involved and impact the primary season moving forward:

• What happened at the Iowa Caucus? We’re going to be brutally honest: the Iowa Caucus was messy and the results were muddled. Here’s what we know so far:
• Buttigieg and Sanders did well, but they didn’t pull off an overwhelming victory. Buttigieg outperformed national expectations, resulting in a bump in New Hampshire polling.
• Warren performed on-par with expectations, but her performance in Iowa hasn’t made a significant impact on her New Hampshire prospects.
• Biden “took a gut punch.” He is not expected to perform well in New Hampshire, which will mean two successive flops in the early days of the primaries.  

As of today, 100% of precincts are reporting, but reporting errors have led several news organizations to refrain from calling the Iowa race. The Iowa Democratic party’s allocation of national delegates gives Buttigieg 14, Sanders 12, Warren 8, Biden 6, and Klobuchar 1. The Sanders campaign stated that it will be requesting a partial recanvass of results, but hasn’t indicated how many precincts would be contested.

• Did you catch Friday’s debate in New Hampshire? It was predicted to be pretty lively, and didn’t disappoint. Sen. Warren delivered some of the more memorable lines of the night by leaning into her intersectional approach to policy, while Sen. Sanders continued to make the case for progressive electability. Meanwhile, Vice President Biden was intentional about lowering his expectations for New Hampshire, and Mayor Buttigieg struggled to address his record on race in South Bend, IN.
  
  
• After the confusion of the Iowa Caucus, all eyes are on New Hampshire. Polls for the first-in-the-nation primary open Tuesday morning and close between 7 and 8pm EST later that night. Polling averages show Sanders with a healthy lead over the rest of the frontrunners, with Buttigieg in second, Warren in third, Biden in fourth, and Klobuchar is fifth. Want to improve your candidate’s chances in New Hampshire? There’s still time for you to make an impact in this primary and your home-state’s contest. Check out Indivisible’s "How to Impact the Primary" resource for more info on what you can do. Not sure who to support? Take a look at our scorecard and see how the candidates stack up.

 Support the Payback Project 

It’s been just over two weeks since we launched the Payback Project, and already over 137,000 people have visited our website. More than 35,000 people have signed up to be part of this campaign. But our work isn’t over -- we’ve got nine months to supercharge the movement that will take back the Senate.

We’re hard at work planning all the ways to do that -- we’re running trainings for volunteers to text voters in key states, doing press outreach to bring more people into the movement, and running our first newspaper ad in Arizona. None of that’s possible without grassroots funding. Can you chip in $10 to take back the Senate and support all our work this year?

 IndivisiWin of the Week 

This weekend, Indivisibles in Colorado held a Planet In Peril Climate Forum for the candidates running for Senate in 2020.

Alright! Be sure to keep watch for new and exciting ways that you can get involved and hold this entire administration and its lackeys accountable. You can do that by getting the attention of your member of Congress, finding exciting candidates to support and endorse, and continuing to fight for the values that this movement cares about. 

In solidarity,
Indivisible Team