Each year, we look back at our Top Ten accomplishments together. Thank you for being part of it and for being a bold progressive.
— The Whole PCCC Team!
10. Obama’s top aide called our polling "a real roadmap for Democrats" to win in 2024!
The Guardian reports that leaders from our organization and Data For Progress recently "held meetings with top officials in the White House, House and Senate Democratic leadership, and senior political operatives around Washington" to brief them on new poll numbers showing how Democrats can connect better with the public on economic issues.
President Obama's former Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer called our polling "a real formula and roadmap for Democrats to adopt going forward which I think can be very, very, very useful." Core findings include:
Democrats must acknowledge economic pain and talk about "turning the corner" instead of pretending everything is great. Then, pivot to a forward-looking contrast between our vision of helping hard-working families vs. Trump helping billionaires, Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other greedy corporations that jack up prices.
Our side’s economic policies are popular, but most voters haven’t heard about them. We can’t be high volume on everything, so we should pick a few high-volume fights that communicate a simple story: We side with hard-working people while Republicans side with billionaires and greedy corporations.
Democrats need to reclaim our advantage on Social Security. Remember this idea: Republicans want to cut taxes for billionaires and will cut Social Security — Democrats want to raise taxes on billionaires to protect (and expand) Social Security!
See the 13-slide deck we presented to the White House here or watch us walk reporters through our deck here.
9. PCCC’s "Save Our School Boards" candidates defeated right-wing extremists in 2023!
When we launched the Save Our School Boards campaign to fight right-wing assaults on school boards across our country, ABC News reported, "Missy Zombor, a PCCC-endorsed and recently elected school board member in Milwaukee, said the support of the organization can be make-or-break."
"School Board campaigns are some of the most polarizing and difficult political campaigns right now and they are often run by brand-new candidates with little to no campaigning experience," she said.
In 2023, we got a big down payment on victory: Two thirds of our endorsed school board candidates won! 22 PCCC-endorsed candidates defeated right-wing extremists in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, Idaho, New Jersey, Oregon, and New Mexico.
Karl Frisch, a school board member who won re-election in the formerly red Fairfax County School District in Virginia, told The American Prospect, "When somebody decides to run for office, it is an enormous undertaking. PCCC's candidate training really helped flesh out what to do, and how to run an effective campaign that gets my message in front of the voters I need to win."
We are identifying, supporting, and training over 200 progressive school board candidates fighting extremism in 2024 to run successful campaigns!
Are you running for school board or know someone who is? Tell us here. You can also donate directly to inspiring school board candidates here.
8. More victories! PCCC’s candidate training and support helped elect over 100 Progressive Champions to state and local offices!
All across America, state and local candidates participated in our top-notch monthly Ask-An-Expert coaching program and webinar series.
We taught candidates how to build a campaign team, develop media relationships, pivot from trick questions to their core message, earn endorsements, write a field plan, and much more.
Nearly two-thirds of the 200 candidates we supported won in 2023! Many defeated fascists and insurrection sympathizers running in battleground legislative districts. This includes:
- 19 endorsed state legislative candidates won, including 17 in Virginia!
- We helped flip a County Council in Pennsylvania in an area crucial for 2024!
- We helped flip a Mayor’s seat in Terre Haute, Indiana that had been Republican for 14 years!
- We helped Democrats take back the Virginia Assembly and put a giant check on Governor Glenn Youngkin's anti-abortion agenda.
Want hundreds more victories (and local voter turnout operations) in 2024? Please chip in $3 (or $20.24 if you can) to support our work training, supporting, and electing progressive candidates in battlegrounds across the nation next year.
7. We broke through with popular economic messaging on local ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and newspapers! Taylor Swift had a cameo in our junk fee coverage!
The New York Times reports that the Progressive Change Institute "has been working with Mr. Biden’s team for months organizing events and promoting policies to combat [surprise] junk fees" by banks, airlines, hotels, cable companies, and landlords.
The Associated Press reports, "More than a dozen House Democrats around the country plan to hold events organized with help from the Progressive Change Institute to promote the administration’s effort to curb junk fees. Events have already happened in suburban Detroit, Philadelphia, central New Jersey, Albuquerque, Pittsburgh, New York..."
Our first event in Michigan was covered by local ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and The Detroit Free Press. Our strategy of going local was called "political gold" by Politico for earning TONS of local TV segments on popular economic issues at a time that Trump indictments and Republican chaos dominated the national news.
More events are planned! Tell us your story about surprise junk fees here!
And make a tax-deductible donation to help the Progressive Change Institute continue this effective work here!
6. We helped flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which overturned Republican gerrymandering last week!!!
NBC reports, "Wisconsin Supreme Court orders new legislative maps for 2024." By a 4-3 vote last week, the court struck down Republican gerrymandering that guaranteed the state legislature to right-wing extremists for the last decade.
This was only possible due to a MAJOR victory this year in a pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court race. PCCC members donated over $25,000 via 2,500 donations, proudly doing our part alongside great allies in this fight.
Over 10,000 people tuned in to the PCCC’s national briefing in March with Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, and Swing Left Executive Director Yasmin Radjy about what was at stake — and how people could get involved — in this race.
Eric Holder, head of the National Democratic Redistricting Commission, told PCCC members, "I believe every generation is called upon to do its part to protect democracy…This is the fight of our time."
PCCC co-founder Adam Green said this about the stakes: "Winning this Wisconsin Supreme Court election could un-gerrymander Wisconsin. It could give Democrats a fair playing field in the upcoming state and Congressional elections, the 2024 presidential race, and pave the way for decisions protecting abortion access and voting rights."
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said, "The PCCC is such a force of nature in American politics."
5. We continued our campaign calling this Supreme Court illegitimate and corrupt. And it’s having an impact. (Jamie Raskin remains a hero!)
It’s not an accident that an extremist Supreme Court struck down racist congressional maps in Alabama. They are feeling the heat.
In 2022, we started a campaign to get Democratic elected officials to say, "The American people increasingly see this Court as corrupt and facing a legitimacy crisis."
This successful push led numerous Justices to respond publicly. CBS reported, "Chief Justice John Roberts defends the Supreme Court's legitimacy."
Our campaign continued in 2023 as Justice Clarence Thomas’s financial corruption was revealed.
Rep. Jamie Raskin joined our national democracy briefing — viewed over 40,000 times — where surprise guest Senator Sheldon Whitehouse made news by announcing he would hold a series of hearings about Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court’s corruption. This led to recent subpoenas of right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow and others.
Raskin said, "Today's court is utterly degraded and prostituted and corrupt...We've got to take it back from the people who have completely derailed it."
We are working with allies to keep up the drumbeat on the Supreme Court’s legitimacy and corruption crisis.
4. We’re helping put abortion on the ballot (literally) in 2024!
From Kansas in 2022 to Ohio in 2023, voters in red states came out in record numbers to protect abortion rights. Why stop there?
The PCCC has been a national leader helping to fund local efforts in Florida to gather 900,000 petition signatures and get abortion on the ballot in 2024.
Gloria Steinem emailed PCCC members, "This is Florida's moment to rally the public against Governor DeSantis's dangerous policies…PCCC members across the nation have already contributed, and this gives us the momentum to achieve victory. So I'm asking you to chip in $3 to the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition.”
Anna Hochkammer told PCCC members last week, "We're turning our attention to empower 10,000 trained volunteer petition gatherers to become a ballot initiative army and pass the abortion rights amendment in Florida. We can only do this with grassroots support from groups like the PCCC and people like you!"
3. PCCC members are supporting critical Senate and House races to save democracy in 2024.
Republicans want a Trump presidency and a Republican Senate and House – to ram through a fascist agenda centered on political revenge.
PCCC members are working hard to prevent that, including by chipping in to top battleground Senate and House races.
Last cycle, we donated $1 million dollars to key races. We’re already on track to pass that.
PCCC members have already donated more than $260,000 — over 30,000 grassroots donations — to Senate and House races with one year to go.
Donate $5 to top Senate races in Montana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Arizona here.
2. Your progressive lobbyists fought for you (and America) every day!
Did you know that we have our own team of progressive lobbyists fighting for us in the halls of power?
P Street — the progressive alternative to K Street — goes toe to toe with big corporate lobbyists from Big Oil, Big Tech, and Wall Street.
Much of the public-facing work mentioned above (like rallying members of Congress to call the Supreme Court corrupt and working with the White House on local junk fee events) is thanks to the strong relationships that P Street has built.
There’s also a lot of behind the scenes work we do.
Fighting big monopolies. Fighting for more low-price generic drugs. Fighting for more climate action.
And our team worked behind the scenes for months to build consensus for a sweeping anti-corruption bill to ban insider trading in Congress. When it was finally announced, P Street stood with Senator Jeff Merkley and spoke at the event.
Heather McGhee, the former president of Demos, calls P Street "indispensable partners" in popularizing progressive ideas in the halls of power.
Saru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage, credits P Street with "introducing us to White House policy makers, giving behind-the-scenes strategic advice for impacting policy, and educating the grassroots about wage issues."
And Brian Deese, President Biden’s former top economic aide, credits P Street with "quietly offering ideas that we acted on, providing gut checks at key moments, and helping us advance big ideas that ultimately became law."
When major new action against surprise junk fees was announced at the White House, the P Street team stood with FTC Chair Lina Khan and CFPB Director Rohit Chopra for the big moment.
1. Our number one goal remains: SAVING DEMOCRACY.
Ever since June 6, 2020 — the day Trump used the military against peaceful protestors near the White House — our organization’s top goal has been saving democracy.
Our work on popular economic issues will help ensure the pro-democracy forces are popular with the public.
Our Supreme Court work aims to ensure we don’t have a repeat of Bush vs. Gore in 2024.
Our work supporting inspiring state and local candidates — and putting abortion on the ballot — will drive turnout that helps key races for President, Senate, and House.
And our increasing pop culture work — with comedians like David Cross and sports figures — is engaging new audiences in the fight for democracy.
In 2024, it’s all on the line. You have an important role to play. So much of this work takes planning.
If you want to help us plan with reliability, please consider being a $10 (or $100) monthly donor to our work. Can’t afford to give right now? Tell us how you’d like to volunteer your talents here.
Thanks for being a bold progressive.
— From all of us at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee team
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