👋 Welcome to the May edition of The Sister District Dispatch! Every month, we’ll catch you up on the latest election news and keep you informed on our collective fight to win permanent progressive power in the states.

Keep reading to learn more about what we’ve been up to this month!

🎉 Meet Our First Wave of 2024 Candidates

We’ve officially kicked off the 2024 Presidential Election with our first wave of state legislative candidates! We are proud to publicly announce our support of eight dynamic, inspiring candidates from five critical battleground states.

Building Democratic majorities in state legislatures is part of our core mission at Sister District, and each of these states is a critical part of our overall strategy to build enduring progressive power at the state level.

In case you missed it, our first eight candidates are:

Judy Schwiebert
Kevin Volk
Dallas Harris
Brittney Miller
Lisa Grafstein
Patty Kim
Anna Thomas
LuAnn Bird

Since announcing our first wave of candidates, our community has hit the ground running, raising critical funds and making phone calls on behalf of their campaigns!

If you want to learn more about each of these candidates and how you can take action to help them win, click here.

📱Sister District National Phonebanks Are Back!

Together with volunteers across the country, we launched our national phonebanks for the 2024 cycle last week.

In fact, we kicked off our first phonebank of the cycle with the amazing news that, at that very moment, AZ Governor Katie Hobbs was signing a bill into law that would repeal AZ's 1864 ban on abortion.

Sister District alum Mitzi Epstein shared the role Sister District played in this HUGE victory for reproductive rights in Arizona.

What an amazing reminder of the importance of state legislatures and the impact they have on our lives.

The dials we make now have a BIG impact — we’ve seen in Arizona and in states across the country. In races won or lost in the margins, a phonebank now makes a world of difference. Check out our schedule below — and click the link to sign up to join us:

Tuesdays at 12pm ET for PA candidates Patty Kim OR Anna Thomas
NEW: Tuesdays at 8pm ET for AZ candidates Judy Schwiebert OR Kevin Volk
Wednesdays at 4pm ET for Lisa Grafstein in NC OR LuAnn Bird in WI
Thursdays at 4pm ET for AZ candidates Judy Schwiebert OR Kevin Volk
NEW: Thursdays at 6pm ET for Lisa Grafstein in NC OR LuAnn Bird in WI
Fridays at 4pm ET for NV candidates Brittney Miller OR Dallas Harris

Sign up to phonebank.

📋 Research Spotlight: Downballot Roll-Off

Downballot roll-off is the phenomenon where a voter ticks the top, but not the bottom, of their ballot.

Past Sister District research has shown that downballot Democrats experience roll-off more frequently than downballot Republicans. While downballot roll-off may be the biggest barrier to Democrats taking control of state legislatures, it may also be our biggest opportunity since small vote margins decide many state legislative races.

In recent months, we have been partnering with Data for Progress to better understand what causes roll-off, which voters are rolling off, and how to reverse it. Some key takeaways from our research, which was covered by POLITICO, include:

Roll-off voters are most likely to be women; those who identify with a racial or ethnic category other than white; under the age of 45; those with no college degree, and ideologically moderate.
Roll-off voters are less likely to identify the role of state legislators correctly.
Roll-off voters are less confident that they know enough to decide between candidates and more likely to say their concern about potentially voting for the “wrong” candidate has prevented them from voting in state legislative races.
Compared to conservative roll-off voters, fewer liberal roll-off voters agree that the state governments (not the federal government) should have the most authority over important decisions. More liberal roll-off voters than conservative roll-off voters agree that it is their civic duty to vote ONLY in races where they are familiar with the candidates.
Women voters, voters under 45, voters without a college degree, and voters of color are more likely to misidentify the role and influence of state governments, feel like their votes do not matter in state elections, say that they do not know enough to vote, and say that they follow political news less. These same groups of voters are also more likely to roll off in state legislative races.

Now that we have a clearer picture of who rolls off their ballots and why, Sister District is moving into the next phase of this project: developing and testing messages and content that will move liberal voters to fill out their whole ballot!

🎟️ You’re Invited: Sweep Salon: A Day in the Life of a State Legislator

On Tuesday, May 14 at 7:30 PM ET / 4:30 PM PT, Sister District is co-hosting our next virtual event with Red, Wine & Blue. We will be bringing together a panel of lawmakers from across the country to discuss the day-to-day realities of life as a state legislator — and we hope you can join us.

RSVP by clicking here!

📰 Featured Readings & Podcasts

We’ve rounded up some key readings and podcasts important to our work! Check them out:

📝 Some voters skip down-ballot elections entirely. Are they the key to victory in November? | POLITICO

🎧 The Grassroots Campaign (featuring Sister District Executive Director and Co-Founder Lala Wu) | Build the Change Podcast

📱Tweet of the Month

Retweet now »

That’s it for this month! Sister District members like you are essential to our movement — and there’s no doubt with your help, we’ll continue to achieve historic and momentous victories for progressives in states everywhere.

Thank you for reading!

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