Before we all (hopefully) log off for the holiday, I wanted to take a moment to say:
THANK YOU, John.
When we launched Leaders We Deserve back in 2023, it was a leap of faith. We launched this organization with little more than the $5 I gave to our ActBlue right before we launched just to test that it was working. Turning a dream into reality is never easy, but this was certainly a risk. Usually when a major political organization is launched, it has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars already secured. We didn’t. But because you all believed in this dream, we now exist to elect young people across the country and give our generation something it has rarely had… hope. Hope that one day our government won’t be controlled by the same special interests it’s supposed to protect the American people from. Hope that our generation will take power and not just be younger versions of the many corrupt and ineffective leaders we have there now. Hope that’s made possible by you.
We knew there were young people across this country ready to lead, and we believed that if we gave them the tools, the mentorship, and the support they deserved, they could change everything. They could upend the status quo.
We weren’t wrong. But the only reason this organization has grown into what it is today — the wins, headlines, candidates we’ve backed — is because of you.
Your belief in this mission is the reason I get to dedicate my life to electing the next generation of progressive leaders. That’s not something I take for granted. Not just because of what you have enabled us to do, but because of the hope you are helping to give to our generation through candidates we helped elect, like Molly Cook in Texas or Zohran Mamdani in New York City. I believe it is that hope that will bring our country to a better day, because in order to fix something, you have to believe it is fixable in the first place. With candidates like Molly and Zohran, we tell our generation that while they know our politics is broken, at least there are a growing number of young people who represent us, not special interests, and are fighting to fix the broken system.
So wherever you are this week, whether you’re spending time with family, chosen family, or just catching a moment of rest, I hope you know how thankful I am to be in this fight with you. You remind me every day that there are people out there who believe we can do better. Who believe we must do better. Together we will.
With gratitude today and every day,
David
