Quote from a leader on our celebration call

Friend —

On Wednesday night, Bend the Arc volunteers, donors, and leaders came together to celebrate running the largest Jewish voter outreach program of 2020 (if not in the history of elections in this country).

We were joined by special guests — Representative-elect Kathy Manning (NC-6), Senator-elect John Hickenlooper (CO), and Representative-reelect Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-5) — to cheer everyone who made our historic victory possible:

We are people who rose up, across religion, race, and all aspects of our identities, to preserve the dream that our country can be a place where freedom, safety, and belonging are for all of us.

Here’s some of what we shared on the volunteer celebration call about what we did together this cycle:

💪 We helped win a historic vote margin for Biden and Harris with 77% of Jewish voters — that’s a seven point increase from 2016.

💙 We helped flip Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona for Biden, plus two Senate seats and one House seat.

☎️ We made nearly 5 million calls and texts to Jewish and swing state voters for Biden/Harris and in competitive House and Senate races.

💸 Our PAC raised more than $940,000 to support 63 endorsed candidates — helping them train volunteers, run ads, produce campaign literature, and fight for every vote.

👀 We successfully shifted the narrative and called out antisemitism by political campaigns, with hundreds of news stories and powerful ads that were shown 3 million times.

Together, we won more than elections — we won the chance to renew our democracy and build a new future together.

As my friend Ai-jen Poo reminded me this week, organizing and winning this year meant overcoming major voter suppression across the country, the threat of vigilante violence from white nationalist terrorist groups, and a global pandemic. But our ancestors gave us the blueprint for moments like these:

When things feel impossible, we create a new possible.

And now that it’s clear that we the people have elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Trump and his Republican allies have been trying to sow doubts about the outcome through baseless claims and racist lies. The basis of our democratic system is that we pick our leaders, our leaders do not pick their voters.

It’s time to get to work building a country that's truly for all of us. We’re going to partner with our newly elected leaders to ensure that we can all live in freedom and safety, no matter our religion, race, or how long we've been here.

As the CEO of Bend the Arc, I want you to know that YOU are our power. Our organization could not be powerful or successful without you. Thank you for working for this moment, for celebrating it with us, and for being here for the long work of justice.

In strength,

Stosh Cotler, CEO