Friend,

Did you hear that 2020’s Census data just came out? It’s a once-a-decade event.

This matters because Census data determines congressional seats and how much federal funding we receive for crucial public services.

But as Rashida predicted last October, Detroit ended up being vastly undercounted—by at least 25,000 households. That led to a 10% drop in Census-recorded population as compared to 2010.

And it’s largely due to Trump’s botched Census collection, which he ended early, deprioritizing hard-to-count populations and communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic, including people of color.

As one of the nation’s poorest districts and one of the Blackest districts, it’s so important for our residents to be represented in government. We’ve gone unheard for too long.

So we’re going to fight to make sure every one of our district’s residents are counted, including pushing for investigations into the impact of Trump’s botched Census process. But now, we also have to be prepared when Rashida’s district is redrawn—because we will have to fight to keep our communities together.

Could you chip in now so we can fight to ensure our majority-Black district is counted, and so we can be ready to pivot in case our district lines shift? We can’t lose Rashida’s powerful voice in Congress!

Fortunately, Michigan has a new non-partisan Michigan redistricting commission, so we don’t face the same GOP gerrymandering concerns as some other states.

But with the Census data showing population growth slowing down in our district, our district may merge with a neighboring one. We’re not yet sure how the lines will be drawn, but whatever happens could affect not only our state but the whole country, given our slim Democratic majority in the House.

So in the meantime, our campaign is connecting to our neighbors to make sure their voices are heard and they get access to the resources they need.

Since August 1, we’ve sent 59,300 texts to let our district’s residents know about how they can apply for FEMA assistance for recent flooding. And we’ve conducted 4,500 neighbor-to-neighbor calls, to ask residents what issues impact them most. Plus we just hired another organizer to expand this deep listening program to door-to-door canvassing.

Just because it’s not an election year doesn’t mean we’ve paused connecting with our community! And we have to be prepared to serve new communities.

We’re in this for the people. Are you with us?

Please chip in whatever you can afford to our campaign, so we can ensure that our marginalized district is heard—and so we can be ready in case our district lines shift!

Thank you for all you do,

Team Rashida