John,
It's hard to believe, but Jamaal's first re-election is about one year away — and the primary is even closer, at only 242 days away.
Jamaal already has a challenger to his seat, and there's likely to be more in the new year after redistricting is finalized. We must raise resources right now so we can fully fund our organizing and voter outreach programs, roll out a strong re-election campaign, and be prepared for anything and everything that comes our way.
That's why we've set a goal to raise an additional $15,000 over email before the end of this month. It's what we need to raise in order to carry out the strongest campaign possible through the rest of the year and into 2022.
We also know from past experience that this first re-election in particular won't be easy.
How do we know this? It's because we saw this happen in 2020 with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
After their wins in 2018, many questioned if members of the Squad would be able to win again. And despite the fact that all three members represented "safe blue districts", they faced well-resourced challenges from Republicans and political establishment insurgents — all who poured millions of dollars in dark money into the race.
And while AOC, Rashida, and Ilhan all managed to win re-election, they were only able to do so because their campaigns had the strong infrastructure in place to carry out strong organizing, volunteering, and voter outreach programs.
In fact, strong campaign infrastructure is how we won Jamaal his first term in Congress, too. Our organizing efforts helped TRIPLE voter turnout in New York's 16th District, which ultimately led to Jamaal's victory.
We know that making these key early investments in organizing works. It's what kept progressive champions in Congress term-over-term, and it's what will put us in a better place to win elections in the future. We just have to make the investments now.
Thank you for all that you do,
Team Bowman
