John,

On Tuesday, Democrats lost the Virginia governor’s office to Republicans, who flipped all three high-profile statewide contests in a stunning sweep.

We’ll spare you a think piece about what we think this signals to Democrats or how it should impact our strategy for 2022, since there are already more than enough to go around.

But we do want to look at the facts and the numbers tell us:

$57.7 million: That’s how much the GOP’s Trump-endorsed candidate, Glenn Youngkin, reported having raised in the final filing deadline. The campaign ended up spending more than $30 million of that haul on political ads alone.

1,668,970: That’s the number of votes Republican Glenn Youngkin received on Tuesday. Republican enthusiasm soared in Virginia and Democrats simply weren’t able to match the GOP base’s high turnout.

If Democrats are going to protect our majorities next year, raising the resources necessary to compete with GOP’s record-breaking fundraising hauls will be absolutely critical. Plus, we’ll need a voter mobilization operation like no other to compete with heightened GOP voter enthusiasm, like what we saw in Virginia this year.

We need to get to work, and we’re going to need your help. Chip in to help Team Barbara Lee build the resources to keep the House blue and fund voter outreach efforts now that we’re one year out from Election Day 2022.

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Thank you,

— Team Barbara Lee