John,
I want to reach out today to say thank you for being a member of Democracy for America.
Your support has enabled our organization to win some tough fights early throughout 2022. We have already accomplished so much from pushing forward with our work to keep control of Congress and the Senate, to actions that seek to hold those in power accountable.
That’s why today, I want to briefly review our work and actions from 2022 and then look ahead toward the rest of the year as we implement our strategy over the coming months.
So please read through our mid-year recap below to see all we have accomplished so far!
Three Key Actions DFA Has Led
Starting the year off, we continued our push to reduce Joe Manchin’s power by demanding that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer replace Senator Manchin as chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, delivering nearly 150,000 signatures in the process.
With the knowledge that numerous insurrectionists want to become poll watchers and local elected officials, which is all part of a broader effort for them to gain control over which ballots are counted and which are discarded, we organized and led a petition with multiple partners across the progressive movement calling on every Secretary of State to prevent insurrectionists from running for office and becoming poll workers and elected officials.In the wake of increasing attacks on our democracy, this action is more important than ever.
In one of the most significant victories we had this year, the hard work of DFA members led to President Biden signing The Postal Service Reform Act, helping to repeal the requirement that the USPS annually prepay future retiree health benefits, and allowing the USPS to offer non-postal services to generate other streams of revenue. This enormous victory wouldn't have happened without the public pressure of progressives and DFA members forcing leaders to take action.
Our Key Work to Elect Progressives
At DFA we know that effective organizing doesn’t start and end with candidates deciding to run. Successful organizing happens year-round. That’s why we engage voters by empowering leaders from the bottom up.
We immediately started our 2022 electoral work off by doing everything we could to elect Greg Casar in Texas’ 35th district. Following his historic victory, Greg wrote to DFA Members to highlight the DFA difference:
“I was excited when DFA’s own CEO Yvette Simpson and Grassroots Power Builder Nelson Pierce came to Austin to help us canvass, but was blown away when we found ourselves literally running door to door in the cold before polls closed, fully energized and committed to ensuring folks knew they could vote right then and there.” - Greg Casar, Democratic Nominee Texas Congressional District 35
Just like Greg, our team went all in for Summer Lee, helping her narrowly overcome millions of dollars from dark money groups determined to squash the progressive movement in its tracks.
“With DFA’s help, my campaign was able to build unprecedented support and momentum on the ground, propelling me to victory last month. This hard-fought victory nearly didn’t happen though because of dark money from outside groups attempting to buy politicians that will vote the way they want.” - Summer Lee, Democratic Nominee Pennsylvania Congressional District 12:
Just like in these two races, Democracy for America continues to be significantly focused on talking to people who establishment groups tend to ignore-- young people, people of color, and working-class people -- and getting them to turn out & vote on a regular basis.
Throughout 2022, DFA has used our targeted and highly efficient Text Out the Vote program to reach voters in several critical races in states across the country including Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and North Carolina.
In fact, just 7 months in 2022 DFA members have made over 2.6 million voter contacts and we aren’t done yet. With enough support, we will continue our program throughout the rest of the year.
New Ways to Get Involved
We know that progressives have a lot of work ahead of us if we are going to make the electoral gains we need in 2022 and beyond. We need to start putting our heads together now, in all 50 states, to figure out how we can protect our communities and fight back against the GOP.
That’s why we have new ways to stay engaged and get involved including relaunching our Night School training program in August. You can sign up for the Night School waitlist here.
We are also building our list of text subscribers, who are critical for Democracy For America’s electoral and advocacy work, providing rapid response to breaking news and helping progressive leaders win elections across the nation. Please consider signing up now by texting the letters DFA to (833) 451-4133.
We’ve done incredible things by working together.
We’ve elected over 1,100 progressive leaders nationwide. We’ve raised over $70 million dollars, made over 33 million voter contacts, and trained hundreds of thousands of volunteers since our founding in 2004.
With just a few months until election day this November, there’s still so much work left to do. Please consider making it happen by becoming a DFA Defender today, our monthly contributors to DFA who fuel the work that wins. You can choose the amount and the number of months and of course, you can cancel at any time.
Now, let’s keep up the fight!
— Chris
Chris Scott
Chief Political Officer
Democracy for America
