Friends,

I hope you and your families have enjoyed a restful holiday season. As we embark on the new year, I wanted to touch base and share some reflections on the past year and thoughts on 2020 and beyond.

A Look Back at 2019

2019 was a strong year for Ascend and the candidates we supported. Here's a quick look at where we landed:

• We increased the money invested in candidates from 2018 by more than 25% -- and increased the percentage we invested -- in many cases representing 5% or more of our candidates' overall budgets
• We expanded to a fourth state -- Wisconsin -- and invested more than $20,000 in 5 candidates there in our first year
• We supported more candidates than ever -- 35 amazing local and state legislative candidates across our four states of VA, TX, PA, and WI -- 71% of whom were women, 60% of whom were people of color, and 71% of whom are now serving in office! The impact of these races was significant, including flipping the Virginia House of Delegates blue and creating a Democratic government in the state for the first time in over 25 years.
• We continued to grow our network of Partners, Advisors, and Key Opinion Leaders with whom we worked to identify and support rising stars

Looking Ahead to 2020

That said, 2019 was not without its challenges. The growing focus on the 2020 Presidential race made an always challenging fundraising landscape for this work even moreso, and as an organization that spends significant time vetting candidates and investing in local races (at a lower level than Congressional or Senate races), we've recognized that there is a relatively high overhead rate required to operate on a steady-state basis. Given that, as we enter 2020, we're engaging in a number of conversations about how to operate more efficiently -- potentially merging with another organization -- and will be excited to share where we land based on this analysis in the coming weeks.

For now, we just wanted to say thank you for all of your time and resources supporting this critical work. It's made and continues to make a huge difference for the candidates we support, and we look forward to being in touch shortly to share our thoughts on our path ahead.

Onward,

David

Co-Founder

Ascend PAC

Ascend PAC is a 527 political action committee aimed at identifying and providing financial support to emerging Democratic candidates running for local office, including school board, city council, mayor, and state legislature. Contributions or gifts to Ascend PAC are not tax deductible.