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Indivisibles,

Tl;dr Summary: Now that we’ve kicked off the Year of Donald’s Defeat,
we’re writing about the presidential primary, the [ [link removed] ]Indivisible scorecard
(spoiler alert: Warren leads the pack), and how we’re seeing the
Indivisible movement engage with both.

In the 2016 primary, the two of us supported different candidates --
Hillary and Bernie. Yes, we had a few arguments. Yes, we stayed married.
Yes, after the primary was over, we both knocked on doors for Hillary in
the general election. And of course, we were both devastated when Trump
won.

We’re writing now because once again, we’re in the middle of another
heated primary. But today we’re not just talking amongst ourselves - we’re
speaking to a nationwide Indivisible movement that’s spent three years
building progressive power in the Trump era. How do we confront yet
another contentious primary contest, where the very future of American
democracy is at stake? Well, read on.

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Part 1 - Indivisible’s goals

It’s been a long three years since we put the Indivisible Guide to
Resisting Trump online. Together, we’ve fought to save the Affordable Care
Act, to stand in solidarity with Dreamers and immigrants under attack, to
build the Blue Wave, and to demand that Congress do its job and impeach
Donald Trump. And now, finally, 2020 has rolled around. And it’s time to
throw Donald Trump out of office, retake the Senate, and save democracy.

We engage in this task fully aware that our problems didn’t start with
Trump. Trump is a symptom, not the cause of what ails America. A healthy
democracy, one that values the lives and voices of all its people, would
have rejected Trump the same way that a healthy body rejects a virus. That
didn’t happen in 2016. And that’s why it’s not enough just to beat Donald
Trump in 2020. We have to beat him -- and then we have to fix our
democracy. We personally believe this (we wrote [ [link removed] ]a whole book about
it!), and we know Indivisibles do too -- democracy reform is the top
priority when we poll the movement.

That brings us to this primary -- why we’re engaging in it, and why we’re
asking everyone in Indivisible to get into the arena for the candidate of
your choice.

Indivisible has been engaging in the 2020 election with two guiding
principles in mind:

First, we have to beat Donald Trump (and his enablers in the Senate,
House, and state governments). This is a do-or-die moment for our
democracy. Regardless of what happens in the primary, no one’s taking
their ball and going home in 2020. We will work our butts off to support
whichever candidate wins the nomination.

That’s why we launched the [ [link removed] ]Indivisible pledge last year -- to get
this commitment from Democratic Presidential candidates and grassroots
activists. It’s an agreement to unite behind the nominee and to do
everything possible to elect that nominee president. We’re proud to
report that all major presidential candidates have signed the pledge,
and Indivisible groups across the country have as well.

Second, we need a nominee committed to saving democracy. If we’re going
to deliver on the kind of policy that actually changes peoples’ lives,
we need a candidate who’s committed to grassroots power, to progressive
policies, and to a bold agenda to fix our democracy. 

At the suggestion of Indivisible movement leaders, we put out
the [ [link removed] ]Indivisible scorecard. We spent months engaging with the
candidates, urging them to complete an 80+ question questionnaire, and
inviting them for live interviews to go deeper. The whole point of this
process was to expose the candidates to the Indivisible movement, and
give the movement more information about the candidates.

The scorecard is not an Indivisible movement endorsement, and we won’t
be making one before the Iowa caucus. As we have said repeatedly for the
last several months: no national Indivisible endorsement is possible
until and unless Indivisible groups support it. We’ve heard from
Indivisible leaders that the field is too crowded and their groups are
too divided. We respect that, and we won’t be holding a vote for a
movement-wide endorsement unless and until Indivisible groups start
sharing strong support for it.

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Part 2: How Indivisible uses the scorecard

The scorecard is a tool for the Indivisible movement, requested by the
Indivisible movement, and shaped by input from the Indivisible movement.
It’s also dynamic: when candidates make new commitments (or walk them
back), we adjust their scores. That said, we’ve been open with each
candidate about where they could improve their score, and given each of
them an opportunity to do so, and at this point -- after months of
engaging with them -- it’s very unlikely that the differences between the
candidates change in a substantial way.

From those months of engaging the candidates, from analyzing their policy
plans to interviewing them face to face, one simple fact stood out:
Elizabeth Warren is the most aligned with Indivisible’s national
priorities. Warren is not the only candidate with a strong democracy
reform focus, or an incredible grassroots movement, or progressive policy
platform. But she is the only candidate who combines all three of these
qualities. 

Warren’s running a campaign focused on big democratic reforms and on
attacking corruption -- which lines up closely with Indivisible’s own
focus on saving democracy. She’s been actively working to build grassroots
power by being accountable to activists and the grassroots and working to
support down-ballot and progressive candidates. And she has a progressive
policy platform, with big, inspiring ideas like the wealth tax.

For us personally, the results of the scorecard lined up with our own
experiences of Senator Warren over the last few years. She reached out
early and worked with us and many of the local Indivisible groups in
Massachusetts to resist Trump. She’s fought to protect the Affordable Care
Act, taken on her own party to try and protect Dodd-Frank against Trump’s
attacks, stood strong in the fight for Dreamers, and led on impeachment.

This isn’t a surprising result, and we’re not breaking news to
Indivisibles: over the past 6 months we’ve done several surveys of
Indivisibles about who they prefer wins the primary, and Warren has polled
at the top in every single one. She’s also consistently received the
highest favorability ratings of any candidate from Indivisibles, and she
is consistently the 2nd choice for Indivisible members who support someone
else. In short, Warren is in a particularly strong position to unify the
movement to defeat Trump in November.

But, again, the scorecard is a tool, not an endorsement. You may be an
Indivisible member reading this who disagrees with all this praise for
Warren. Maybe, like us, you think Bernie has particularly strong
immigration positions. Maybe other top policy priorities or candidate
characteristics are the deciding factors for you that dictate who your top
choice is. That’s great -- it’s up to Indivisible leaders and members to
weigh the evidence and come to their own decisions. We hope the scorecard
helps you assess where some of the candidates fall short, and we’ll be
asking Indivisibles to ask candidates tough questions and hold them
accountable.

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Part 3: What we’ll be up to

With the national polling as close as it is right now, it’s reasonably
likely that any one of the top candidates could become our nominee. That
means it’s up to each of us to ensure that we end up with the nominee we
think is ready to beat Trump and save democracy.

So, what does that mean for Indivisible organizationally? It’s now clear
where the candidates fall on Indivisibles’ priorities, and many
Indivisibles across the country are campaigning to help their favorite
win. Our national team will be engaging with Indivisibles in key primary
states about who they’re supporting and how they can drive Indivisible
priorities forward in the primary.

One of us (Ezra) is going to Iowa this weekend to meet with Indivisible
group leaders and discuss what they’re seeing from the candidates and what
we’ve learned from the scorecard process. We’ll be lifting up the
positions and actions that make Warren the top scorer while holding
low-scoring candidates accountable where they fall short. We’ll also be
promoting the scorecard and highlighting the differences between
candidates.

It’s during contentious debates like this that we think of the quote: “the
opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Primaries are
contentious because we all care. And we care because it matters. The pull,
push, and struggle through this primary is worth it because it matters.
But we shouldn’t lose sight of the overall goal. In less than a year, a
new Democratic President will be preparing to give their inaugural address
to a new Democratic Congress. That’s where we’re headed together. Because
together we’re stronger than anything they can throw our way. Together, we
will win.

In solidarity,
Ezra and Leah
Co-Founders of Indivisible

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