Dear MoveOn member,
We have 25 days left in this election to inspire, mobilize, and protect the vote—and show that while the Trump administration may create chaos and divisiveness, we are the ones who will be authors of the next chapter of our story.
Yes, Donald Trump, presumably still infected with the coronavirus and panicking as he faces the prospect of defeat, is behaving in bizarre, reckless, and destructive ways that are extreme even for him. Meanwhile, COVID infections skyrocket and layoffs continue on a massive scale, but Republicans' priority remains packing the Supreme Court so they can overturn the Affordable Care Act. It gets worse: Just yesterday, we learned 13 white nationalist militants had been caught plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and kill law enforcement officers, a sign of the ongoing harm being done by Trump's embrace of white nationalism and incitement of violence.
But Donald Trump doesn't get to decide our future. We do. And that's the part of the story that makes me more optimistic than I have been in a long time.
As MoveOn's executive director, I have a window into the world that not everyone gets to see every day. It is the more-often untold story of why we are going to win and build a stronger world together.
And it is a story I want you to see, because it is the story of our collective power.
MoveOn is full steam ahead with our America for All election campaign, and along with the power you bring, we're driving a three-part people-powered strategy to win, which we call "mobilize, inspire, protect."
First, we're mobilizing a massive grassroots army of people to volunteer, contribute to candidates, and organize others to turn out to vote.
- More than 500,000 MoveOn members like you have volunteered to encourage and support friends and family members to get out and vote. Studies show that there is simply nothing more effective than a friend reaching out to a friend about voting. Voters are 2.5 times more likely to be persuaded to vote by a friend than by a stranger. Remember, we lost the 2016 election by only 79,316 votes. And in critical swing states like Michigan, this averaged out to losing by only two votes per precinct. This means that the margin of victory is within each of our networks. We are well on the way toward our goal of 1 million MoveOn members taking responsibility for turning out at least three voters each, which could mean the difference in the election.
Click here to volunteer with MoveOn to turn out the vote.
- MoveOn members are also powering our election work by texting over 2 million voters a day, responding to hundreds of thousands of emails from fellow members, and hosting and vetting almost 1,000 physically distanced, masks-required events that have shown our people power all across the country.
- We are pooling our collective financial power to fuel the campaigns of MoveOn-endorsed candidates. Together, MoveOn members have raised more than $4 million for endorsed candidates, including more than $500,000 for Jaime Harrison, who is now neck and neck with Lindsey Graham in the race for the Senate seat in South Carolina.
- And we are pulling together the power of our voices. I started a petition the night of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing, to honor her legacy and demand that a new justice not be confirmed until after the next president is inaugurated. To date, a remarkable 1.5 million of you have signed. And more than 50,000 of us have made calls to the Senate opposing a rushed confirmation.
Second, we're inspiring new voters to vote this election cycle through cultural campaigning and targeted communications.
- We've identified more than 7 million "high-potential voters" in presidential and Senate battleground states, people who aren't certain to vote but who are likely to vote for Democrats if they do. We then worked with experts and tested messaging to determine what would persuade these potential voters to turn out. And now we're carrying out that messaging.
- Our Your Vote Is Power culture campaign has reached a wide audience that doesn't usually engage in politics, through art, memes, GIFs, podcast ads, celebrity engagement, and by driving hashtags like #YourVoteIsPower and #OurVoteIsPower to trend on Twitter with thousands of people sharing their own voting stories.
- Our Creative Lab has now produced and tested more than 30 different videos to help boost turnout among high-potential voters, and we've found several of the videos had a statistically significant positive impact. Now, thanks to contributions from members like you, we're carrying the winning content to swing-state viewers through a large digital media buy.
- The record amounts of small-dollar contributions we're raising from MoveOn members enabled us to launch an additional $2 million independent expenditure effort just yesterday. The effort includes TV, radio, and digital ads supporting Jaime Harrison in South Carolina, Sara Gideon in Maine, and Mark Kelly in Arizona. Check out Politico's story on yesterday's launch, and today's New York Times story on one of our ads supporting Harrison.
- We're carrying our messaging in other ways too. For example, our social media posts have already been seen more than 500 million times this election cycle, and we've distributed more than 2 million stickers to MoveOn members so we can proudly display our values to others.
Third, we're hard at work to protect the integrity of the election.
- We've all heard about the disinformation campaigns run by people and entities who seek to undermine the integrity of the election and suppress Democratic voters—and Black voters in particular. Our investigations team has been tracking down those spreading disinformation and running campaigns to stop them in their tracks, including getting them banned from social media platforms like Facebook.
- Our #SaveThePostOffice campaign this summer, including a nationwide mobilization of hundreds of physically distanced actions outside post offices (thanks to those of you who participated!), added to pressure on Trump's appointees and played a role in forcing them to back away from changes that were slowing mail delivery, so we can be more confident that ballots cast via vote-by-mail will be prioritized, handled securely, and delivered on time.
- We're now gearing up as part of a coalition called Protect the Results, to be prepared for massive, nonviolent mobilizations after November 3 if they are needed to ensure every vote is counted. Despite what Donald Trump says, he doesn't get to determine the winner of the election. We do, with our votes. The work we are doing in advance to prepare for multiple potential post-election scenarios will help ensure that remains true.
And I'm not even done, but I'll spare you more details. Point is, there is SO much incredible work being fueled by members like you, and it all adds up to one massive fireball of energy committed to defeating Trump, electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, taking the Senate, and expanding our majority in the House. MoveOn's membership is big, and it is diverse—and two things we have in common are our commitment to a better future and our remarkable level of engagement in this election.
All that said, we can't get overconfident, or let up one iota. The Electoral College is skewed against us, Republican state governments are hard at work to suppress the vote, we already know Trump plans to try to undermine the results, and we all remember 2016, when pre-election polling turned out to be painfully inaccurate. Now is no time to become complacent.
But I truly do believe that an increasingly large, multiracial majority in this country rejects Trump and what he stands for and is preparing to vote in the largest-turnout election in American history. And that MoveOn members have played a big role in getting us where we are today. Let's keep it up. If you have more time over the next 25 days, volunteer with MoveOn or a candidate or organization of your choosing. If you have more money you can spare, chip in in to fund get-out-the-vote work. And most importantly, if you have friends or family, please talk to them about this election and do all you can to persuade them to vote, and please make sure you have your own plan to vote. (You and your friends and family can check your registration status, learn how to vote, and more with our election toolkit. Please share widely!)
If all of us give it our all, I believe that we will win, resoundingly, and set our country on a new path.
Thanks for all you do.
–Executive Director Rahna Epting and the MoveOn team
Want to support MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?
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