This is part 4 of looking back at our fundraising and GOTV efforts in 2022. Next up?
Balloon Juice efforts in Georgia and Wisconsin!
In both of these states, we focused almost entirely on boots on the ground organizations.
Georgia on my mind!
Georgia may have had the most impactful election of this cycle, with a nail biter of a run-off and control of the Senate at stake.
A bit of background.
Georgia is (maybe) trending blue. Would it be over the top to say that Georgia has twice saved Democracy by electing two awesome Democratic Senators? I think not! In spite of our love for Stacey Abrams and the strong desire to oust the awful governor and replace him with Stacey, who would have been great, we resisted the urge to respond to the siren call to fund Stacey Abrams. She had plenty of funding without our help, and anything that might keep her out of office would not be funding-related.
Georgia has 16 electoral votes. If we can keep GA in the blue column in 2024, it could offset Ohio’s 17 electoral votes, which, sadly, appear to be gone for good. Or at least for a good long while. As in the other states we’ve discussed this week, in Georgia we focused on boots on the ground and candidates with direct impact on voting rights.
So what did we do for Georgia?
Four Directions, was in GA for the runoff in Jan 2021, where the Native vote was more than the margin of victory. We raised money for Four Directions several times in 2021-22. The first fundraising in May 2021 was just for Four Directions generally, with out a focus on a specific state, where we raised $24,287 + $30,000 match, that isn’t included in the GA total. Then…
$26,910 + $50,000 (Aug 2021) + $40,285 (GA runoff Dec 2022) = $117,195
Worker Power, which was in GA for the runoff in Jan 2021, quickly moved to put boots on the ground again for the runoff on Dec 6. Worker Power had the plan and the personnel; they just needed funds to pay volunteers and cover the travel and lodging expenses of out of state pre-trained staff.
$35,846
Candidate: Rev. Warnock: Reverend Warnock was not hurting for funds, which is why we focused more on organizations driving turnout. Nevertheless, we put up a link for BJers who wanted to donate directly to the campaign. As the whole world knows, he won.
$7,400
Candidate Bee Nyugen for Secretary of State, who was the first Asian-American to run for statewide office in Georgia, running against Brad Raffensperger of “I just want to find 11,780 votes” fame. We went into this one with our eyes open. She was unlikely to win. But she deserved our support for challenging Raffensperger, who may have done the right thing in 2021 but then turned around and started purging voter rolls and reducing early voting to suppress Democratic turnout. We don’t have the % for 2022, but Asian-American turnout was at amazingly high levels in 2020, with the percentage turning out for Dems something like 98%, if I recall correctly.
Candidate Jen Jordan for Attorney General, who lost her race for Attorney General.
$1,503
What do we have to show for our efforts?
Rafael Warnock won! We kept the senate! We are now 51-49, which changes the power dynamic significantly in our favor, and it gives us some breathing room. Not to mention that a certain AZ senator can’t threaten to turn the senate leadership over to the other party, if she chose to switch.
Voter turnout was good. GA is going to be a key state for the foreseeable future, and all the voter registrations and GOTV efforts clearly made a difference. All the major groups need to catch their breath after an election like this, so we haven’t pressed for specific information. But we’ll be talking with both Four Directions and Worker Power in the next month or so to get more details on the measurable outcomes related to their efforts.
Unlike Arizona and Nevada, Trump’s hand-picked election-denying villains for state offices lost to more “mainstream” Republicans. Sadly, the Republicans swept the top state-level races.
Closing thoughts?
Georgia is a cautionary tale. We are not surprised that – with the extreme levels of Democratic voter suppression in GA – Republicans were able to take/keep all the top offices where they can continue to gerrymander in favor or Republicans and continue to suppress the Democratic vote.
An eminently qualified Senator won by a distressingly narrow margin, against a total loon who was absolutely unfit to hold public office, let alone be a senator in GA!
There is much work to be done in Georgia.
On Wisconsin!
We had high hopes for Wisconsin. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got enough. For now.
A bit of background.
Wisconsin shocked the nation when it narrowly went for Donald Trump in 2016, the first Republican Presidential candidate to win the state since Reagan in 1984. Despite the Republicans’ best effort to suppress the vote, Biden narrowly won Wisconsin by a margin of only 20,000 votes in 2020. Is the state trending red? It’s hard to tell, because the Republicans have their fingers on the scale, as discussed below. But we did our part to keep Wisconsin on the list of sane states with its neighbors, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota (we won’t talk about Iowa).
So what did we do for Wisconsin?
Four Directions: Once again, we helped underwrite the Four Directions expansion into Wisconsin, which has one of the largest Native American populations east of the Mississippi River.
$29,935 + $60,000 match = 89,935
Voces de la Frontera. We raised funds in May 2022 for the first Voces field organizer, and then raised more funds for election efforts in 2022.
$27,500 $43,261 + $27,500 match (in 2021) + $15,761 (2022) = $70,761
Wisconsin Democratic Party: The Wisconsin Democratic Party is well-organized and well-regarded nationally.
$7,801
Candidate: Josh Kaul, who was the incumbent Attorney General in Wisconsin. Unlike most states, responsibility for election oversight rests with the AG and not the Secretary of State. He won.
$1,074
Brad Pfaff, a Wisconsin State Senator, ran for an open Congressional seat. He was narrowly defeated, but appears to be an up-and-comer in Wisconsin Democratic politics. It was a close race, and as we got close to November and his campaign needed a funding boost, we supported him directly.
$2,435
What do we have to show for our efforts?
We supported turnout in the Native American and Latino communities, which together make up over 8% of the population of the State. While the loss of an open Democratic seat was disappointing, the ground was laid for a potential pick up in 2024. And Governor Evers won big! With the AG win we get protection of voting rights and reproductive freedom. Also huge! But gerrymandering remains a huge hurdle, so the fight continues!
Closing thoughts?
Wisconsin could and should be a blue state, but for Republican chicanery. Wisconsin is considered by many to be one of the most gerrymandered states in the country:
We’re not done with Wisconsin. Not by a long shot!
As we mentioned in the first post, we hope that Wisconsin can go the way of Michigan, particularly by expanding voting rights and eliminating gerrymandering. First up in the very near future is an election in April for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. There’s a five-four Republican majority, and one of the Republicans is stepping down. Securing a Democratic majority will be a welcome first step in protecting voting rights and assisting Wisconsin Democrats in their efforts to redraw an unfair map!
There’s also another key election coming up on the same ballot as the WI Supreme Court race, It’s much less well-known than the supreme court battle, and I’ll put up a post next week to explain more about the race and why it matters so much.
Great work, everyone!
This completes the reporting on the 5 key states where we funded boots on the ground. Michigan. Arizona. Nevada. Georgia. Wisconsin.
Open thread.
SiubhanDuinne
No. No it would not.
But I’m very far from thinking of Georgia as a blue state. There is still a lot of work to be done. Not to denigrate all that we’ve accomplished since 2020.
MikefromArlington
Love that you guys are focused on boots on the ground efforts to take back control of state governments. Republicans did this in 2010 and gained so much and gerrymandered the hell out of so many it’ll take many election cycles to win it all back.
Omnes Omnibus
Wisconsin’s state motto is “Forward.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation” here.
Uh huh. Uh huh.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: You are (obviously) closer to Wisconsin than I am. Do you have any thing to add – or differ with – re: Wisconsin?
trollhattan
Ours in California is “Killer weed, dude.”
David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
New Jersey’s motto is “Let’s dump the chemicals here”
rikyrah
Protests in France
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTRpyJEWc/
Almost Retired
I love the Worker Power photo. I am also glad we’re active in Wisconsin. It’s a great state. I fondly remember how lackadaisical Wisconsin bars were about checking IDs in the early 80s.
Betsy
Thank you so much, WaterGirl and team, for all this work and these wonderful updates!!! What a good feeling, so good to feel fruitful in a time of so much helpless standing by.
Adding days to my life!
piratedan
RIP David Crosby @ 81
J R in WV
I just got my receipt from Act Blue for my monthly donation to Four Directions, which we have been making for at least a couple of years now. They seem to be one of the most straight-forward organizations working for freedom and liberty.
rikyrah
Wear a😷😷
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTRpy9wxF/
cain
@piratedan: Yes, a sad day. :(
J R in WV
@piratedan:
We’re at the age now where the icons of our youth are aging out of this world. I’m closer than I would like to think, actually !
He was a great and creative musician, think of the Southern Cross tonight.
SuzieC
Ohio has 15 electoral votes. Definitely concentrate on Georgia.
Martin
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, Georgia is faring a lot better on that front than conventionally ‘purple’ Florida.
DeSantis administration rejects inclusion of AP African American Studies class in Florida high schools
Kent
I have been closely following politics for decades and trying to detect for myself the patterns I am seeing.
What is the most OBVIOUS things that distinguish Georgia from Alabama or South Carolina. Or Pennsylvania from Ohio. Or Minnesota/Michigan from Wisconsin?
Demographics (percentage of white votes)
Urban/rural split (percentage of population living in urban areas.
I think we also tend to overly focus on states than regions. State boundaries are pretty porous. Watching the COVID wave maps sweep across this country following regional geographic patterns reinforced this to me. Also the 11 nations of North America.
For example, comparing Pennsylvania and Ohio. Their demographics and percentage of urban population is not that different. The big difference is that the most populous parts of PA border the NY/NJ corridor and are part of the greater NY metro area in many ways. By contrast, Ohio borders West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana. Rather than have liberal New Yorkers spilling over into eastern PA, you have Kentuckians and rural West Virginians spilling over into southern Ohio.
Demographics isn’t always destiny. But there are very real demographic reasons why Democrats can win statewide in GA but not Alabama or South Carolina.
And what makes WI different from MN and MI? It is measurably more white and more rural. Just enough to make all the difference.
rikyrah
@Betsy:
Absolutely thank you , WG👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
trollhattan
@piratedan: Oh man. Talented artist, good guy from all I can gather. Activist his entire journey. Farewell, David Crosby, and thanks.
H.E.Wolf
@Betsy:”Thank you so much, WaterGirl and team, for all this work and these wonderful updates!!! What a good feeling, so good to feel fruitful in a time of so much helpless standing by.”
@rikyrah:”Absolutely thank you , WG👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾”
Amen. Amen.
Although this isn’t a music thread, here’s Pete Seeger’s version of “Keep Your Hand On The Plow (Hold On)” – a good motto for our work, past and future, in GA and WI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyZVaH6YB10
raven
@piratedan: It’s hard enough to gain, any traction in the rain. . .
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: We need to and will kick ass this Spring.
Geminid
@Kent: Minnesota and Wisconsin differ in that Minnesota has a more dynamic economy than Wisconsin. Same with Georgia and Alabama. Prospering economies tend to have more college educated and more immigrants, two groups that lean Dem.
I think that the different economc paths Virginia and Ohio have traveled for the last 25 years explains a lot a lot of why Virginia has gone from red to purple to blue while Ohio has done the opposite.
Dan B
@Martin: DeSantis is requesting info on trans students in Florida colleges. Florida is getting more extreme in their inimidation tactics. One of the papers had a long article about families who have plans to leave. They were a gay couple with a child and several families with lesbian or trans kids. Anyone who is Black, LGBTQ, childbearing age, or liberal is in the crosshairs.
Georgia doesn’t seem as bad. But that’s relative.
zhena gogolia
@Dan B: De Santis wants to be Putler. Why any citizen would want that is beyond me.
dexwood
@raven: My favorite album of his. Bought it when it was first released and listened to it repeatedly that first night while enjoying some fine mushrooms. My wife and I saw him late in 2019. He was backed by three great, young musicians. About halfway through the show he left the stage while they carried on. When he returned, he was very open about needing some time with an oxygen tank.
Brachiator
@piratedan:
He was the son of the famous cinematographer, Floyd Crosby, who won an Oscar for the film Tabu.
Did David do anything noteworthy?
Obviously kidding. Crosby lived a hell of a rock and roll life.
CaseyL
@piratedan:
Damn. What’s surprising is how long he lasted, given his (ahem) lifestyle and health issues. I adored CSN&Y all through high school and college, and still love their music.
Yes, I am at the age where the titans from my youth are leaving us. No, it doesn’t make it hurt less. (Though it does make me happy how many of them made old, old bones despite the excesses of their youth.)
Mousebumples
I know Brad Pfaff didn’t win, but I’m choosing to believe (*as I don’t have evidence either way) that supporting him, and his GOTV efforts, helped pull Evers, Kaul, and others to a win state wide.
And I liked supporting the opponent of a GOP 1/6 Rioter.
I’m excited about the upcoming Wisconsin elections!
Dan B
@Kent: Ohio* has had an agricultural economy, although there were factories in every township plus Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, and Toledo. The decline of manufacturing likely sent the well educated out of the state. Cincinnati had the Taft family and mega food processor Proctor and Gamble plus close proximity to southern Indiana and Kentucky. Manufacturing meant Unions. Agriculture meant many people who had only a High School or Junior High education. Indiana had the biggest Klan. All three states had few people from overseas and few state residents who’d ever gone abroad if even out of their county. They’re farther from transportation hubs on the east coast or from Chicago.
Insular and uncurious are good words.
* I grew up near Akron and went to the University of Cincinnati. It was long ago so conditions have changed.
CaseyL
@Dan B:
Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, and the other states introducing these blatantly discriminatory, blatantly cruel, measures – I suspect they want anyone who disagrees to leave, to move somewhere else.
They want a homogenous, ignorant, population that is tractable toward the powerful, but that can be goaded into violence against any “Other” TPTB care to name.
If there are none left in their states, they may well decide to start a Crusade, and sent Holy Warriors across state lines.
In fact, that seems a very likely outcome: inspiring violence elsewhere has long been a tactic for authoritarian governments who don’t care about serving the basic needs of their citizens,and then need handy scapegoats for their citizens to vent their grief and rage against. And the GOP has used these distraction tactics at least since Reagan.
WaterGirl
@Mousebumples: I have no regrets about supporting Brad Pfaff, either.
I taked to the folks from Voces at the time and asked who they thought really needed the help, WI races that were close but winnable, where more funds would help.
We’ll have one more of these posts next week where we look at the individual candidates we supported. Our “win-loss” ration is good. If we had all wins, I would be thinking that we supported a ton of people who would have won anyway.
But so many of the individual candidates we supported – who won – didn’t win by a mile. So I think we had to have made a difference in those. We’ll see what you guys think about that next week.
Cameron
@CaseyL: That shit’s already started – look at the stunt DeSantis pulled with those immigrants in Texas.
PaulB
Thanks, WG, for driving these fundraising and election efforts, and for providing these looks back at what we did.
I wanted to contribute last year but wanted to do something different than just contributing to the DCCC or similar organization. Without your efforts here, I’d be a bit richer, but not as happy. I’m much more confident that my money was spent wisely because of your due diligence, and very happy that we were able to retain control of the Senate.
Kent
Minneapolis metro is over 2x larger than the Milwaukee metro And the Atlanta metro is about 6-times larger than Birmingham AL.
According to the 2020 Census
WI is 80.4% white, MN is 77.4% white and MI is 73.9% white
WI is 29,9% rural, NM is 26.7% rural, and MI is 25.4% rural
Those two factors are enough to completely explain the divergence in voting patterns between those three states.
And yes, I always compare PA and OH but you can also bring VA into that mix
None of this means you don’t fight in every state. Of course you do. Wave election happens, and sometimes lightning strikes and you elect a Democratic senator from Alabama (if only temporarily) But you also don’t need to do stupid stuff like dropping a bazillion dollars into Kentucky thinking you are going to defeat McConnell.
Chetan Murthy
@PaulB: Amen and seconded.
WaterGirl
@PaulB: Yeah, I know these look backs aren’t exciting and they don’t get a lot of comments, but I think it’s important to look at our contributions and assess the impact.
Very glad that folks like you are interested in these!
gene108
@Kent:
The metro-NYC area doesn’t go that far west or that far south.
Going up to Wilkes-Barre or Scranton gets you into a bit of overlap with metro-NYC, in terms of pro sports team support, but not culturally.
Philadelphia has a large black population. On top of that Republicans embrace of crazy right-wing stuff has alienated the parts of southern NJ and the Philly suburbs from voting Republican.
Pennsylvania isn’t Ohio because the Philly suburbs used to lean Republican or were toss ups, but are fairly reliably Democratic votes now, because they saw what Sen. Specter saw Republicans becoming and switched sides around the same time.
A saner Republican Party could win these voters back.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Really the difference is the relative sizes of Milwaukee and the Twin Cities.
H.E.Wolf
They may not get a lot of comments, but to this jackal, they’re very exciting!
Thank you for taking the time to do these write-ups – much appreciated.
Brachiator
This is all very useful and interesting. Thanks much. I am peeking and commenting briefly while at work, so don’t have a lot of comments, but this is very good stuff and important to future election efforts.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure, it’s chicken and egg. That Minneapolis is vastly larger than Milwaukee is why MN is both more urban and less white than WI.
Hell, I’m originally from OR. The biggest reason why OR is blue and ID is red is that Portland is 4x larger than Boise. Rural OR is just as red as rural ID. Take away Portland and OR would be nearly as red as Idaho.
Geminid
@Kent: You say those two factors are enough to explain the differences. I did not exclude other factors from my analysis and I have no idea why want to exclude other factors from yours.
And I bring up Virginia because I’ve observed its political transition first hand over the last few decades, and seen the deographic changes with my own eyes.
And I did not come up with this analysis on my own but picked it up from a successful election modeler with a sound base of social science knowledge.
You seem very incurious if not close minded on this subject..
And I don’t know why you’re bringing such an obvious point about the $80 million Democrats sent to Amy McGrath in your answer to me. That dead horse has been beaten into so many pieces they have to swept into a pile just to beat it more.
Kent
@gene108: You are missing my point. Philadelphia itself is part of the DC-NY-Boston corridor. You pass right through Philly when traveling between DC and NYC. It is an eastern city. Every year or so you see articles in the NYT about how people are moving from the Upper West Side to Chestnut Hill, or from Brooklyn to Fishtown where they can get so much more space for cheaper. But still get back to NYC on weekends for social events. It is the southern boundary of the Ivy League that runs from Penn up to Dartmouth.
When you look at county-by-county voting maps irrespective of states there is basically a long blue line running all the way from DC to NY and continuing on to Boston. Philly is directly in the middle of that blue line. Nothing in Ohio is like that. And that is why I say that REGIONAL patterns are often more important than state boundaries.
frosty
@WaterGirl: These posts are really good. A look back at what worked and what didn’t is important. I like the organizations we supported, too. I had no idea the Native American population was large enough in these “eastern” states to potentially swing an election.
Also, ditto to what @PaulB: said.
Betsy
@rikyrah: powerful stuff. I’m on board with everything you said. Well said too.
Betsy
@Kent: As I imagine you already know, one of the key flaws in American constitutional democracy is that metro areas have no political existence in federalism. States (most states) do their best to hamstring them politically in favor of rural areas, and the federal system as constituted doesn’t give them any representation or status whatsoever.
Yet it is metro economies that power the nation (even per capita they are so much vastly more productive than rural regions) and it is their regions that have coherence and social identity (across state lines). And of course, they contain the great majority of the people.
Kent
@Betsy: I agree entirely. My point was that state boundaries are artificial and voting patterns tend to be governed by larger organic regional patterns not state boundaries. If you go to any detailed county-by-county map of the 2020 election the red and blue patterns follow organic geographical boundaries, not state borders
An Extremely Detailed Map of the 2020 Election Results: Trump vs. Biden – The New York Times
PaulB
I think it’s critical that we do these retrospectives. We’re never going to have absolute certainty about the results of our efforts, but if we don’t even examine them, consider what we did, what we didn’t do, what other alternatives we might have considered, what the outcomes were and what might have influenced those outcomes, we might as well just throw our money away.
Personally, what I liked was that we focused more on turnout than we did on contributing to the party and to various campaigns. These days, I’m not convinced that all of the money that is poured into advertisements is nearly as effective as it might have been decades ago, but that’s where many campaigns and consultants still seem to be concentrating their efforts.
Not only is the electorate more partisan and more sharply divided and, hence, less able to be swayed, but you can’t be sure anymore that the people you need to reach are even seeing those advertisements, what with people cutting the cord, with the rise of so many streaming media channels, with so many cable channels, with ad blockers, and so on. Personally, I haven’t seen a political advertisement in at least the last four years, other than a few viral ads that were mentioned here that I went looking for on YouTube or Twitter.
I’d much rather focus on getting underserved and underrepresented communities registered and encouraged to turn out. In purple states, I think those efforts really make a difference. I think the results highlighted in these retrospective posts demonstrate that you made some good choices. I’d love to find some way to get the youth vote out, but campaigns have been working on that for decades, with limited success.
Nothing is proved, of course, but given how close some of these races were, I think it’s possible to conclude that we really did make a difference. Reading these posts just reinforces that impression. As always, thank you.
mvr
@H.E.Wolf: My reaction too. I read these with interest, even when I don’t say anything. (Hell I read Balloon Juice for many years without saying anything back in the mid-aughts.)
H.E.Wolf
I concur. I hope we’ll continue our focus on these types of GOTV. For me, it was the most thrilling part of our efforts!
frosty
@Betsy:
Dead thread, but I agree. How many of Letterman’s “Tri-State Areas” are there? Lots, and it’s because that’s where the ports and transportation hubs are.