Political Fundraising

In any normal election year, we would have started and already completed the post-election fundraising wrap up posts by now.  Like many of you, I am still figuring out how to pick myself up off the floor after the election.  My head knows that this isn’t the time to say “well, we tried, but we lost, and I’m done”.  My heart?  My heart knows that, too, even as it’s still broken, but how to move forward still isn’t exactly clear.

Had a great conversation with the folks at Worker Power last week.  We’re going to be bringing in some of our organizations to talk with us about how we all move forward after this crushing blow, and I think we are going to start with them. These won’t be presentations so much as they will be discussions – probably on a weekend evening as we’ve done for some of our Balloon Juice zooms.

However devastating the election loss continues to be at the Presidential and US House and Senate levels, it’s important to remember that our efforts were not for naught.  That’s the beauty of our focus mostly on organizations, as opposed to candidates.  The work builds on itself, from year to year, election to election.  With organizations, it’s not about just the top-level races, it’s about state races and down-ballot races, as well.

I am really proud of all the groups we supported – there’s not even one that I regret.  In some ways the outcome is everything, but in other ways, it’s not about the outcome, it’s about doing the work, and building on that, and I have no regrets about the work we did.

We branched out to some new states, like North Carolina, to some new groups, and to some new communities.

So with that as background, let’s look at North Carolina, where we primarily focused on turning out the youth BIPOC vote.

Our first partnership was with the North Carolina Black Alliance Campus Engagement Project, and its charismatic leader, Marcus Bass.  The Black Alliance already had a fully-operational registration and turnout team at the state’s 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  In Phase I, Balloon Juice helped them expand to two public colleges with substantial BIPOC student populations.  Our money helped them recruit, train and deploy on-campus canvassers.

Phase II expanded this effort to four urban community colleges in the state’s largest cities.  Both efforts were overwhelmingly successful.  In between, we flash-fundraised for security equipment for the canvassers after the mood on the street turned ugly after the Trump assassination attempt in July.

Over 150,000 provisional and challenged ballots were cast in NC, and we also funded the ballot curing efforts after the election.  All told, between our donations thru ActBlue and external matches, we raised $155,000 for NC Black Alliance.

We also helped North Carolina Asian Americans Together (NCAAT) expand their outreach to Asian American students on the state’s largest campuses.  The young women who lead this organization are impressive.  And inspiring!  NCAAT coordinated with their Black Alliance partners to make sure their ballot curing efforts were not duplicated. All told, between our donations thru ActBlue and external matches, we raised $100,000 for NCAAT in Action.

North Carolina didn’t go to Harris, but ticket-splitting in the state awarded major victories to the Democratic party in North Carolina.  Josh Stein trounced the odious Mark Robinson by 14 points to become Governor.  Democrats won other statewide races, electing Democrats as Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State.  And, flipping a seat in the state House of Representatives cost the Republicans their ill-gotten gerrymandered veto-proof super majority.  

The Republicans reacted by abusing their current supermajority power to pass a bill weakening the power of statewide offices held by Democrats and giving the Republicans more control over elections.  Read about their perfidy here.

We supported 3 North Carolina candidates, based on recommendations from Marcus at NC Black Alliance.

Allison Riggs, one of two Democrats on the seven-justice NC Supreme Court, is currently leading by 748 votes over her Republican challenger.  As of December 13, the race has not yet been called.  But it is looking good – she picked up a few votes on a partial recount.

Carolyn Thompson, an African-American incumbent justice on the NC Court of Appeals.  Alas, she lost by less than 100,000 votes out of over 5 million cast, to a very conservative white male challenger.

Raymond Smith is an African American Gulf War veteran challenging a white male Republican incumbent in Eastern North Carolina.  He hoped to flip the seat and shatter the Senate super-majority.  Unfortunatelyi, incumbent Eldon “Buck” Newton was easily reelected with a 10-point lead.

Despite all these heroic efforts, youth voter turnout (18-25 year olds) in 2024 was down 7% in the state from 2020 (60% vs. 53%).  There are many potential explanations – some universal, and some unique to North Carolina (the hurricane aftermath).  The result was beyond disappointing.

But the new voters registered and motivated to go to the polls is an investment in the future.   The NC Democratic party is well-organized and well-led by its dynamic chair Anderson Clayton.  The efforts of our partners and the state party have expanded the base of new Democratic voters – we can build on that in 2026 and 2028.  Money spent identifying and motivating new voters is always money well-spent!  As with everything we do, it’s about right now, and it’s also about the future! 

I always think about Georgia, and Stacey Abrams.  The work that gave us two Democratic Senate seats in 2020 didn’t start in 2020, or even in 2016.  That work started way back in 2010, and that’s the work we’re involved in now in North Carolina.  And 10 years later, we got the senate because of those two Georgia Senators, and Georgia got two of the finest senators around.  I would not be at all surprised if Jon Ossoff runs for president in 2028, and wins.

I thought this could be the year that NC electoral votes would go to the Democrats.  That was not to be, but electing Democrats to most state-wide offices and breaking the House supermajority will spare North Carolinians some of the worst of what the Republicans have in store for them.  The work we have done for NC, and the work we have ahead of us, may well make as many waves as GA did in 2020.

Working for a better future is an act of faith.  We took our body blows, we are licking our wounds, and in the new year we will have our work cut out for us.  I will not let Trump and his henchmen break my spirit.  Not for long, anyway.

Election Followup – North Carolina and MorePost + Comments (49)