2/14/24 update: What does 2024 hold for PA?  Biden won this purple, electoral vote-rich state in 2020 by a slim 1.2% margin, and the state will certainly be needed for victory in 2024. 

Primaries – Presidential and state primaries in PA are both on 4/23/24.

Senate – Incumbent Senator Bob Casey Jr. is running for his 4th term. At present, he is considered a narrow favorite (“Lean D”), due to the “purpleness” of PA, but his seat cannot be taken for granted.

House – Three of the most vulnerable Democratic US House seats are currently held by Susan Wild (PA-07), Matt Cartwright (PA-08), and Chris Deluzio (PA-17). Wild is in a Republican district (R+2), though she has won her seat three times before. Cartwright is in a R+4 district won by Trump in 2020. Deluzio is in a swingy district (even) that Biden took by 6%. We worked on all three campaigns in 2020, when grassroots work helped pushed these candidates over the finish line. 

In 2024, their seats have been targeted by the National Republican Congressional Committee. All three elections will be hard-fought, and again, our grassroots muscle can be expected to have a substantial impact on the outcomes.

5/17/23 Update: Heather Boyd won the special election yesterday, leaving Dems with a narrow majority in the PA State House. This is a win for abortion rights, mitigating gun violence, and election law legislation.

4/27/23 update: There are two special elections May 16, 2023. Democrats must win one to maintain their majority in the state house of representatives. Republicans must win both to flip control.

2/21/23 update – Flash news from Special Election 2023 –  Good news! Immediately after flipping the PA House after the midterms, the situation was clouded by the unexpected vacancies of three Democratic House seats. These vacancies cost PA Democrats their newly-won majority. A special election was called for 2/7/23 to fill the three vacant seats. Fortunately, the election results were good and all three seats went to the Democrats. The new Democratic majority marks their first House majority in a dozen years and promises sweeping changes in PA.

11/21/22 UPDATE – Flash news from Election 2022 — PA is now a blue state! Numerous high-profile races all broke in favor of Democrats as PA voters resoundingly rejected Republican extremism. In the most expensive Senate race in the country, John Fetterman defeated Mehmet Oz, a Trump nominee. In addition, Matt Cartwright, Susan Wild, and Chris DeLuzio defended their hotly contested seats. For governor, John Shapiro handily defeated uber-extremist Doug Mastriano, one of Trump’s top picks. Shapiro’s win is a Democratic two-fer since in PA, the governor also appoints the Secretary of the Commonwealth. And finally, the radically conservative PA legislature flipped for the Democrats. We worked hard for PA, and victory is sweet!

Early Money Revisited – Where Your Donations are Needed Right NOW.

By Barbara Head.

In previous posts, we talked about a candidate’s special need for “early money,”  see But did you know that grassroots organizations typically follow a similar cycle? After a major election, their coffers are depleted. Their infrastructures need to be rebuilt early – trained staff, mailing lists, budgets for their work, and fundraising to carry them through the year as they work on high-priority tasks like voter registration and voter education.

Grassroots funding also can pay salaries – if we want young people and minorities to organize, we need to provide them with salaries to support their activist work. Not all volunteers are retirees! Mobilizing and facilitating younger and minority volunteer populations are essential for our progressive groups to grow and flourish.  In our view, this is one of the best reasons to provide funding to grassroots organizations.

And the good news is that, unlike donations for candidates, many grassroots organizations are organized as 501(c)(3) nonprofit charities. Donations to these charities typically are tax deductible. Check with the charity to be sure, if tax deductions are very important to you. 

New Virginia Majority

New Virginia Majority (NVM) works to create a powerful multi-issue, multi-racial movement to transform Virginia through large scale civic engagement, issue advocacy, and strategic communications and community organizing.

Working class communities of color have been shut out, silenced and ignored in Virginia, fueling widespread injustice in the state. NVM builds the power of marginalized communities to change the political systems that aren’t working for us.

NVM organizes within Latinx, African American, Asian American Pacific Islander and youth communities, centering the leadership and demands of working class women of color. Together, they vote, mobilize and engage to end mass incarceration, build just economic policies, protect immigrants and preserve the environment.

New Virginia Majority is a leader in the movement for transformative change. Since 2015, they have registered more than 200,000 Virginia voters and knocked on over 1 million doors. Last year, NVM brought in a more representative legislature, which helped us to finally expand Medicaid to nearly 400,000 people. And in 2016, they succeeded in restoring voting rights to thousands of formerly incarcerated people in Virginia.

Donate to New Virginia Majority

Wisconsin

Update 1/24/25: The next big election will take place on April 1. Judge Susan Crawford will face MAGA candidate Brad Schimel for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Their race will determine whether Wisconsin Democrats can retain the pro-democracy court majority that produced the state’s first fair elections since 2010.

After we elected Judge Janet Protasiewicz in 2023, Wisconsin was able to create fair maps for state elections. Now we need to do the same for their congressional elections (US House of Representatives.) This process could gain us 2 seats in the US House if completed in time for the 2026 elections.

Update 2/19/24: Wisconsin has new fair maps for state legislative districts. Another court battle is needed for Congressional districts.

Update 2/15/24: What does 2024 hold for WI? The critical election will be the US Senate race; none of the eight US House Republicans are on the Democratic vulnerable representatives list.

The big story for November will be the re-election of US Senator Tammy Baldwin and… MEGA-money. Finances played a major role in the 2022 US Senate election in WI: Democrat Mandela Barnes, a popular former lieutenant-governor, initially led the race but was beaten by Republican incumbent Ron Johnson AFTER the Republicans poured more than $77M into Johnson’s coffers. Barnes, dangerously under-funded, lost to Johnson by only 1 point.  The challenge in 2024 will be to not let history repeat itself in WI, Tammy Baldwin’s opponent is likely to be multimillionare Republican businessman Eric Hovde, who has already lined up support from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. So we should expect another high-$$ race for Baldwin’s re-election. 

Update 10/16/23: Wisconsin Republicans retreat from threats to impeach Judge Janet. They vow to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Update 4/5/2023: Judge Janet Protasiewicz wins by 11 points! Indivisible summarizes the consequences:

Janet Protasiewicz’s victory tonight creates a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ahead of anticipated seismic cases on abortion access, voting rights, and fair maps. 

It puts an end to the judicial rubber stamp for the rigged legislature’s experiments in anti-majoritarian governance in a state that has become a testing ground for the GOP’s efforts to lock in minority rule across the country. 

This win will likely result in abortion rights being restored in the state. It could lead to the first fair elections in years for the state’s legislature and even result in newly competitive seats in the House of Representatives ahead of 2024. Repro rights, LGTBQ+ rights, academic freedom, blocking another Trump coup attempt — cases on all these issues could be decided by a liberal court instead of a MAGA activist majority thanks to this win. 

Update 2/21/23 – Tonight is the long-awaited Wisconsin judicial primary election, and liberal Janet Protasiewicz, who we are backing, has just won her primary! She will be running against conservative Daniel Kelly in the April 4 general election. Janet’s strong showing in the primary, where she got nearly twice as many votes as Kelly, makes her the one to beat in April. But we Dems cannot take anything for granted, and the stakes are very high. This election is expected to be the most expensive judicial race in our country’s history, the Republicans are pouring money into the race to defeat Janet. We must keep our momentum going with our postcards, phone calls, texts, and donations – and the full strength of our grassroots support!

January 30, 2023 – The most important race In Wisconsin is for the vacant seat on the State Supreme Court, which currently has a conservative majority. If a Democrat wins the vacant seat, the Court will flip blue. Analysts have called this the critical race of the year, affecting abortion rights, gerrymandering, and many other key issues. But perhaps the most critical action will be if the toxic state legislature tries to subvert the 2024 presidential elections, as they have threatened to do. With a liberal majority, Wisconsin’s highest court could protect the integrity of the federal election.

Update 1/8/25: Democrats won both special elections this month preserving their narrow majorities in the State Senate and House of Delegates. This will limit Republican Governor Glen Youngkin’s ability to pass his MAGA agenda. Governor Youngkin is term limited, and a new Governor will be chose in November.

Update 4/19/23:

The 2023 Virginia general election is critical; we must flip the House and expand the Senate majority to pass legislation on education, voting rights, and gun control and fight back against attacks on access to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Democrats lost the House majority in 2021 by only 733 votes, and the Senate majority is vulnerable.

The million-dollar question in Virginia is – was Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s election in 2019 evidence of a growing red wave…  or a fluke? Youngkin’s election may have simply been a response to President Biden’s unpopularity and/or resentment over federal Covid policies. Or is Virginia truly a purple state now? This question will be put to the test by the important November 2023 legislative elections, which could easily flip the red Assembly chambers back to blue. And consequences are far-reaching: a blue General Assembly will impede or block Gov. Youngkin’s right-wing legislative agenda on abortion, education, and other key priorities. 

Update 2/21/23-

A reason for optimism as well as celebration –  A US House seat became available with the death of Rep. Don McEachin, and a special election was held in Feb 2023. It was won handily by Jennifer McClellan, who made history as the first Black woman from VA in Congress. And although the seat was already strongly Democratic, McClelland’s margin of victory (74% – almost 3x that of her Republican opponent) exceeded expectations. So despite VA’s Republican governor and red House of Delegates, Democrats in VA appear to be running stronger than ever. Could be more evidence of Democratic  “Midterm Magic” with voters rejecting Republican extremism.

NE AZ Successes

We are excited to announce that not only have we met our goals for the Northeast Arizona Native Democrats Postcard Program, we exceeded them! And, with no more addresses to assign, we are officially closing down the regular postcard operation for the 2022 election year. More people on sovereign lands will vote this year because of these postcards, and because of you.

We have completed not just all the voter lists for our original high potential voters on Navajo, Hopi, and Apache sovereign lands: we also were able to reach non-voters, new voters, excellent voters, the border towns of our turf, and three other tribes in two other counties. Thank you, sincerely, on behalf of the Northeast Arizona Native Democrats, for supporting the program with your time, treasure, and hard work. We could not have accomplished this extraordinary effort without you. 

Here’s a recap of the 2022 postcard program’s accomplishments:

  • We’ve assigned and written 167,435 postcards;
  • That amounts to our volunteer writers contributing approximately $71,000 in postage to our work. You read that correctly. Those are funds we used to pay field organizer salaries instead of postage fees.
  • That also means our volunteer writers contributed approximately $25,000 in postcard materials to our work;
  • If you assume it takes five minutes per postcard to write, then our volunteer writers donated 14,000 hours to our cause;
  • The program’s team of inbox and assignment coordinators dedicated something like 700 hours to this project
  • We received the help of more than 1200 volunteer writers from all over the country.

Thank you, from all of us at the Northeast Arizona Native Democrats. Follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter) to see some special thank yous from our Field Organizers, for whom you all wrote thousands of postcards this year that connected them with voters in their community. We look forward to gathering virtually after the election to share our successes and more thanks!

11/21/22 UPDATE – In the 2022 midterms, NH trended to the left. Congressional incumbents Senator Maggie Hassan, running against Trump-favorite and election denier Donald Bolduc, and House Representatives Ann Kuster and Chris Pappas, easily beat their challengers. All three had been considered “endangered” Democrats – anyone see a pattern? And control of the NH State House, currently in radical Republican hands, is now completely uncertain. NH voters split the state almost evenly, and an amazing 28 recounts are in progress. Keep posted!

2/15/24 UPDATE:

What does 2024 hold for NV? The presidential primary and its caucus equivalent were held in early Feb. To no one’s surprise, Biden and Trump were the easy winners. The Congressional primaries are on 6/11/24.

Senate – Incumbent Jacky Rosen is seeking a 2nd term in the Senate (Lean D).  She may need significant grassroots support to get re-elected, given that the National Republican Congressional Committee has targeted her seat as a potential flip.

House – Representatives Susie Lee (NV-03) and Steve Horsford (NV-04) have both been identified by Democrats as vulnerable House incumbents. Lee was first elected in 2018, and Horsford in 2022; both now seek re-election in 2024. There will be grassroots projects throughout the year in support of these two candidates. 

11/21/22 UPDATE: There’s gold in the Silver State – two big gains for democracy! Our first and only Latina Senator, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, beat election denier Adam Laxalt and gained her second term in Congress. We grassroots activists worked very hard for Cortez Masto, so her victory is especially sweet! And new Secretary of State Democrat Cisco Aguilar defeated extremist Jim Marchant, an election denier who cast doubts on electronic voting equipment and promoted manual counting of ballots. Much to celebrate in NV.

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