All Hands on Deck for Virginia! (9/26/21)
Democrats from around the country helped California defeat the Republican Recall earlier this month by donating, postcarding, phonebanking, and textbanking which woke up California Democrats and convinced them to #VoteNoOnTheRecall. Now we need to step up and make the same effort for Virginia.
Markers For Democracy helped Virginia Democrats flip the House of Delegates in 2019 through our giving circle and our postcards. As a result, Virginia became the first and only southern state to pass a comprehensive Voting Rights Act among other legislation that improves the lives of Virginians and makes us all safer. To learn more about the impressive achievements of the Virginia House Democrats since 2019, watch this video of Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn from her recent visit to Markers For Democracy.
This progress will all be rolled back if Democrats lose the majority in November 2021. Worse, if that happens AND a Republican is elected governor, Blue Virginia could start looking a lot like Red Texas with voter suppression and draconian anti-abortion bills introduced by a Republican legislature and signed into law by a Republican governor. This nightmare scenario is not at all far-fetched. Just this week, the respected Cook Political Report changed its rating for the Virginia governor's race from "Lean Democrat" to "Toss Up," which is the wrong direction a little over a month from the election. The polling shows the race within the margin of error, prompting CNN's Harry Enten to write yesterday "Why Democrats should be worried about Virginia's governor's race." The polling isn't looking great for the House of Delegates either. This forecaster recently changed his ratings for the Virginia House to "Toss Up." A new poll released last week indicates that voters would rather see Republicans in charge of the Virginia House of Delegates and that Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Hala Ayala, is trailing behind the Republican nominee. In a state where Democrats won both chambers of the state legislature by a slim margin in 2019, this is extremely concerning news.
But just like Democrats turned it around in California in the month before the election and helped it go from a tied race with an enthusiasm gap to a double digit rejection of the Republican Recall, we think that Virginia Democrats can turn it around and hold the House and the Governor's mansion . . . But they need our help!
How You Can Help:
1. Join the Markers For Democracy 2021 Giving Circle and ask your friends to join. The good news is that we reached our 2021 goal of raising $50,000. The not-so-good news is that Republicans are spending millions to flip the House of Delegates. And the Republican multi-millionaire running for governor has been self funding as well as raking in donations from the Koch brothers and the DeVos family, forcing Democrats to spend more on that race and less on the House of Delegates races. That means that the House of Delegates candidates still need our help. To read about the candidates we are supporting, click here.
Many thanks to all of you who have already joined our giving circle and contributed so generously this year. If you haven’t contributed yet, please join us in making Virginia a 2021 political giving priority and DONATE TODAY. We have until October 4th to raise funds, so please share this donation link with friends and family who are alarmed at the anti-voting, anti-women, and anti-democracy legislation being passed by Republican-led state legislatures around the country but aren’t sure what to do about it. A contribution of any size will help keep Virginia blue, and new donors will become member of our Markers For Democracy Giving Circle. Join us!
MFD 2021 Giving Circle
2. Postcards, Postcards, Postcards: We are writing postcards to Virginia voters urging them to vote for Democratic candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates as well as candidates all the way up the ballot. Some of the campaigns are through Postcards To Voters and you can sign up to write with them here. We also volunteered to write 2000 postcards with Sister District and we are down to our last 300 and could use help in getting them done by our deadline of October 6th. Sign up here. Scroll down to the Postcards section to read about these and other campaigns or sign up for our Slack where we post in the #postcarding-current-campaigns channel (If you would prefer to textbank or phonebank, we have you covered in the #textbanking-and-phonebanking channel of our Slack. Sign up for our Slack here) If you last wrote postcards in the run-up to 2020 or the Georgia run-off, or if you haven't written them since the 2018 midterms, this would be a great time to start writing again. If you need postcards, we have thousands and can get you started with a package. (Check out our postcarding FAQ which includes information on getting postcards.)
3. Join us on Tuesday night for a brief update on the state of the race in Virginia and invite your friends to join too. On Tuesday night, three NYC-based Giving Circles -- Markers For Democracy, The Wednesday Group, and Good Trouble -- will hear from Virginia House of Delegates Majority Caucus Leader Rip Sullivan and another frontline Delegate who will provide updates on the state of the fight for Virginia. See our Upcoming Events section for more details.
While we have your attention: Future Now Fund has a new name but the same mission
Future Now Fund is now "The States Project" complete with a new website that should make it much easier to explain to friends (and remind yourself) why it’s all about the states. Check out Melissa Walker’s new and improved, easy-to-share video about why she was inspired to start a giving circle herself, and how they work.
Our Markers For Democracy Giving Circle will continue to function in exactly the same way; we will just reference "The States Project” instead of Future Now Fund, and donations will go toward "The PAC For America’s Future” (which is the rebranding of the actual fund). We know this might be confusing in the short term (we were JUST getting used to calling Future Now Fund “FNF”) but in the long term, this change will help make the mission and stakes much clearer. Look for more information about The States Project and why state legislatures matter so much to the future of our democracy in coming weeks and months.
Just one more thing:
Think about waking up on November 3rd and seeing Donald Trump and his allies crowing about the Republicans flipping Virginia back to red. None of us wants to see that. Please join us in working to keep Virginia blue.