2020 Election Strategy

The Most Important Election In US History:

All Hands On Deck!

The future of our country, the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans and the fate of life on our planet are hanging in the balance. With an incompetent, corrupt and self- serving president being enabled by a complicit GOP and a criminally negligent Department of Justice, none of us can afford to stand on the sidelines.  All of us must find ways to influence the national election while also helping keep New Mexico Blue.

While polls are learning toward promising outcomes for Biden and the US Senate, we all remember 2016 when polls pointed to an almost certain victory for Clinton.  With looming possibilities of foreign intervention, voter suppression and/or acts of desperation by Trump to delegitimize the election,  we must not become complacent.

We need a landslide.  There is no time to lose. Your help is needed to do this now!

TO JOIN US:  Click here to let us know you’re interested and complete a brief survey of your interests.  We’ll get back to you shortly or you can contact Marjorie Luckey: luckbend@gmail.com or 973-902-6091

• Attend our next Zoom meeting Friday July 10, 1pm by sending an email to: luckbend@gmail.com with your name, phone and email address. The link will be sent to you before the meeting.

OUR PLAN

Strategies and Actions to Flip the Senate & Dump Trump by Getting Out the Vote in Battleground States

The Taos United:Tasenos Unidos Election Group has joined forces with SwingLeft.org, Vote Forward, Flippable and other national organizations to reach voters in 12 battleground states to flip 8 Senate seats and win crucial electoral college votes for Biden.  Along the way, we’ll help flip state house seats to end some of the most egregious gerrymandering in the country by fairer post-census redistricting in 2021.

MULTIPLE OPTIONS FOR ACTION, working on your own or with a small group, all from home

• Preparing Letters to Voters- (2 hours a week or more)
• Writing Postcards to Voters-(1 hour a week or more)
• Mass Texting- (1 hour a week or more)
• Phone banking-(2 hrs/week or more)
• Help pay for stamps, cards and envelopes (any amount)
• Donating and Fundraising for candidates (by sending informational emails to friends and contacts)
• Recruiting friends and family to join you in making a difference

1. Preparing Letters to Voters through VOTE FORWARD

Vote Forward pioneered the use of meta data to identify less frequent voters who would likely vote for Democrats IF they vote. This approach was first tested and proven to work in the Alabama special Senate election that Democrat Doug Jones won in 2017. Compared to similar voters who did not receive a letter, the campaign increased turnout by 3.9%. That doesn’t sound like much but in a close race it’s gold.

In the 2020 election, letters will be targeted to the 12 super states in a campaign being completed by multiple progressive and democratic organizations and grassroots groups all over the country.

THE PROCESS IS EASY:

Letter writers download and print letters in batches of 20.

 

Fold completed letter, put in the envelope, seal and put on a stamp. We fill them out but hold onto all of them to mail in October, date to be determined.

 

Getting started:

1. Sign up for a VOTE FORWARD.org account at https://votefwd.org
2. Read Vote Forward’s simple explanation of the letter writing campaign
3. If you want to go ahead, follow the instructions to join in. That starts the Vote Forward vetting process and in 24-48 hours you’ll hear from them that you’re approved
4. After approval, you can start downloading letters to complete on your own. If you prefer to wait until you try out the letter writing at our virtual letter writing party, that’s fine too.
5. If you have indicated your interest in writing6 letters, we’ll send you an invitation to the virtual letter writing party and for a packet of printed letters.
6. Stock up on “peel and seal” letter sized envelopes
7. Stock up on stamps (can be ordered online from US Post Office or com
8. WRITING POSTCARDS to VOTERS

Personalized postcards have also been shown to increase voter turnout.  We are partnering with Postcardstovoters.org to encourage voters to request a vote-by-mail ballot, support specific candidates for state legislatures, US Senate and Biden in November and vote by Nov 3.

 

. Getting Started:

1. Sign-up with the Taos United Postcard Posse by writing to Diane Shifrin at dshif@well.com or join Postcards to Voters at https://postcardstovoters.org/
2. Voter lists include addresses and detailed instructions and required content
3. Supplies needed are postcards and (if cards aren’t pre-paid) stamps.. USPS sells pre-paid postcards on-line: https://store.usps.com/store/product/cards-envelopes/azulillo-stamped-card-S_250004I

 

 

3. Phone banking will be coordinated through SwingLeft.org on behalf of candidates and issues to encourage vote-by-mail and get-out-the-vote. Initially volunteers will be using their own phones, but closer to the elections, automated calling from your computer with a local in-state phone number will be available.

Geting started: To get connected, join SwingLeft.org at  https://swingleft.org/join

 

4. Mass Texting is a relatively new technology which enables you to “push” 300 or so texts at a time from your computer or laptop.  Your phone isn’t needed at all, and your personal identity is not disclosed, though the site is shown. Open Progress Text Troop trains you very well how to respond to just about any communication you get in response to your texts, and their Slack channel has moderators at all times for that occasional unusual situation. Typically, after you send out your batch, you’ll get most of your responses almost immediately, with some residual responses into the next day.  A dedicated hour or so then, and then a few check backs to catch late responses. This is a way of doing activism on your schedule and it’s satisfying. Most people are polite, and a rude response by text doesn’t feel as personal as when you make a phone call.

Getting started: https://www.openprogress.com/text-troop

Open Progress will train you well. There are webinars and live support:

Commitment:  1 hour a week or more

 

5. Help pay for stamps, envelopes and postcards (any amount helps) via PayPal on the Taos United web page: https://taosunited.org/donate/
6. Donations to Candidates: After primaries, candidates are usually low on cash. And that’s when Republican-aligned dark money groups will start hammering our candidates with negative ads, hoping to define them before they even start their general election campaigns. It is important to make sure our candidates hit the ground running in the general election and don’t get outspent by their Republican opponents.Interestingly, political giving on the left is usually lopsided and inefficient with 50% of candidate donations going to races in which highly visible, safe candidates who need donations the least end up receiving the most. Instead, effective giving should target the highest-impact and highest-need campaigns which, unfortunately, requires on-the-ground knowledge and expertise not usually available to most donors.

   Fortunately, Swing Left’s analysts have assessed the entire political landscape, crunched the numbers and identified the elections and organizations where a marginal dollar will go the furthest at each stage of the electoral cycle.  With this data, they have built Blueprint, a highly sophisticated tool proven to direct donations strategically to where they will have the greatest impact on electoral outcomes.  With input of a donor’s preferences and goals, Blueprint delivers an individualized, diverse portfolio to each donor, large or small, directed to the most competitive state and federal races where they are needed the most.  To learn more and try it out for your contributions to Super State races go to https://blueprint.swingleft.org/

7. Fundraising: When people think of fundraising, they often picture big-money donors, but the median donor to Swing Left funds has given just $25.  Despite that, in 2018, SwingLeft grassroots volunteers raised ~ $11 million to support Democratic nominees.  You and your personal network—and thousands of people like you across the country—can beat the Big Money Republicans at their own game. After you check out Blueprint for yourself, perhaps you can help spread the word to your contacts to make it easy for others to also contribute more impactfully in this critical election
8. Recruit others to join this work. Invite a small group of friends to join you for a regular virtual letter or postcard writing party for more fun and more letters done.  In addition, each of us probably has relationships with family, former roommates, former neighbors and others who live in one of the 12 Super States.   In addition to suggesting that they join up with Swing Left, you can send them this information and then follow-up with a call. We need to catalyze and activate as many people as we can in these Super States. The same Swing Left tools available to those outside the Super States can be deployed by those within them.

 

 

TOGETHER WE CAN DO THIS!