We did this together
“The Next 50 has conceptualized something that is remarkable and I am so excited.” -Congresswoman Lauren Underwood
Friends,
We have so much to celebrate. Your commitment and courage are why we have President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in a position to move our country forward. You are also why we have a plan for 2022 and beyond.
Over 18 months of this journey, one of our greatest privileges has been the opportunity to meet and work with many of you to build back a better democracy. We have invested in a new generation of political leadership, which transformed races and made a notable impact on the political landscape.
Together, we:
Raised over $4.4M from over 90 events – including 18 presidential candidates.
Engaged over 17,000 donors from more than 40 states, on the ground and virtually.
Supported 15 candidates, via our Leadership Program, each of whom was running in a district held by a Republican.
Here’s a deeper dive on how we:
Organized in a pandemic
Hosted 10 U.S. Senate candidates for 1 historic event
Created more effective ActBlue pages
Invested in creative young voter outreach
Elevated a new generation of representative leadership
Made history
Supported Black leadership
Dared to do more
Hosted 10 U.S. Senate candidates for 1 historic event
We worked with our friends Manny Yekutiel and Sara Bahat to organize the first-ever event with 10 key Senate candidates and raised over $1.5 million from over 2,400 donors from 41 states and territories, orchestrated by organizers whose average age is 33. This helped us clear over $2 million raised for Senate candidates this cycle.
Created more effective ActBlue pages
In November of 2019 we designed ActBlue donation pages for select candidates that we believed would perform better, on average, than those created by the campaigns. After the election, we revisited these pages and learned that we raised $646,868 from 5,835 contributors via these pages with no promotion. Our page for Alaskan U.S. Senate candidate Al Gross raised over 2 percent of his total budget.
Invested in creative young voter outreach
Carolyn Bourdeaux, Georgia’s 7th Congressional District.
We targeted a district where Tufts’ research suggests young people could have a significant impact on the electoral outcome. Our digital ad placements directly reached over 110K young voters.Bordeaux won her race by a little over 10K votes, becoming the only U.S. House candidate to flip a red district blue this cycle.
Jon Ossoff, U.S. Senate seat from Georgia
Our nonpartisan get out the vote advertisements, online, via mail, and on the streets, helped us directly reach at least 1 million young Georgia voters. Young voter turnout in Georgia was 21 percent, 4 points above the national average. Reply if you want to help reach these voters for the Senate run-offs on January 5th.
Made history
North Carolina: Ricky Hurtado out-performed Joe Biden and Senate candidate Cal Cunningham to flip a red district blue by 477 votes and became the first Latino ever elected to the State House in Raleigh.
New York: Samra Brouk became the first Black woman from Western New York ever elected to Albany and is the difference-maker in creating a supermajority for Democrats in the NY State Senate.
“I can’t wait to talk about how we continue this work [together] for future candidates.” -New York State Senator-elect Samra Brouk
Supported Black leadership
We organized an unprecedented event with six Black Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ("DCCC") candidates most primed to flip districts and the six Black DCCC candidates in most need of support protecting their seats – more Black House candidates than in any single fundraiser event ever.
We started the event with over $156K raised and ended with a total of over $300K, in support of them this cycle.
The average age of our event organizers was 32, attendees gave between $1 and the maximum contribution, and they came from over 293 ZIP codes in over 195 communities, all within 32 states and territories.
Dared to do more
15 of our endorsed candidates ran in swing districts.
13 of our endorsed candidates ran in swing states.
11 of our endorsed candidates were history-making candidates of color.
8 of our endorsed candidates ran in districts that Democrats have not won in decades, if ever.
7 of our endorsed candidates lost by between one and 6 points, but 6 of their districts were critical to their respective states flipping blue for Biden-Harris.
Their success was extraordinary in a year when Democrats faced major down ballot losses (which we forecasted) and is a promising sign for each of these candidates’ futures.
Planned for 2022 and beyond
The last four years have taught us all that the work is long, it is hard, and it must never stop. Together, we are excited to expand upon this success in 2022, 2024 and over the next 50 years by continuing to invest in a new generation of donors and candidates.
As we wait for redistricting to play out, this is what we know: In 2022, there will be 39 governor races and 34 Senate seats up for election. We must continue to expand Democratic power at all levels of government. In service of that, our immediate plans include building a team that will both develop donor communities in 5-10 key states, informed by our analysis below, and deepen our investment in young candidates who will run in swing districts.
Reply to share how you would like to commit your time, ideas, relationships, and/or money, so that we can expand upon our 2020 success together.
With you, we know we are just getting started.
With gratitude and in partnership,
Zak
P.S. You didn’t think we forgot about the Georgia run-offs, did you? We worked with Georgians to create a list of five key organizations that need your support, in addition to the candidates, and have raised over $198K so far!