2017 can easily be classified as the year the country woke up to understand misogyny. The year that maybe, just maybe we began to trust women. Not all the way, of course, but the tide shifted in tidal wave proportions. With each passing month, another wave propelled us closer to the truth—we as a nation must trust women. We as a country must agree that we must fundamentally believe each woman deserves autonomy and control over her life and the direction it takes. On election night 2017, we showed what our resilience is truly made of. All that hard work, all of that unflinching determination paid off.
Here's how the #VOTEPROCHOICE team got there:
Our truly radical ragtag team began to slowly take form in the beginning of 2016. Grounded and founded on the fact that 7 in 10 American voters are prochoice—meaning they fundamentally believe a woman has the right to choose. If 70% of the country are prochoice voters, candidates for elected office should support this position. Unfortunately, since the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down from the Supreme Court, reproductive rights have been losing on the messaging front. We’ve become so accustomed to losing that we pride ourselves wholeheartedly in our small victories.
In the 30 years since Roe v. Wade was decided, the religious right positioned 70% of American voters who are prochoice as anti-women, anti-values, and anti-family. We know that to be untrue. So, we did what any focused start-up team would do—we fiercely focused on a single outcome. Elect prochoice candidates up and down the ballot. Period. Regardless of position, regardless of previous wins, regardless of what the consultants say, we can elect prochoice candidates in Utah, North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennslyvania. Or even Alabama. We can elect prochoice candidates in Missouri or even Idaho if candidates are open and honest about standing up for reproductive rights. This team at #VOTEPROCHOICE believes we can and we set out to prove our strategy. We are, since our humble beginnings in 2016, committed to doing whatever it takes to elect prochoice candidates to every public office in the country.
Our Mission—Elect Prochoice Candidates Up + Down the Ballot.
In 2016, #VOTEPROCHOICE released a comprehensive national prochoice voter guide. The first national voter guide dedicated to giving voters an idea where their local candidates stood on choice was delivered to over 33,000 voters across the country. Then tragedy struck. We all woke up in a haze wondering "what the eff just happened". But, instead of infighting or pointing fingers, we knew we needed to do more—simply offering a voter guide was not enough to take on the newly elected Trump regime. That’s when we got into the endorsement game.
Over the past 12 months, we've worked with over 48 candidates, many who were running for the very first time, to win their races. We have a 5 point endorsement criteria that we run each and every candidate through. These candidates came out on top and earned our endorsement based on their progressive values, understanding of their local community, and are staunchly prochoice.
To help these outspoken community advocates turned candidates win, we didn’t follow the traditional endorsement path. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the services and resources our candidates received from #VOTEPROCHOICE—or as we commonly refer to ourselves—The Uterati Swat Team.
Uterati Swat Team Success:
- We asked candidates how we could help and what their actual needs were beside campaign contributions. We listened to their answers and provided the resources we had that could solve their problems.
- We texted voters, we helped strategize with campaign consultants and campaign managers. We sent in field strategist and taught candidates and staff how to cut turf.
- We built websites for some of our candidates, filled them in on prochoice initiatives and conversations taking place around the country. We answered questions candidates had on reproductive rights and walked them through some of the policy positions.
- Some of our candidates received pep talks. Some received text messages full of encouragement. Most often when they felt like throwing in the towel. Anyone who’s been in this arena long enough knows that campaigning is exhausting and being in the spotlight is downright challenging. Just ask Hillary. So we provided emotional support when they needed someone to tell them to keep going—it is worth it.
- We helped candidates connect with other organizations that could provide additional resources. We helped build their reputations with other organizations whose endorsements would provide more political clout. We opened up our digital rolodexes and said - who do you need to know who will help you win?
- We talked to voters in the communities about the candidate’s prochoice positions. We talked to millions of voters that way—through email, texts, and over the phone. We never ever talked about abortion from a position of shame. We never parsed words. Abortion is critical to the future of our country. Abortion is an economic issue. Abortion is a healthcare issue. Abortion is not to be bargained away. Abortion should be discussed in school board races where the future depends on us educating youth through comprehensive, fact-based, age-appropriate sex education.
- We told local candidates running for municipal elections to trust us on the prochoice frame. We’ve learned over and over again that when we run on our prochoice values, voters will come out and vote for us.
- We told the truth to voters and engaged with them authentically. We partnered with Open Progress to help drive our message home for voters in our texting. Our hugely successful text campaign was direct with voters about the need to support reproductive rights and freedoms for everyone.
- We created a prochoice voter guide with our partners at Ballot Ready and sent the prochoice voter guide into the digital hands of over 3 million voters. We lead, with a collection of partners, and prochoice candidates willing to stand with us. We lead with a direct prochoice message focused on electing down-ballot candidates.
Flash forward to last Wednesday, when our year of intense work, dedicated to prochoice candidates up and down the ballot, was realized. Our collective hard work—the thousands of you reading this email, our strategic partners and countless other prochoice voters across the country propelled the resistance onward. You did that. We did that together. That’s something to be proud of. We are a prochoice nation. We are a nation that believes in justice. We’re a nation full of compassionate people—not racists, not transphobic or homophobic, sexist bigots. We know our country is better than that, despite what our current reality depicts. That’s what makes last Tuesday so powerful. The resistance resoundingly said “enough”. So, thank you for being part of this victory. Thank you for believing us when we said we could elect prochoice candidates in red states or even red state house districts. Here’s what we were able to accomplish together by leading on abortion.
Elected Candidate Highlights:
You may recognize a few of these names—many are historic firsts.
2017 Victorious #VOTEPROCHOICE Candidates
- Kathy Tran - Virginia House District 42
- Chris Hurst - Virginia House District 12
- Hala Ayala - Virginia House District 51
- David Reid - Virginia House District 32
- Wendy Gooditis - Virginia House District 10
- Jennifer Carroll Foy - Virginia's House District 2
- Carlina Rivera - New York City Council District 2
- Alicka Ampry-Samuel - New York City Council District 41
- Justin Brannon - New York City Council District 43
- Vi Lyles - Mayor of Charlotte
- Dimple Ajmera - Charlotte City Council
- Braxton Winston - Charlotte City Council
- DeDreana Freeman - Durham City Council
- Andrea Jenkins - Minneapolis City Council
- Melvin Carter - Mayor of St. Paul
- Marny Xiong - St. Paul School Board
- Ellen Ceisler - Commonwealth Court of Pennslyvania
- Anita Prizio - Allegheny County Council District 3
- Jennifer Bacon - Denver School District
- Nicole Johnston - Aurora City Council
- Crystal Murillo - Aurora City Council
- Allison Hiltz - Aurora City Council
- Dustin Gettel - Midvale, Utah City Council
- Ben Chin - Mayor of Lewiston Maine (Runoff scheduled for Dec.)
- LaToya Cantrell - Mayor of New Orleans
- Dante Tanner (recount) - Virginia House District
- Garlin Gilchrist (recount) - Detroit City Clerk
Here at #VOTEPROCHOICE, our volunteers helped us contact over 130,000 voters and we made over 400,000 texts to help turn out the vote for these prochoice candidates. This effort translated into powerful victories on November 7th. We focused on simple tangible asks and actions that would make an impact in these local races. We avoided the traditional pitfalls of too many consultants, too many leaders and not enough listeners. #VOTEPROCHOICE’s singular focus on electing prochoice candidates up and down the ballot paid off big time.
We had 24 of our 31 candidates win on November 7th*. That’s a success rate of 77%. Two of our candidates are in the midst of recounts. Our first-time candidates had a win rate of 80%. We had some pretty outstanding statistical wins on Tuesday. But, our numbers are an indication of our endorsement priorities focused on representation in government. Just look:
One thing is perfectly clear—it’s time to lead on reproductive rights. So in the coming weeks, we’ll continue to support our candidates who still have races to win (a constant reminders elections are never OVER). We’ll also refine our strategy and discuss scaling for 2018. We’re digging in and ready to take on any antichoice candidate. Qualified prochoice candidates already exist in those areas and we’re ready to primary and take down any antichoice candidate. We are part of the resistance and we won’t be silent any longer. Please stay tuned for updates on 2018 and if you have any prochoice candidates you or your organization wants to bring attention to, email us at go@voteprochoice.us. We’re ready to join forces. Together, the Uterati Swat Team can prevail and we can advance reproductive rights for everyone.
