MOVEON S 2018 MARCH TO THE BALLOT BOX 1
won! Together, millions of MoveOn members powered a historic wave election that swept the Republican Party out of power in Washington. MoveOn s Resist & Win program combined grassroots resistance energy with innovative technology and tactics to support hundreds of diverse, progressive candidates up and down the ballot. PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION. POL.MOVEON.ORG. NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE S COMMITTEE. 2
BUILDING A BLUE WAVE In 2018, responding to the acute crisis of unchecked GOP governance at the federal level, MoveOn members powered the largest midterm election campaign in our 20+-year history. Through our Resist & Win campaign, millions of MoveOn members helped propel a wave election that ended Republican control of the House and elected new progressive leaders up and down the ballot. MoveOn used all the tools in our arsenal field, digital, video, and mobile to train and mobilize tens of thousands of volunteers, run an innovative Real Voter Voices video persuasion campaign, and raise millions in small-dollar contributions for progressive candidates. Ultimately, our work together meant that hundreds of thousands of people cast votes for Democrats votes that wouldn t have been cast without our efforts. The power we built together in 2018 will carry forward beyond Election Day. Once these candidates are in office, millions of MoveOn members will continue to hold elected officials accountable to a progressive vision of an America where all of us can thrive. 3
MOBILIZING THE MOVEMENT RESIST & WIN TRAINING Our Resist & Win Leaders program trained thousands of local leaders in 2017 and 2018 to organize and train other volunteer activists in communities in 100 target districts across the country. Resist & Win Leaders participated in online training modules and regular video calls to learn new skills, build on old ones, and develop community with one another, and 120 top leaders from 35 states participated in inperson training in August 2018 at MoveOn s first national member gathering since 2010. VOLUNTEER WAVES Together with local MoveOn leaders, we engaged and mobilized our millions-strong member base in thousands of Waves volunteer-led voter contact events across the country. Across the country, volunteers came out in force for MoveOn member-endorsed candidates knocking on doors, phone banking, texting, and encouraging their neighbors to get out and vote. RESIST & WIN SUNDAY CALLS Every Sunday for months leading toward Election Day, tens of thousands of progressive activists joined MoveOn s massive Resist & Win calls. In total, people participated in the calls more than 250,000 times to plug into our election program. The calls served as a clearinghouse and rallying ground for progressives across the country to learn how to get involved, ask questions, and hear from movement leaders such as movement leaders Ai-jen Poo and Ana Maria Archila and MoveOn member-endorsed primary winner Rashida Tlaib and elected Democrats, including Senators Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. 4
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT Carmen V., TX Carmen brought people together in her community to support Beto O Rourke for U.S Senate through Wave events. She is a retired teacher and a MoveOn member from a small rural community in Texas. She has been a MoveOn member for years but this year she took the plunge to become a Resist & Win leader. This year I have been inspired by so many people. The women and families who walked 2000 miles with a caravan of hope to improve their lives and the incredible amount of money people have donated to help pay the bonds of immigrants seeking asylum. If these people can do this, take these extraordinary actions, I knew I needed to do something more. PARTNERSHIP WITH BEN & JERRY S Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry s, teamed up with MoveOn to launch a creative campaign to support seven progressive candidates running for Congress. With the help of MoveOn members, seven amazing ice cream flavors were created to capture the essence of what each candidate stands for, including health care as a human right, protections for clean air and water, and getting big money out of politics. 5
REAL VOTER VOICES Behind the scenes, we spent months testing a secret weapon to turn out voters that proved to be as much as five times more costeffective than other get-out-the-vote methods, according to independent researchers. Our Real Voter Voices program centered authentic and personal videos from MoveOn members in key districts and states. In total, we collected, vetted, and prepared more than 2,000 videos that speak compellingly to voters of all walks of life. We then used cutting-edge analytics to target who will find specific videos compelling. Real Voter Voices proved that when voters see videos of real people in their community with the authentic voices that can appeal specifically to them it can have a HUGE impact on voter turnout. After initial testing and fine-turning in special and primary elections in 2017 and early 2018, we launched the full program in support of Democratic candidates in nearly 100 competitive congressional races, 10 Senate races, and eight gubernatorial races. This high-precision, large-scale project was a breakthrough in voter mobilization and persuasion, centered in authentic grassroots voices. 6
2,000+ VIDEOS 100+ HOUSE RACES 18+ SEN/GOV RACES 20M+ ESTIMATED REACH OF PERSUADABLE VOTERS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS MORE VOTES FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES 7
SHAPING THE NARRATIVE IDENTIFYING POWERFUL MESSAGES MoveOn has a massive megaphone. With hundreds of millions of video views each year, millions of email recipients, daily appearances on cable news, and hundreds of thousands of SMS subscribers as well as an important role in relationship to other nonprofit advocacy and political organizations we worked intentionally to inform the national media narrative of this pivotal election. Early in 2018, MoveOn commissioned an indepth research study to see what issues were the most important to voters. Through in-person surveys and focus group with a cross-section of Americans, we identified multiple key messages and issues that resonated with American voters, including health care, discussing how Trump and the GOP s policies were attacking a diverse range of communities, calling for the protection of our freedoms, and fighting against an economy that had been rigged against working families. Those messages were then included in our campaigns and communications to engage both MoveOn members and the broader public. 8
DISTRIBUTING OUR STORIES Video Lab, MoveOn s in-house video production team, produced more than 150 videos that were viewed more than 50 million times by viewers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. With the capacity to turn around powerful, hard-hitting videos within hours, we engaged a vast network of online activists eager to signal-boost progressive messaging around the midterms by creating videos that appeal to a national audience. Each week, MoveOn s senior advisor and national spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, other MoveOn members and spokespeople carried our message far and wide through a variety of media outlets brought a thoughtful and informed voice to national cable and broadcast networks, making appearances on MSNBC s AM Joy, and CNN s State of the Union and The Lead. MoveOn s active and engaged social media audience continues to grow, with 1.5 million Facebook followers, 300k Twitter followers, and 50k Instagram followers. Increasingly, social media offers an opportunity to share important breaking news, in-person opportunities, and coverage of national events and panels through Facebook Live livestreaming. 9
INNOVATING WITH MOBILE Mobile outreach continues to be an increasingly critical way for activists, volunteers, and campaigns to stay connected. MoveOn s inhouse Mobile Team used innovative mobile technology much of which we built ourselves and offered free to other campaigns to help members communicate, take meaningful action, and contribute to campaigns. In the process, we built and ran one of the biggest texting operations in the country. 1,500 TEXT TEAM VOLUNTEERS 40M MESSAGES SENT 595,000 PLEDGES TO VOTE 1M ACTIVISTS SUBSCRIBED VOLUNTEER TEXTING In 2018, MoveOn s volunteer Text Team has sent more than xx million peer-to-peer text messages to activate millions of volunteers and voters. In the 2018 election, xx% of our volunteer sign-ups originated from p2p texting outreach. And our volunteer texters did more than just get out the vote in key races; they also helped turn out huge crowds and generate calls to key legislative targets about family separation, health care reform, taxes, and the Supreme Court. This team uses Spoke, a peer-to-peer texting platform first developed in 2016, taken over and open-sourced by MoveOn, and today utilized by national and global progressive partners to help drive winning campaigns. 10
BROADCAST SMS MESSAGES After the 2016 election, MoveOn formed a partnership with the Resistance startup Daily Action, helping ensure that eager activists were receiving strategic and timely action alert messages regularly throughout the week. Nearly a million people one of the biggest SMS advocacy communities in the country now receive regular text alerts from MoveOn. IMPACT ON OFFLINE ACTION Mobile outreach has proven to be an effective way to drive meaningful actions. From phone calls to elected representatives, to in-person attendance at local and national events, to volunteering for progressive campaigns across the country, MoveOn s expansive mobile outreach was a critical piece for all of our work this election. 11
MOVEON S ENDORSED CANDIDATES NATIONAL CANDIDATES MoveOn members over 100 House districts and seven Senate races endorsed an inspiring slate of diverse and progressive candidates, XX of whom were elected to Congress. MoveOn endorsed candidates were far more representative of America than our current Congress. Over 60% of our House endorsements were women (compared to 20% currently serving in Congress) and one-third were people of color (compared to 24% currently in Congress). These candidates were also part of a new generation of leadership in Washington with two-third of them under 50 years old, and over 70% of them being first-time candidates. Each of these candidates is committed to fighting for progressive values in Washington including expanding health care, protections for immigrants, building an economy that works for everyone instead of a wealthy few, and providing a check on the Trump Administration. 12
SUPPORTING DIVERSE CANDIDATES IN STATE AND LOCAL RACES STATE AND LOCAL MoveOn members endorsed more than 100 progressive candidates running for state and local offices across the country candidates that may truly become the future leaders in the national progressive movement. Each of these candidates ran on bold platforms of change and economic and social justice and represented the diversity of their communities. Check out the full list of member-endorsed candidates at MoveOn.org/candidates. Many of these candidates were running for the first time, and we were proud to use our national platform to elevate their voices, driving national and local media attention to campaigns, while offering complimentary campaign advice and trainings. Meanwhile, MoveOn members showed up in powerful ways, volunteering at local offices, donating, and plugging into powerful get-out-the-vote efforts. MoveOn contributed over $300,000 in direct contributions to endorsed state and local candidates and provided an additional $200,000 worth of in-kind contributions and grants, that included texting support, email support, digital and print ads, candidate training, and more. 72% ARE PEOPLE OF COLOR 64% IDENTIFY AS WOMEN 15% IDENTIFY AS LGBTQ 8% ARE MUSLIM- AMERICANS By lifting up progressive candidates who are underrepresented, MoveOn identified and exposed to a national audience a bench of progressive champions who will be the next wave of leaders at the national level in the years to come. 13
BOOSTING BOLD, DIVERSE CANDIDATES INVESTING IN THE LEADERSHIP OF BLACK WOMEN Too frequently, our elected leaders do not fully represent the diversity and leadership in our communities, and Black women in particular, long a backbone of progressive political coalitions, have been underrepresented in political leadership. In 2018, MoveOn members stepped up to help change that, with more than 60,000 people contributing more than $1 million in support of Black women candidates, including Stacey Abrams for Georgia governor, and congressional candidates Lucy McBath (GA-06), Linda Coleman (NC-02) and Lauren Underwood (IL-14). Additionally, MoveOn made several grants to several local and community organizations that focused on turning out Black voters in their communities particularly important, as several states attempted to purge voter rolls and enact strict voter ID laws that disproportionately impacted communities of color. 14
$4.3M RAISED FOR MEMBER- ENDORSED CANDIDATES AND PROGRESSIVES GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING In the 2018 cycle, MoveOn raised more than $4.3 million directly for member-endorsed candidates from more than 204,000 MoveOn members including more than $1 million for Stacey Abrams, $800,000 for Senator Elizabeth Warren s reelection, $105,000 for Beto O Rourke, $100,000 for Andrew Gillum, and dozens of additional 60% FOR FEMALE CANDIDATES 40% FOR CANDIDATES OF COLOR 34% FOR BLACK WOMEN 15
MEANINGFUL TITLE HERE MoveOn s millions of members played an essential role in sweeping Republicans out of power in the 2018 midterm elections. Together, we helped lead a nationwide march to the ballot box, through in-person voter contact, an innovative Real Voter Voices video persuasion campaign, social outreach, and peer-topeer texting, ultimately moving hundreds of thousands of votes for Democrats. This election will serve as a lesson for how the progressive movement can engage and mobilize activists and voters and continue to win elections and build a governing coalition to bring meaningful change to Washington in 2020 and beyond. 16