MOVEON S 2018 MARCH TO THE BALLOT BOX 1
won! 2 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. 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.
BUILDING A BLUE WAVE Resist & Win engaged and mobilized our millionsstrong member base to take action to help end GOP control of the House. Our organizing team recruited and deeply trained hundreds of local volunteer leaders to host over 1,000 voter contact events across 100+ target seats to help get out the vote for MoveOn member-endorsed candidates. Local MoveOn members came out in force to wave events hosted by volunteer leaders to knock doors, make calls, send texts encouraging their neighbors to make a plan to vote, vote early, and get involved locally. MoveOn members and leaders know that Election Day was not the finish line. They re committed to holding elected officials accountable to a progressive vision of an America where all of us can thrive, and they re determined to build upon the blue wave they delivered this year for 2020. 3
REAL VOTER VOICES MoveOn s Real Voter Voices program was a breakthrough in voter mobilization and persuasion, centered in authentic and personal videos from MoveOn members in key districts and states. Our innovative approach was tested and honed in special and primary elections in 2017 and early 2018, where it was proved to be as much as five times more cost-effective than other digital approaches. We collected, vetted, and prepared more than 2,400 videos that speak compellingly to voters of all walks of life. We then used cutting-edge analytics to identify which voters would be compelled by which specific videos and used social media targeting to reach those audiences of voters. After testing, we ran over 260 video ads in 89 House districts, 10 Senate, and 10 gubernatorial races, including Spanish-language ads in Texas. We reached over 26.8 million voters, and projected to move hundreds of thousands of votes for Democrats. We were one of the top spenders on Facebook ads in the final two weeks of the election. 4
2,400+ VIDEOS 89 HOUSE RACES 10 SENATE RACES 10 GOVERNOR RACES 20M+ ESTIMATED REACH OF PERSUADABLE VOTERS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS MORE VOTES FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES 5
GRASSROOTS DONATIONS In the 2018 cycle, MoveOn raised more than $4.4 million directly for candidates in dozens of key House and Senate races via contributions from more than 204,000 individual MoveOn members. $4.4M RAISED FOR MEMBER- ENDORSED CANDIDATES AND PROGRESSIVES 60% FOR FEMALE CANDIDATES 40% FOR CANDIDATES OF COLOR 34% FOR BLACK WOMEN 6
MOVEON MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS STACEY ABRAMS $1,028,744 ELIZABETH WARREN $802,858 ANDREW GILLUM $191,694 JOE DONNELLY $114,017 BETO O ROURKE $105,302 TAMMY BALDWIN $93,751 LAUREN UNDERWOOD $85,795 LINDA COLEMAN $85,756 LUCY MCBATH $80,764 KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND $49,749 JESS KING $48,756 RANDY BRYCE $48,650 LIZ WATSON $43,592 AMMAR CAMPA-NAJJAR $38,767 BERNIE SANDERS $28,245 RASHIDA TLAIB $28,960 ILHAN OMAR $18,524 SHERROD BROWN $12,674 AND MORE CANDIDATES ACROSS THE COUNTRY TOTAL $4,448,390 7
MOVEON S ENDORSED CANDIDATES MoveOn members in more 100 House districts and seven Senate races endorsed an inspiring slate of diverse and progressive candidates, XX of whom were elected. MoveOn-endorsed candidates were far more representative of America than our current Congress. More than 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). Over 70% of them were first-time candidates. MoveOn members also endorsed a record 88 state and local candidates, from Governors races to state legislatures and more local offices. Each of our endorsed candidates is committed to fighting for progressive values as they ascend to power 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. 8
FEDERAL VICTORIES MoveOn members electoralized the Resistance and helped power many of our endorsed congressional candidates to victory. Members contacted voters by text and phone, organized in-person voter contact events, spread the word on social media, and gave contributions directly to our endorsed candidates. YY views on Real Voter Voices ads YY views on Real Voter Voices ads YY views on Real Voter Voices ads YY views on Real Voter Voices ads YY views on Real Voter Voices ads YY views on Real Voter Voices ads YY views on Real Voter Voices ads 9
STATE AND LOCAL WINS For the 88 progressive candidates MoveOn endorsed for state and local offices around the country, MoveOn s endorsement served as a valuable stamp of approval. Our volunteers, social media amplification, and direct contributions all gave them valuable support. Many of these candidates are rising stars in the national progressive movement. They ran on bold platforms of change and economic and social justice and represented the diversity of their communities. 10
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 appealed to a national audience. Each week, MoveOn s senior advisor and national spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, along with other MoveOn members and spokespeople, carried our message far and wide through a variety of media outlets and 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. Facebook followers, 300,000 Twitter followers, and 50,000 Instagram followers. MoveOn s active and engaged social media audience continues to grow, with 1.5 million 11
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 50M 40M 30M 20M 10M Texts sent by MoveOn volunteers Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov 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. 12
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. 13
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. 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. 14
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 cofounders 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 custom 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. The project drove joyful and energetic support and attention to the chosen candidates, including through substantial media coverage. 15
BRINGING MEANINGFUL CHANGE 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 PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION. POL.MOVEON.ORG. NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE S COMMITTEE.
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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. 18
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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. 20
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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. 22
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