2020 Survival Guide Special
There's no blue wave unless we build it. Every District and Crush 2020 show us how to take back our country starting now. This is not a drill.
Andrea Chalupa:
Hey everyone. It's Andrea with Gaslit Nation. We have two very important interviews in this 2020 Survival Guide Special. We hope that you are inspired by the exciting opportunities we have this election cycle to do our bit, to pull out the weeds of fascism from the root by working hard to Trump-proof our democracy this election cycle. If you are doing anything to get out the vote, if you're going to take advantage of the great opportunities we have for you in this special, then please let us know by tweeting @GaslitNation on Twitter. Let us know what you are doing this election cycle to get out the vote and I will retweet it. And from the group that we get sending us your plan to help Trump-proof our democracy, we will be selecting some folks to come on to Gaslit Nation in the new year and share your dreams for rebuilding our democracy. Thank you all for your support of the show. The baby is here, so I've got to go. And do what you can to fight like hell, because this is one of the last chances we have. This is not a drill. Thank you everyone.
Andrea Chalupa:
Okay Gaslit Nation listeners, we are here with EveryDistrict, the co-founder and executive director, Nicole Hobbs. EveryDistrict is an essential organization we talk a lot about on Gaslit Nation. They are working tremendously hard to undo years of damaging work by Karl Rove and others by turning state governments blue. The state governments determine quality of life, from healthcare to voting laws and election security. So this is the all-essential work to Trump-proof and Putin-proof our democracy. So Nicole is going to walk us through what EveryDistrict's strategy is for 2020.
Nicole Hobbs:
Well, thank you so much. Always happy to be here. Really want to focus in today on the states where EveryDistrict is making investment and where Democrats have strong opportunities to flip chambers and make other strategic gains this year. I'll start with Pennsylvania, a state where Democrats are in a strong position to flip both chambers of the legislature. And because we already control the governorship, this would turn Pennsylvania into a Democratic trifecta state, putting Democrats in charge of the redistricting process next year and also giving Democrats a strong opportunity to move forward on voting rights and other key policy issues. In the Senate, Democrats need to flip four seats. This would tie the chamber and effectively give them control. And in the State House, Democrats need to flip nine seats, which would allow them to flip that chamber.
Nicole Hobbs:
In Arizona, Democrats are in a strong position in that state to flip both chambers of the legislature. In the Senate, Democrats need to flip three seats, and in the State House, Democrats need to flip two seats. In Iowa, Democrats have a strong opportunity to flip the State House, where they only need to flip four seats to flip that chamber. Michigan, another key state in 2020. Democrats have a strong opportunity to flip the Michigan State House, needing only four more seats to flip that chamber this year. In 2018, Governor Gretchen Whitmer won four currently Republican held state legislative seats, which gives Democrats a really strong opportunity to win back that chamber this year.
Nicole Hoobs:
In North Carolina, this is another state where Democrats have a strong opportunity to turn North Carolina into a Democratic trifecta state. We have a really strong Democratic governor in the state who seems to be in a good position to win reelection this year. And if Democrats can flip five State Senate seats and six State House seats–which is doable this year in particular, because Democrats are running under new maps that are even more favorable for Democratic chances to flip both chambers of the legislature–we can turn North Carolina into a Democratic trifecta state. In Texas, Democrats are in a strong position to flip the State House this year, which would give Democrats a really strong negotiating position as we head into redistricting in a state that has previously been controlled by Republicans at all levels of government. Again, what happened in 2018 in that state in Beto O'Rourke running for the US Senate gave us the path to a majority in the State House this year because Democrats need to flip nine seats to flip the State House, and Beto O'Rourke won nine currently Republican held State House seats.
Andrea Chalupa:
Wow, that's amazing. You’ve made me tear up with relief that we're doing a lot better than I thought we were. And that's thanks to grassroots powerhouses like yours. Thank you for everything that you do, EveryDistrict, and for fighting in every district.
Nicole Hobbs:
Thank you. Also happy to highlight a few other states where there are opportunities for Democrats to make important gains, but getting to those chamber flips are a little bit more of an outside opportunity this year. Two states where EveryDistrict is making investments are Ohio and Kansas. These are states where we have an opportunity to break Republican supermajorities in those states, which would give Democrats a really important lever of power as we head into a redistricting year and also on issues of voting rights and key policy issues. Three other states where in these State Houses–in particular, Democrats have an opportunity to win a significant number of seats, and if we really do see a strong wave environment this year, where there is a possibility to flip those State Houses–are Wisconsin, Florida, and Georgia.
Andrea Chalupa:
That's great. And what's really interesting is that local elections, local candidates like the ones that you support, they're like the local newspapers in terms of how local news works to be on the ground confronting local corruption. One of the best vaccines against local corruption is our local journalists. And by having these great local candidates on the ground, that's also essential in building an infrastructure to keep a close eye on any election shenanigans by the Republicans, including election hacking, because your strong groups on the ground know the area very well, they know the local authorities very well, and if anything seems off, they're the ones that could raise the alarm.
Nicole Hobbs:
Absolutely. I had someone ask me a question recently: how do I learn more about what Republicans are doing in these states so I can educate myself on the various ways that Republicans are trying to undermine voting rights and suppress the vote in states across the country? What I said in response was, "Go to EveryDistrict's Twitter account @every_district. We have a Twitter list of all of the candidates we've worked with since 2017 and the candidates that we've endorsed this year in 2020. The best way to figure out what's happening in these states is to follow these candidates on Twitter, hear what they're talking about, because as you said, they really are the front lines who are on the ground in these places seeing what's happening and raising the alarm–unfortunately, more than we would hope is needed these days. But they are really this critical bulwark against the Republican voter suppression tactics that we're seeing so much of these days.
Andrea Chalupa:
Great. So how can people give money, make donations large and small, to these candidates? You have it on your website where they can just go to EveryDistrict and pull up a state like Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, and just give a lump sum to that state, and it's going to be equally distributed among those local candidates.
Nicole Hobbs:
Exactly. If you go to our website, everydistrict.us, we make it really easy for you to get involved and support candidates in these key target states. Right on our homepage, we have a map that shows our target states this year. If you click on one of those states, you can learn a little bit more about the opportunity and donate to our slate of candidates running in that state. If you want to maximize your impact across all of these states, you can donate to our top 10 list, which we update weekly with the 10 candidates that we've endorsed who are most in need of your support in that particular moment. Any amount that you can give makes a difference, but if you can't give right now, or if you want to give and then do something more, it's also easier than ever to volunteer for state legislative candidates.
Nicole Hobbs:
If you go to the Take Action section of our website, we have a mobilized feed where you can look through volunteer opportunities for our candidates–which are pretty much all remote right now–and sign up to help send texts, make phone calls, write postcards, and get out the vote for these candidates in this highly untraditional election year.
Andrea Chalupa:
Great. Well, you gave us a lot of really uplifting and urgent information, and I feel very motivated by it. So thank you so much, Nicole Hobbs, for coming on Gaslit Nation yet again. You are always welcome here. Thank you for all of the critical work that you are doing to restore our democracy.
Nicole Hobbs:
Thank you so much for having me on the show today.
Andrea Chalupa:
So welcome back to Gaslit Nation Marisa Kabas, a co-founder of Crush2020, which you can find on crush2020.org. She's going to tell us how we can Trump-proof and Putin-proof our democracy by getting rid of all these complicit Republicans and ushering in a big blue wave of Democrats this election.
Marisa Kabas:
Yeah [laughs]. I am going to tell you how to do that. Thank you so much for having me back. We talked two years ago about Crush the Midterms, which was the platform I was working on then, and Crush2020 is the next generation. It's very simple and anyone can use it. It's a digital platform. You go to crush2020.org and you just answer a few simple questions about yourself, like the issues that matter to you, the amount of time that you can give to volunteer from now through election day, the amount of money that you could afford to give to campaigns, and a little bit about the different skills that you could offer a campaign. And once you go through that flow–it takes less than two minutes–it spits out a personalized plan just for you for getting involved, from no matter where you are in the country.
Andrea Chalupa:
Fantastic. And how is the electoral map looking for Democrats this election cycle? Which races do we need to win to take the Senate?
Marisa Kabas:
The Senate's actually looking really good from my perspective. It's hard to say. There's so many crazy factors going on right now between COVID, obviously, and the way the protests are being framed, but I still feel really good about it. The one that's been catching my eye a lot is Iowa, Joni Ernst's race. She's running against Theresa Greenfield, who's a Democrat who I think would bring a lot to the table. I think that race has been a little bit under the radar, and I think that people should really give it a look. Obviously, Maine has been at the forefront of the conversation since the Kavanaugh hearings and Sara Gideon's looking really good and she has a ton of money. So I would say, obviously keep supporting that race, but there's a lot of races that need money.
Marisa Kabas:
Montana, the Battle of the Steves: Steve Daines versus Steve Bullock. Steve Bullock is the Democrat there and he is a really awesome guy who did a lot of revolutionary stuff as governor of Montana for voting rights. So I would really check that out. And North Carolina is this kind of crazy dark horse that came out of nowhere, but Cal Cunningham has a real shot there. So those are a few that I would give a look. And also it's sort of crazy–the story playing out over four years–a season one favorite, John Ossoff, he's back in Georgia and he's running for Senate and he has a shot there, which is really exciting. So I feel like we can make this work
Andrea Chalupa:
Great. And so Democrats need to win four Senate seats and hold on to the Senate seats they already have in order to take away the speakership from Mitch McConnell.
Marisa Kabas:
Exactly. And we want that really bad.
Andrea Chalupa:
Yes. How is the House looking for Democrats?
Marisa Kabas:
The House is looking good, but we can't sleep on it either. We have to fight like hell for every single seat. A lot of the races that are vulnerable are first-term House members that were part of the huge blue wave in 2018. And as someone who worked really hard on that, as I know so many of us did, I kind of feel protective over these people. There's Abby Finkenauer in Iowa and there's Andy Kim in New Jersey, Max Rose who's from New York. New York's my hometown. I feel like we've really got to protect Max. And Joe Cunningham was a huge surprise in South Carolina in 2018. So there are a lot of first-timers who really need our help so that they can become second-timers.
Marisa Kabas:
There's one that always makes me laugh a little bit. It’s Kendra Horn from Oklahoma's fifth district. I remember election night 2018, looking at the New York Times list of the flipped seats, and a lot of the names were familiar that we'd heard of before in these competitive races. And then I was like, "Who is Kendra Horn? Where did she come from?" But she's actually been really great and she's lone Democrat from Oklahoma in the House, so protecting her seems really important. So there's really not many seats that we can sleep on. I mean, I think AOC is going to be okay, but there's a lot of battles going on in every state in the country.
Sarah Kendzior:
And what about the White House? What does the electoral college win look like for the Democrats?
Marisa Kabas:
So there are so many states that could really go either way, which is hard to comprehend at this point with everything that's happened in the last four years. But a lot of states are also undergoing demographic changes, which would explain the different electoral outcomes. I mean, for example, Florida used to be the ultimate swing state. For those of us who remember the 2000 election–which is still traumatizing to think about–that used to be kind of like what's going to happen with Florida? These days, I mean, Biden has shown leads in Florida. I still feel a little bit unsure how that's going to work out, but we definitely have to make sure we nail down Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, those big Midwest states.
Marisa Kabas:
Something that I'm really excited to see how it plays out is Texas. I did a project with the Texas Democratic Party a few months back and we helped raise a ton of money because people are really excited about the prospect of Texas turning blue. And it's actually the first time in a generation that that's really a possibility. The New York Times has rated it a toss up at this point, which is just… it blows my mind. Sorry, they say lean Republican, but it's still a possibility. And I don't know, it's a rapidly changing state. It's getting younger, it's getting more diverse. It's looking more like a California, potentially. So I wouldn't sleep on Texas; I think we could win big there on election night.
Andrea Chalupa:
Great. And so Biden needs to hold on to all the states that Hillary won in 2016 and then needs to flip three states that she lost, and that could be Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas. So is that how it's looking for him, his road to victory?
Marisa Kabas:
I think so. I think that his message seems to be resonating with people there. He's very well liked. He's doing the work. He's traveling around as much as possible in COVID times. So yeah, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic at this point.
Andrea Chalupa:
That is the way to be. And fight like hell. Take nothing for granted.
Marisa Kabas:
That's the number one thing. There's no room for complacency at this point. There is a little bit of a flashback to 2016, looking at the polls and seeing Hillary having strong margins everywhere. But if the past has taught us anything, it's that, to quote Yogi Berra–I think it's a Yogi Berra quote–"It ain't over 'till it's over."
Andrea Chalupa:
Exactly. Complacency is poison. All right. Well Marisa, thank you so much. We invite all of our Gaslit Nation listeners to go to crush2020.org and make your plan. Make your plan on how you are going to be part of the big blue wave to wash the Trump crime family out of the White House and their complicit GOP out of Congress. So please get on that, crush2020.org, make your plan, tweet it @GaslitNation on Twitter, and we'll retweet it. We'll share it. Just go and make your plan. And we look forward to hearing how you are going to help us build the big blue wave.
Andrea Chalupa:
We want to encourage you to donate to your local food bank, which is experiencing a spike in demand. We also encourage you to donate to Direct Relief at directrelief.org, which is supplying much needed protective gear to first responders working on the front lines in the US, China and other hard hit parts of the world.
Sarah Kendzior:
We encourage you to donate to the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian relief organization helping refugees from Syria. Donate at rescue.org. And if you want to help critically endangered orangutans already under pressure from the palm oil industry, donate to The Orangutan Project at theorangutanproject.org. Gaslit Nation is produced by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. If you like what we do, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more listeners. And check out our Patreon, it keeps us going. And also subscribe to our new YouTube channel.
Andrea Chalupa:
Our production managers are Nicholas Torres and Karlyn Daigle. Our episodes are edited by Nicholas Torres and our Patreon exclusive content is edited by Karlyn Daigle.
Sarah Kendzior:
Original music in Gaslit Nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Vissenberg, Nick Farr, Demien Arriaga and Karlyn Daigle.
Andrea Chalupa:
Our logo design was donated to us by Hamish Smyth of the New York based firm, Order. Thank you so much, Hamish.
Sarah Kendzior:
Gaslit Nation would like to thank our supporters at the Producer level on Patreon...