Dear MoveOn member,
I hate to rain on your parade, because I too feel the energy and hope of the Harris-Walz campaign. But if the election were tomorrow, the most likely outcome would be Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly winning the popular vote but Donald Trump winning the Electoral College.
Yes, that means a Trump presidency. And deep trouble for our country, democracy, and world.
I’ll get into more of the details in a minute. But you know we’ve been here before.
Remember when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the presidency because of the Electoral College and the Supreme Court? When George W. Bush became president due to 537 disputed votes in Florida—and a Supreme Court ruling?
And when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by millions … but lost the Electoral College, and thus the presidency, in 2016?
That’s why I’m writing to you today, to ask you to donate to help my friends at MoveOn get out the vote in battleground states. MoveOn has an incredible track record of turning out the very voters who will make the difference in this election: people with progressive values who do not consistently vote. MoveOn’s special sauce is engaging these voters on the issues they care about most, convincing them that their voices and votes matter, and getting them to the polls.
Let’s be clear: What we’re doing right now to help elect Vice President Harris and defeat Trump and the MAGA movement is NOT enough. Each of us, myself included, needs to do more, starting with chipping in to help MoveOn turn out inconsistent voters in battleground states.
Will you join me and donate $5 a month to MoveOn right now to help power and sustain their critical work?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
I have to admit that, while I have faith that the majority of Americans will make the right choice, I have little faith in the Electoral College.
The Electoral College gives a massive, profoundly unfair benefit to the Republican Party.
It’s because of the Electoral College that one of the nation’s top election forecasters, Nate Silver, now gives Trump a 64.4% chance of winning the presidency. According to his highly respected, nonpartisan model, Vice President Harris has only a 35.3% chance of victory.1
Here’s the thing: Right now, millions of people, many of them young and/or in marginalized communities, are going to sit out this election. Many don’t believe their vote matters. And many face huge obstacles to voting, in part due to MAGA voter suppression laws and the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act.
Data from The New York Times shows that Vice President Harris is not doing well with these inconsistent, less-engaged voters. Specifically, Vice President Harris trails Trump by 6 points among voters who didn’t vote in the 2022 midterms.2
But these are precisely the voters whom MoveOn has a long track record of turning out to vote. And the results of MoveOn’s efforts have been extraordinary. In 2020, MoveOn’s get-out-the-vote program resulted in 50,000 inconsistent voters casting ballots in battleground states and districts, in a year when President Biden won the Electoral College, and with it the presidency, by a wafer-thin margin of just 42,844 votes.3
Will you join me in donating $5 a month to help MoveOn reach voters in the crucial battleground states who will decide this election?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
As the nation’s largest independent, grassroots progressive political organization, and one staffed by some of the country’s foremost political experts, organizers, and data scientists, MoveOn will be critical to victory this November.
And this year, MoveOn is running its most innovative and strategic election-year campaign ever. Their ambitious plan is to reach and turn out 1.5 million of these “surge voters”—voters who don’t consistently show up to the polls but vote Democratic when they do—in the critical battleground states and districts that will decide this election.
MoveOn has pioneered a voter turnout method that’s proven to be as much as five times more effective than other methods!
It’s called vote tripling, and it’s based on relational organizing—the idea that people are much more likely to listen to their friends and social networks than anonymous ads and outreach. Relational organizing has been proven to be the absolute best way, by orders of magnitude, to not only inform people but turn them into voters who will show up on Election Day.4
I’m optimistic that MoveOn’s highly effective get-out-the-vote program will play a crucial role—once again—in ensuring that we have a decisive margin in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and the other key battleground states where we narrowly eked out a victory in 2020. But MoveOn’s fundraising is behind, time is running out, and they cannot do this crucial work without your help. Which is where you come in:
With only 55 days left before this election, and our nation’s democracy on the line, will you donate $5 a month to MoveOn to power their absolutely critical get-out-the-vote program in this final stretch?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
For the next 55 days, we’ve got to give it all we’ve got. We’ve got to volunteer, donate, mobilize, get out the vote, and do everything in our lawful power to make Kamala Harris the next president of the United States. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
Thanks for all you do.
–Robert Reich
Sources:
1. “Nate Silver Election Forecast Shows Trump’s Lead Growing Ahead of Debate,” Newsweek, September 10, 2024
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-harris-debate-polling-forecast-nate-silver-before-debate-1951276
2. “As Groups Have Shifted, Has It Become a ‘Normal’ Election?” The New York Times, September 4, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/upshot/kamala-harris-trump-polls.html
3. “Did Biden win by a little or a lot? The answer is … yes.” NBC News, December 20, 2020
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-win-little-or-lot-answer-yes-n1251845
4. “Largest-Ever Study on Relational Organizing Shows 8.3% Increase in Turnout,” Impactive, October 9, 2020
https://www.impactive.io/blog/largest-ever-study-on-relational-organizing-shows-8-3-percent-increase-in-turnout
Want to support MoveOn? The MAGA right is declaring war, and Project 2025 is their battle plan. Project 2025 threatens our rights, attacks communities of color, hurts middle- and working-class families, and undermines our democracy. But we will not back down or let Trump steamroll our nation.
Will you donate to power MoveOn’s election plan, stop Trump, and ensure Project 2025 is never enacted?
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