Dear MoveOn member,
I have to admit that, while I have faith that the majority of Americans will make the right choice this election, I have little faith in the Electoral College.
The Electoral College gives a massive, profoundly unfair benefit to the Republican Party.
Out of the 50 states in the country, only a handful of battleground states will decide the future of our country. And inside those battleground states, it’s going to be a tiny fraction of voters who decide the election.
I’m talking about undecided voters. But not the “undecided” voters who still haven’t made up their minds between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Instead, I’m talking about a different type of undecided voter: progressive-leaning voters who are still deciding whether to vote at all. Mark my words: These voters will make or break this election.
It’s true. The New York Times reports that pretty much every election victory we’ve had in the last two years was due to unexpectedly high turnout—at least 4 points more than projected—by Democratic-leaning voters.1
With so much on the line this year, my friends at MoveOn are not going after mythical “undecideds” or relying on campaign tactics that haven’t worked since the ’90s.
Instead, they’ve researched and tested a highly effective method of getting unlikely progressive voters to the polls so we can defeat Trump and his anti-democratic plans. But there’s a catch: The Trump campaign is on to our tactics and trying to replicate them.
I’ll tell you more in just a second. But first, will you start a $5 a month donation to MoveOn to power their get-out-the-vote plan, defeat Trump and MAGA this November, and keep up their work 24/7 to help save our democracy and build a future where everyone can thrive?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
News outlets are reporting that the Trump campaign is copying MoveOn’s playbook—focusing on the base and getting unlikely voters to turn out.
According to The New Yorker, the Trump campaign has “given up on persuading swing voters and is betting it all on turning out MAGA diehards.”2
NBC News is reporting that the Trump campaign is placing a “big bet” on targeting MAGA-leaning voters who don’t show up every voting cycle and may even skip the presidential ballot every four years.3
So what does this mean?
It means this election will come down to one thing: turnout, turnout, turnout.
With likely voters divided 50-50 this election, the fundamental question that will determine the outcome of this campaign is this: Which side will turn out more unlikely supporters?
Here’s the good news: Turning out unlikely voters (whom we call “surge voters”) is MoveOn’s secret sauce.
And MoveOn does it by deploying a highly effective tactic called “vote tripling,” which MoveOn pioneered at scale in 2020.
Vote tripling is based on relational organizing—the idea that people are much more likely to listen to their friends and social networks than to anonymous ads and outreach. Relational organizing has been proven to be the absolute best way, by orders of magnitude, not only to inform people but also to turn them into likely voters who will show up on Election Day.4
MoveOn has taken relational organizing and super-powered it by providing an easy way to reach out to friends and family, talk to them about the issues they care about the most, and help them make a plan to get to the polls. Not only did MoveOn’s vote tripling result in 50,000 unlikely voters casting a ballot in 2020 in key states and districts, it’s been proven to be as much as five times more effective than other methods!
So here’s the plan this year: MoveOn’s data team has identified 1.5 million surge voters in battleground states and districts—Democratic-leaning voters who do not vote consistently.
They have been reaching out to these voters for months. MoveOn members and volunteers have already done all this to reach surge voters in battleground states:
- Made more than 557,000 calls, connecting directly with these key voters to talk about Trump’s fascist plans and Project 2025 and how a Harris administration could help everyone thrive
- Sent 73,000 postcards to provide these voters information about key issues they care most about and what’s at stake in this election
- Hosted more than 550 house parties to meet surge voters in their own communities, hear their stories, help convince them that their voice and vote matter, and ensure they feel empowered to make a difference at the ballot box
And soon, MoveOn will kick off their vote tripling program and get these voters to the polls!
But my friends at MoveOn are still raising the money to be able to fully execute their game-changing plan. With time running out, will you donate $5 a month to help MoveOn turn out surge voters in battleground states—these are the voters who will make the difference this November—and then keep fighting no matter what happens on Election Day?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Robert Reich
1. “Turnout Data Reveals the Core of Democrats’ Success in Special Elections,” The New York Times, February 3, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/upshot/special-elections-democrats-turnout-2024.html
2. “Inside the Trump Campaign’s Plan to Win Arizona,” The New Yorker, September 9, 2024
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/inside-the-trump-campaigns-plan-to-win-arizona
3. “The Trump campaign’s big bet on a new GOTV strategy worries some Republicans,” NBC News, September 15, 2024
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-campaign-big-bet-new-gotv-strategy-worries-republicans-rcna170516
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 start a monthly donation to power and sustain MoveOn’s election plan, stop Trump, and ensure Project 2025 is never enacted?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.