Accomplishments
2023: Wisconsin Supreme Court
During the first 4 months of 2023, we focused our resources on Wisconsin, helping elect Judge Janet Protasiewicz and flipping the Court to a 4-3 liberal majority. In partnership with the Wisconsin Democratic Party, we contacted nearly half a million voters between the primary and general elections. We also hired 26 youth organizers as part of our Organize for Democracy winter cohort, who made 27,000 calls to fellow young people ensuring they had a plan to vote. This victory will likely help ensure free and fair elections, end GOP gerrymandering, and restore reproductive freedom in Wisconsin.
2022 Accomplishments
When 2022 began one year ago, our mission to “Defend the Blue” faced some pretty daunting history. Democrats had previously lost nearly every midterm election – including many by wide margins – in which they controlled the White House. But we defied the odds. We expanded our Senate majority for another two years at least, and while Republicans may have squeaked out a razor-thin House majority, President Biden’s first midterm featured more Democratic House wins than those of Democratic Presidents Obama, Clinton, Carter, Johnson, or Kennedy. We also won countless down-ballot races nationwide that will be critical in our efforts to defend reproductive healthcare, voting rights, and more. Having implemented one of the most robust voter contact programs of any grassroots organization in the country, the Grassroots Democrats HQ played a significant role in Democrats’ unprecedented 2022 successes.
Organize for Democracy Leadership Program
Created in 2021 by Blue Future and Grassroots Democrats HQ to help maintain the massive youth voter turnout that carried Democrats to victory in 2020, Organize for Democracy is a paid training program that teaches young activists the basic tenets of organizing while helping to turn out young voters in key races across the country. During 2022, we hired 130 youth organizers who contacted 200,000+ youth voters in the some of the most competitive House districts and Senate states nationwide.
2021 Accomplishments
Following our historic victories in 2020, we immediately got to work in 2021 to defend and expand our Democratic majorities nationwide. We contacted millions of voters to resoundingly defeat the Republican recall of California Governor Gavin Newsom, and we laid the groundwork for victory in 2022 in our target House districts. While we suffered narrow losses in the Virginia gubernatorial and House of Delegates elections, we turned out a record number of Democratic voters, which was imperative for Democrats retaining their State Senate majority.
#YouthPower Voter Contact
Despite making up the largest share of the electorate of any generation, young voters are often overlooked by traditional campaigns and voter mobilization efforts. The Grassroots Democrats HQ partnered with Blue Future to pilot a unique program to help resolve this issue. By utilizing peer-to-peer text banking and following up with a phone call, our Young Dems contacted 89,000 voters ages 18-29 to get out the vote in Virginia’s swing House of Delegates districts! Our 200 Gen Z and Millennial volunteers helped nearly 2,000 young voters to create a voting plan. 200 of these voters pledged to triple their vote by asking 3 friends and/or family members to vote. We estimate this program boosted youth turnout in our target districts by 3-4%.
2020 Accomplishments
The Grassroots Democrats HQ was founded in 2019 with a simple mission: defend the House, flip the Senate, and take back the White House in 2020. We played an integral role in making this mission a reality, partnering with the Biden campaign while working on seven Senate and nine House races. Here is just a brief snapshot of our accomplishments:
- 22,530 Volunteers
- 6,172,244 Phone Calls Made
- 674,415 Postcards Written
- 3,100,036 Texts Sent
- 247 Canvassing Shifts (Pre-COVID)
We could not be more thankful for the tremendous volunteers, staff, and donors who made this possible. For a closer look at each state we worked in, please visit the Swing States menu.
Biden-Harris Campaign
The Grassroots Democrats HQ was proudly the official GOTV virtual staging location for Progressives for Biden and Seniors for Biden. Together we made 4.7 million phone calls to voters in swing states nationwide in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. We also wrote 316,000 postcards for the Biden/Harris ticket in partnership with Women’s March Action.
Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump by an Electoral College margin of 306-232. The Biden/Harris ticket flipped five states that voted for Trump in 2016, all of which were Grassroots Democrats HQ targets: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received more votes than any presidential ticket in our nation’s history and won the popular vote by 4.5%.
Georgia Senate Runoff
Following the 2020 November elections, three critical statewide elections in the state of Georgia headed for runoff elections in January of 2021, two of which would decide control of the United States Senate in 2021 and 2022. The Grassroots Democrats HQ immediately shifted our virtual infrastructure to flipping Georgia blue, proudly partnering with the Reverend Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, and Daniel Blackman campaigns as well as the Georgia Democratic Party.
In 7 weeks, we made 900,000 phone calls, sent 384,000 texts, and wrote 97,000 postcards to voters in Georgia. Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their respective Senate races, delivering Democrats a Senate majority for the first time since 2014, and full control of Congress and the White House for the first time since 2009-2010.
2019 Accomplishments
We Flipped Virginia Blue!
From April through November 2019, we worked tirelessly to help flip the Virginia House of Delegates and State Senate. Our efforts paid off. Thanks in part to 20,000 phone calls and 13,000 letters from our volunteers, Democrats won a 55-45 majority in the House of Delegates and a 21-19 majority in the Senate, giving Democrats total control of Virginia’s government. As a result, Virginia will be able to end Republican gerrymandering in the state, pass universal background checks, and ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.