With only eight days remaining until Election Day, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, the grassroots arms of Everytown for Gun Safety, have hit an all-time high in the effort to get out the vote, help voters create a Voter Action Plan and confirm support for gun sense candidates. To date, volunteers have met their goal of completing 1 million calls (and they’re not stopping) this election cycle, not missing a single step in a time when traditional canvassing methods have been limited due to COVID-19.
The tireless work of our grassroots network has also resulted in over 1.5 million texts sent and over 8,800 events held to date, with more than 35,000 individual shifts of election work. Last week was our biggest week yet, with over 1,300 phone bank shifts resulting in 77,000 calls to voters.
In addition to hitting these record milestones, last week, Doug Emhoff, husband of Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, joined Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, DeAndra Dycus, a volunteer with the Indiana chapter of Moms Demand Action and member of the Everytown Survivor Network, Alanna Miller, a volunteer leader with Duke University Students Demand Action, and thousands of other volunteers to kick off a field call marking two weeks until Election Day.
A RECAP FROM LAST WEEK:
DEMANDING WOMEN 2.0 INSTAGRAM LIVE SERIES
- The Demanding Women Series continued last week with Shannon Watts in conversation with four Moms Demand Action volunteers running for office. Conversations included:
- Liz Becker (candidate for NV State Senate, District 18
- Jerri Green (candidate for TN State House, District 83)
- Mary Kathleen Honne (candidate for AZ State House, District 22)
- Erin Preese (candidate for MN State House, District 58A)
- Demanding Women 2.0 can be streamed on via Instagram Live @shannonrwatts
NOTABLE DAYS OF ACTION
- NEW IN KANSAS, NEW YORK, ARIZONA, GEORGIA AND TEXAS
- Over the weekend, Moms Demand Action volunteers joined virtual phonebanking events to support women candidates of color across the country. Over 275 volunteers completed nearly 13,000 calls and sent more than 6,000 texts for candidates including: Michelle De La Isla (KS), Jackie Gordon (NY), Hiral Tipirneni (AZ), Nikema Williams (GA), Gina Ortiz Jones (TX) and Candace Valenzuela (TX).
NEW DIGITAL AD & DIRECT MAIL CAMPAIGNS – Last week, Everytown Victory Fund and Everytown Action Fund together announced $4.5 million in new paid media targeting voters in emerging battleground states and key state legislative contests. The ads largely highlight Republicans’ failure to keep Americans safe from both COVID-19 and gun violence — putting the gun lobby ahead of public safety — and call for Americans to vote for gun sense candidates. For more details, please click here:
- New ad spends included:
- New direct mail spends included:
- Everytown Victory Fund launched a $350,000 direct mail campaign targeting voters in competitive legislative districts in Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. The mailers feature a personal letter from a survivor of gun violence and member of Moms Demand Action in those states, telling the story of their experience with gun violence and urging their neighbors to vote out Republicans in the state legislature who have refused to pass common-sense gun laws.
- Additional spending: Everytown announced an additional $1.4 million spend for TV and digital ads targeting state legislative contests in Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Texas. The ads highlight the failure of Republicans to act on gun violence, and how that mimics their failure to act on the COVID-19 pandemic — which has exacerbated the gun violence crisis.
Moms Demand Action Volunteer of the Week:
Nikki Faddick is a member of the California Moms Demand Action chapter. Along with a team of leaders from the greater San Diego area, Faddick has taken the lead on creating innovative and engaging means to bring in and empower new volunteers to phonebank, focusing on making the outreach more accessible and fun. With the team, Faddick has:
- Prioritized relational organizing, tapping family and personal networks to build a sense of community.
- Turned volunteers that were unable to join phonebanking efforts into recruiters, asking them to bring in someone from within their network to participate, resulting in a larger network of enthusiastic volunteer phonebankers, and more dials completed.
- Used wishlists for special occasions as a means of recruiting more friends, family and personal contacts participate in phonebanks.. Faddick’s whole family joined a phonebank for her birthday, and she has recruited her husband to participate in at least 10 additional phonebanking sessions.
Faddick notes, “It’s been so fun. As eager as I am to be done with phonebanking, I’m going to miss the camaraderie.”
If you’re interested in learning more, or speaking with Moms Demand Action or Students Demand Action volunteers from around the country, don’t hesitate to reach out.
