Blog Post

Welcome to 2023. It is already an interesting year. We have been finishing up our analysis of the 2022 elections, and are using those lessons to shape how we build for this year and beyond.

Nationally, our initial estimates of our 2022 impact show that we added at least 394,000 additional voters for Democratic candidates in battleground U.S. Senate, U.S. House, gubernatorial, and other state level contests, resulting in these candidates winning 43 of 72 races. Click on these links to check out our post election reports for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Your investment in our work to win these votes is one of the reasons the “Red Wave” trickled. And as we study the results to design our work ahead, these investments will continue to pay dividends.  Based on data from our randomized control trials, here’s some of the key takeaways:

Races in which Working America added more votes than the margin of victory:

• 12 U.S. House races. Our work added more votes than the margin in contests in California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania (see the chart below or read the full data here). Imagine how different GOP attempts to elect the Speaker of the House would be, let alone push a conservative agenda, if those 12 seats were held by Republicans. In another 10 Congressional districts, we contributed to half or more of the Democrat’s winning margin.

• Statewide Arizona offices. Our support for Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes allowed both Democrats to defeat two of the most vocal election deniers in the country in a swing state that was at the center of Trump’s “Big Lie” about 2020. We also contributed to the victory of the state’s chief election official, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
• U.S. Senate races. Working America contributed more votes than Sen. Raphael Warnock’s margin over Herschel Walker in Georgia during the November general election, and made a substantial contribution to his final margin of victory in the subsequent runoff. We contributed more than the margin in Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s win as well. These two seats are part of what it took for Democrats to maintain control in the US Senate and continue confirmations of President Biden’s crucial nominations to the executive and judicial branches.
• Michigan State Senate. SD-12 proved to be the tipping point for the Michigan Senate. By driving the victory of Democrat Kevin Hertel, Working America helped Democrats take control of the chamber for the first time since 1984.

Races in which Working America made substantial contributions to the margin of victory:

• Arizona Senate. Working America contributed a sizable share of votes to Sen. Mark Kelly’s win here, leaving us well-positioned ahead of the state’s 2024 Senate race.
• Pennsylvania Senate. Our contribution to Sen. John Fetterman’s win equaled about 55% of his margin of victory and was powered by our strong membership in the state, which encompasses about 1 in 10 Keystone voters.
• Wisconsin governor. Tony Evers’ re-election here was crucial to denying the GOP a further foothold in this former “Blue Wall” state that has been increasingly tilted red through aggressive GOP gerrymandering.

Membership Matters. This past election made clear how crucial and effective our membership program has become. Working with leading independent experts to evaluate our program, we confirmed with overwhelming levels of precision that organizing working class voters to join Working America and then reengaging them in the election is a cost-efficient way to win votes. The level of certainty of this analysis means that the capacity to add votes for our candidates and causes at scale in key elections is nearly assured with sufficient time and resources.

Persuading Voters of Color. Over multiple cycles, working class voters of color have begun to follow the rightward shift of their white counterparts in elections across the country. However, the same independent analysis of our efforts shows that Working America’s organizing model is one possible solution. Per encounter at the doors, persuading Working America members of color to vote Democratic was about twice as efficient as persuading white members. So our work and scale in these communities will be a critical focus going forward. 

As more data on voters becomes available we will update our analysis. But we know that the success of these and other tactics, the work of so many other great organizers and groups in our community, and all of your support is why we succeeded last November. We will both continue to build our playbook and share these lessons with our allies.  

Thank you for all your support, and let’s make 2023 an even bigger success. See you on the doors.

Regards, 

Matt Morrison