Hello SJC Democrats,
We had an excellent turnout Saturday for our monthly virtual SJC Democrats meeting. Several of our people are representing us during the upcoming vote for delegates who will attend the national convention in August and at our virtual state convention on June 13, and we have four candidates running to be some of those national delegates.
Our treasurer reported that we will be getting a refund from the Fair Board, as the physical fair has been cancelled. However, the Fair Board is trying to create a virtual fair, and we established a committee to work on coming up with a couple of possibilities. One idea is to produce a video on what the Democrats are about, why one should be a member and vote Democratic, and actions we are taking. Another idea is to create a political trivia game. Finally, if we can get our Facebook page updated, we could provide a link to it. In that regard, we are looking for someone who would be willing to manage our Facebook page. If you are interested, or if you know someone who might be interested, please reach out to me.
The Platform Revision committee continues to meet weekly, and we will now begin meetings twice a week so we can wrap this up. The committee has been considering every point in detail, adding many new worthwhile planks. When the committee is done, the voting members will consider the proposal and then vote on it. Once it has been approved, it will be posted on our website. By the way, we don’t require dues to be a voting member of the SJC Democrats; instead, we require that you attend at least two meetings in a year. So if you would like to be part of deliberations on the platform revision proposal, please join us at our meetings.
The 40th LD will be having its endorsement meeting on June 7. All PCOs and anyone else who is a member of the 40th (it costs $10 per year) is eligible to vote. More information will be forthcoming.
Speaking of endorsements, we have formed our endorsement committee for this year’s elections for our county Democrats group. The committee will begin meeting soon. Candidates must ask to be considered for an endorsement in order to be endorsed. Candidate filing week just ended, so we now know who the candidates will be. Locally there are three candidates running for county council on Orcas, and there are five running for council on San Juan. For our Congressional seat, Rick Larsen is running for reelection, he is being challenged by progressive Democrat Jason Call, and there are six Republicans running. For our state legislative seats, Debra Lekanoff is unchallenged, while Rep. Alex Ramel and Sen. Liz Lovelett face one Republican opponent each. In races where there are only two candidates, their election will be held in November; only if there are three or more candidates is there a primary.
There are a number of statewide races which we will be looking at, especially if we are requested by candidates to endorse. Incumbent Governor Inslee has 36 opponents, Attorney General Ferguson has three Republican opponents, Commissioner of Public Lands Hillary Franz is being challenged by Democrat Frank Wallbrown as well as four Republicans and a Libertarian, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal is being challenged by five other candidates. The Lieutenant Governor’s seat is open, and there are five Democrats and seven other candidates for this seat. Incumbent Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman is being challenged by Democrat Gael Tarleton, a current member of the legislature, as well as an independent and a progressive. Democrats have not held this seat for over 50 years, so it is time. For treasurer, you may remember that last time three Democrats and two Republicans ran, allowing the two R’s to be the highest finishers. So nice when a lesson is learned, and this time Democrat Mike Pelliciotti is the only Democrat running against the incumbent Davidson.
As you can see, there are a lot of contested races with lots of candidates. In the past, we have generally only endorsed after the primary and before the general election. However, with so many important races involved in the primary, we have decided that we want to endorse for both elections. We generally send out an election postcard with all of our recommendations to help guide you in selecting your preferred candidates, especially in situations where you are not familiar with any of the candidates. It costs a substantial amount of money to send out these postcards, and by endorsing in both elections, we may want to send out postcards twice. In that event, we may come to you asking for a little financial help to make this happen.
In helping our Precinct Committee Officers prepare for the election campaign, David Dehlendorf has gotten copies of the Presidential Primary results from the county elections office, and I have distributed these to all our PCOs. This will help in identifying others who may be willing to help us as well as those we needn’t waste our time with. Specific candidates voted for are not listed, rather the results show which party was voted for in the primary.
Are you ready and willing to help in getting out the vote this year? As you are aware, this could be the most important election of our lifetimes. We have to get rid of the current president, or it is quite likely our country as we know it will no longer exist. We know our state will vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, but the other races I have mentioned above require that we get every possible Democratic voter to participate in the elections this year. The state Democratic Party, through volunteers around the state, is already making calls to identify voters who are likely to vote Democratic so that we know to contact them again later to help make sure they vote. Our own Alison Longley has already been making calls, and she would love for others to join her on Thursday evenings.
I had a conversation yesterday with our state party organizer Savanna Steele, and following our conversation, she sent me an email that I think is worth including here:
The Coordinated Campaign has staffed up and we are running a full complement of all-online voter contact events. We do phone banks Monday – Thursday evenings from 5pm – 8pm, we have a dialer system (it makes the calls for you and connects volunteers to voters after they have already picked up) that we run every Sunday evening from 5pm – 8pm. For a peek at what the Dialer looks like watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAuW-NMpyK4&feature=youtu.be For those who cannot or prefer not to be part of a group, we have set up individual phone bankers (often PCOs) to make calls from their home any day and time that works best for them.
At the beginning of every group phone bank event, staff will provide training and remain on for the whole event to offer one-on-one support to volunteers who need more help. We also have training webinars every other Saturday, including some coming up this Saturday, 5/16. Our Organizing Academies cover the Coordinated Campaigns plan to Win in 2020 and the Tools Training covers how to use the technology we are utilizing to do our work. I’ve included registration links for all of this upcoming weekend’s events, please feel free to share them far and wide!
5/17 Virtual Dialer Phonebank: https://secure.ngpvan.com/vQH-LCLFj0KOKb28RVajIw2
Additional Events can be found: https://www.wa-democrats.org/organizingevents/
**The next Organizing Academy and Tools training will be on 5/30.
We have opportunities across the board in San Juan County and our State to elect great Democrats. Locally, we need to retain our elected State Legislators in the 40th LD! Statewide, we have an opportunity to win back Republican-held statewide seats, like the Secretary of State’s Office (which has been held by a Republican for 55 years), as well as, the State Treasurer Offices! To win these statewide races we have to turn out every Democrat in our blue strongholds. With your help we can accomplish our goal of electing Democrats across the state!
Direct Voter Contact Questions:
Who we are contacting & why: Right now we have a whole bunch of voters that we don’t have enough data on to know which party they support. We received a lot of information on Washington voters from the Presidential Primary, but for our newly registered folks that didn’t vote and more, we have the opportunity to identify additional Democrats and put them in our universe of voters to mobilize and turn out when ballots are in voters’ hands. Our Voter ID effort also helps clean up our lists by getting all the wrong numbers, disconnected, and Republicans off them. The Voter ID phase of our work is critical, as it enables us to execute a GOTV effort that is as accurate and efficient as possible. (Which will be needed in the 10thLD!) At the end of the day, all this work allows us to elect Democrats up and down the ballot in November!
Can I call into my LD: Yes you can call into your LD on any virtual phonebank. However, when calling on the Dialer, the calls will be made statewide. (With that being said the more folks on the dialer leads to more calls going out and therefore more calls going into the 40th LD.)
I look forward to working with you and your fellow PCOs/members to elect Democrats in San Juan County. There’s a lot to do!
Savanna
Savanna Steele, Regional Field Director | Northwest WA Washington State Democrats
509 | 366-1076
Thanks for reading this far. Our next meeting will be on June 20. And if you are willing to help with the phone banking described above, please contact Savanna. If you want to work in conjunction with Alison, please contact me so I can put you in touch. If you find yourself railing at the daily outrages you see on the news, this is your chance to do something about it.
Thanks,
David Turnoy
Chair, San Juan County Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@rockisland.com