We can read salacious transcripts of the first week of Trump’s trial, the SCOTUS argument on immunity, today’s primary results…

The political recap was shorter than usual. The primaries are effectively over, and we know what, that is, who, we are up against.

Since the meeting there have been some positive trends. A minor special election for the Alabama State Assembly had a 32-point swing towards the Democrat, where the same Democratic candidate went from a 7-point loss in 2022 to a 25-point win. (Her previous opponent has left the legislature to serve his prison term for corruption.) And Cook Political Report moved two of Nevada’s three Dem-held congressional districts from Lean D to Likely D.

End of quarter financial reports are going to look bleak for Republicans. All the donations are going to Lord Donald’s lawyers. Look for downballot Republicans to start getting antsy.

We finished with some letter-writing for Vote Forward and some postcards. We are low on postcards. Some of you brought nice ones and I am trying to see if I can get a large order of them instead of reprinting our own.

Usual place.

The primaries are over. What’s the state of the election.

Worry less, work more: postcarding, letter-writing.

We will not be raising funds to help Trump cough up $450 million Monday.

I got a ride down to CA 22 from Karen and we canvassing Friday and Saturday. A good number of people were home and when we asked what issues were on their minds, they were eager to chat. After a discussion, we could point out the ways Salas and the Democrats were involved in the very issues they talked about. We offered them information about how to vote, where, etc. I have no doubt that we got votes and also gave people a chance to share their ideas (which we reported back to the campaigns). Only one person opened the door and then did not want to talk with us. I think that canvassing in this area is so important because no one is working there–I did not see a single piece of literature on a doorstep and no one said someone had already knocked on their door. It was tiring work and slow due to the conversations but very satisfying. On Tuesday the Dems pulled in a lower vote total than the Other Group so we have our work cut out for us.

Looking for something to do?

Sister District Summit on Saturday on Zoom: https://www.mobilize.us/sisterdistrict/event/594719/?link_id=6&can_id=bc8803ec8b6689030b3c0feab6c14f11&source=email-hql-update-today-is-a-beautiful-day-for-democracy-3&email_referrer=email_2227767&email_subject=sister-district-hql-update-an-unforgettable-chance-to-connect-with-the-sdp-community

Letter-writing is starting up. Go to votefwd.org

We have postcards and can put packs of 25 on our porch for anyone who wants one. Can also print out letters for anyone who would like.

Need some cheer? Listen to Simon Rosenberg on Hopium Chronicles.

1. Check out the good news from Jesse Craven https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.co

2. Attend Aaron Frank’s presentation http://tinyurl.com/F4D25Feb

3. Listen to Simon’s talk here.

At the top of this page, you will find two new menu items: “Political Calendar” and “Links”. They go to new pages. The Links page lists sites we are excited about. If I knew WordPress better, I’d like to get them running down the right hand side of this main page, which was the traditional place for your “link roll”. The Political Calendar includes events like our own meetings.

But, let’s be honest, who wants to add one Indivisible page to your daily browsing to see if some postcard party showed up. Instead, you should be able to add this calendar to your usual electronic calendar and new events will show up in the normal synchronization process.

Those who use Google Calendar can give me their email and I can share the calendar with you, or you can use the link below.

For others (e.g., Apple-based calendars) I believe this is the link that you copy/paste to subscribe to Indivisible Elmwood from your favorite calendar app. There will be a place under “Subscribe to new calendar”, or similar, to enter it, and it should be readable (but not editable) to all.

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/be84ab1b9ed2e4cc0b822ec667d6f882bd680c38821dca9fd0e796b8c6e62f99%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Technical support for this operation will be available.

Happy New Year, everyone.

We began with Naomi reviewing websites we rely on. There is a new permanent page with links (it will grow) which you can access from the menu at the top of this page. They are also mentioned below.

Aaron Frank’s Focus for Democracy has an event Sunday, February 25. Register here. We’ll get this up on our new calendar, also permanently linked above. He is currently touting Working America and Accelerate Change.

For a regular dose of optimism, Hopium Chronicles.

Sister District for downballot races.

Vote Forward for addresses to send letters; Postcards to Voters if you prefer those.

Bill gave us a summary of his work for Rudy Salas (that’s CA-22), with the reassuring news that he is a stronger candidate this time. Dan and Karen have also been canvassing in the Central Valley. There was some spirited discussion on whether Josh Harder needs our support. Cook rates his seat in CA-09 as “Likely Democratic”. My feeling is that the Salas race (rated Tossup) is more critical.

We continued with a discussion of the general issue of getting Democrats to turn out. Randy Starn (long time no see!) gave a phrase I had never heard before to describe voters who say they won’t vote for Biden over Gaza (used to be student loans): aggressive apathy. We need at least some of those voters to come to their senses by November. Sally brought up Relational Organizing in this sense. Link. Trainings are Mondays at 5:30.

Future meetings will be the fourth Sunday of every month. Socializing and morale maintenance. Be active in between. Here’s Chop Wood Carry Water, from Jess Craven, with a daily suggestion of what to do and a weekly summary of what went right for us and bad for MAGA.

Next meeting Sunday Feb 18th, usual time (4:00 pm) and place

Update on where things stand and what to do next. All are welcome.

Heather Booth, a long-time activist for progressive causes, will be in conversation with California Indivisible’s Aram Fischer this Tuesday January 30 from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. PST.  This Heather Booth event on Zoom is the second event in the California Indivisible’s Speakers Series, and all are invited. The sign up link is here. You  can also watch this documentary about Heather’s impact on the American political landscape, as well as the 2022 documentary The Janes (the HBO trailer is here.)

Heather began organizing in the civil rights and women’s movements.  She started the Jane Collective, an underground abortion service before Roe, and she founded the Midwest Academy to teach people how to organize. She worked on Obamacare, helped Elizabeth Warren establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and directed Seniors Outreach for the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign. Heather was just appointed Progressive Outreach Director for the Biden-Harris campaign. 

I don’t have to tell you that Michael Feggans won by 8, that the State Senator (Rouse) whose district is included in Feggans’ won by 12, and the Dems flipped the House of Delegates. We found the margins surprising, because when we went to bed, Feggans was 4 behind and Rouse up by less than one. Even when Gideon texted us an hour later that Feggans was now expected to win, he was only up 4. Unfortunately for the numbers-inclined, the Virginia counties were not consistent in whether they counted mail or Election Day ballots first, not to mention geographic implications in partial reports that we can not even guess at. In our district, however, we can be sure that the mail vote was counted last, as it accounted for the entire ~2200 vote margin and then some. Feggans fought the Republican to a near-draw between the early in-person vote (pro-Dem) and the day-of vote (pro-Rep), but last I saw was up 2:1 in the mailed ballots.

This means I can’t say much about the remaining uncalled races. First, there’s three days’ grace for receipt of mail ballots. In one race, they have not yet finished with the initial count, and no one seems to know what type of ballots remain uncounted, or why. Then there will be the curing attempts on the mail ballots that have some sort of error. So, I wouldn’t give up on those yet.

There were nine canvassers from the East Bay, and we knocked, by my count, on about 2000 doors. The campaign had all the volunteers needed. We heard every target door was knocked on at least twice. We funded a well-organized machine that was ready for everyone who came through the door. (This does not apply to their poor taste in donuts.) Student delegations came down from DC to help. We were a little skeptical of the young campaign managers’ confidence based on turnout, but they were correct.

This post would be seriously incomplete without mentioning our wonderful hosts, David and Carol Pariser. Not only did they open their spare bedrooms, they cooked us dinner and uncorked a really first-rate wine every night.