“With these elections, the people stood in the breach and repelled the assault on democracy. They resoundingly rejected violence and insurrection, and in doing so gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

--Nancy Pelosi, 11/17/22 
 

Rest, Relax and Rejuvenate

Exhausted by politics?  We know the feeling! This was a hard-fought election cycle, but we managed to hold the Senate and fight off the so-called “red wave” in the House. 

In Massachusetts, the Democrats took back the Governor's office, electing the first woman governor, and one of the first all-female governor-lieutenant governor teams. And right here in Essex County, we elected three female first-time candidates to the State House, flipping two seats from red to blue and holding on to a hotly contested open seat.

One of those races truly proved our mantra: Every Vote Counts. When Kristin Kassner beat Lenny Mirra in the mandated recount by ONE VOTE in a field of 24,000 votes, that definitively established that YOUR VOTE MATTERS.

Every door you knocked, call you made, text you sent and postcard you wrote made a difference. You helped re-elect Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock, and you helped flip a Senate seat by electing John Fetterman. You also helped elect Democratic Governors in a few states. You turned what was expected to be a sweeping victory for Republicans into the closest interim elections in history, barely squeaking out a tiny edge in the House, and forcing Republicans to question the future of MAGA politics.

After all of your hard work, you (and we) deserve some down time. The I-RISE core leaders plan to take a few months to regroup and plan for our future. We want everyone to come back refreshed when it’s time to get involved in upcoming House and Senate races, and the biggest race of all, the Presidential election.  We will do the research, and we’ll come back to you with opportunities to make a difference.

Looking Ahead

When we return to get back to work, some of the key elections that we anticipate working on include the following Senate seats, all of which are likely to be close elections:

AZ - Replace Kyrsten Sinema with an actual Democrat.

FL - Elect a Democrat to replace Rick Scott, who only won by .2% in 2018 (although FL unfortunately has become an increasingly solid red state).

IN -  Republican Mike Braun has announced a run for Governor. This is a solid red state, but one-term Braun replaced a Democrat in 2018 so flipping the seat back to blue might be doable. 

MT - Help Democrat Jon Tester keep his seat as an outlier in this deeply red state.

OH - Help reelect Sherrod Brown in this increasingly red state where he won by only 3% in 2018.

TX - Finally flip a seat blue in TX, with highly unpopular Ted Cruz up for re-election after winning by only 2% in 2018.

Write Postcards On Your Own

There are ongoing opportunities to write postcards if you would like to write on your own. Currently, you can write to:
-- WI voters to increase turnout for an important election to maintain Democratic control of that state's Supreme Court and for a special election for a seat in the WI state senate; or
-- VA voters to get out the vote for a few special local elections.
If you are interested in writing postcards independently, please email us at indivisible.rise.newburyport@gmail.com. and we'll help get you set up to write postcards while we are on break.

Again, thank you for all of your hard work!  Rest up and stay tuned for our next action!

Email indivisible.rise.newburyport@gmail.com if you think you would like to help with
planning or leading I-RISE activities in 2023.