Run. Every. Race.

One week ago today, I received a text message from a peer. 

Yo, T. Sorry I've been unresponsive the last few days. We're working on the special election in the Fourth Essex. It's a long shot but we think we have a chance to flip the seat blue. Will be in touch on Wednesday. 

Flash forward 48 hours and you might have seen this headline on social media. 

Mission accomplished.

Here in deep blue Massachusetts, one might wonder how and why flipping one state House seat when Democrats already have a supermajority would even matter. With the recent announcement that popular Republican Governor Charlie Baker would not be seeking reelection, Democrats seem likely to be taking over the governorship in 11 months' time anyway. Why does it matter that one little seat flip in the state legislature where Democrats already had 130 out of 160 House seats anyway? 

The answer is that every single race matters, no matter how blue or red the state. Having been working on a critical immigrant justice bill since the start of 2019, I can say that our statewide coalition has been actively counting votes since the bill was first introduced. Knowing that any pro-immigration bill faces an inevitable veto from our "moderate" governor, the coalition has been working not simply to have a majority in each chamber but to have a committed supermajority willing to overturn the governor. Like any state government, we have a number of moderate/conservative Democrats who won't commit to supporting the bill. When that happens, it's up to us as coalition members to identify those who are more moderate and who are likely to be won over by constituent advocacy. We are currently within a handful of votes in the House to secure passage of our bill. Tuesday's win netted us a Democratic candidate who has already committed to supporting the bill and gave us one critical supporter that we had not foreseen one month ago. Over the next 2 months, this one vote might very well be the one that puts us over the top and helps us overturn the governor's veto. All because my colleague saw an opportunity and ran with it.  

Despite having worked as a field organizer and now community organizer for nearly 6 years, I know I still have a lot to learn. But one thing I can say without question is how critical it is to have Democrats run in every local and statewide election. Whether it's the Mississippi Delta or the southern Texas border or the prairies of central Kansas, the Democratic Party needs to run candidates to introduce themselves to the voting public and to stand up and share what the party stands for during this day and age. What Republicans have done successfully over the past half-century has been to mythologize and demonize Democrats as socialist, child-killing, gun-grabbing heathens who will go to great lengths to tax you and your families into oblivion. If low-information voters don't have local Democratic candidates running, they start to buy into this myth. But if Democrats come along and run in local and statewide races, they then have an opportunity in the flesh to combat this misinformation. They might not win their races. Hell, they might not even come close the first couple of times. But getting out there and introducing yourself as a Democrat is the first step in what can be a multi-year process to combat misinformation and to start building power at the grassroots level. 

Look no further than Georgia. When Stacy Abrams first proposed her organizing ideas in Georgia in 2014, she was envisioning a Democratic victory for a state that had just had Mitt Romney defeat Barack Obama by 300,000 votes in 2012. That number decreased to 210,000 votes with a Trump victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Abrams herself ran in 2018 and with the possibility of becoming the first Black female governor ran a campaign that lost to Republican Brian Kemp by a mere 55,000 votes. By working with other voting rights groups in the state along with a 2016 law that automatically registered all new Georgia voters when the received their license, Georgia actually led the nation in automatic voter registration and a 2021 study showed that 95% of Georgia's residents were registered to vote. Knowing that their people were registered, it was simply a matter of getting them to the polls, and Abrams, LaTosha Brown, and other key community leaders worked around the clock to get voters to turn out for the 2020 general election and the two Senate run-off races in early January. The results, as we all know, bore fruit for the nearly 7-year commitment that Abrams had made to her home state to finally swing Georgia blue for the first time in a generation. 

Not every state has a Stacy Abrams. But what Democrats do have is a deep bench with candidates willing to put themselves out there ahead of the 2022 midterm elections and statewide races. Beto O'Rourke made it a point in his 2018 Senate race to visit all 254 counties in Texas, a remarkable feat of endurance and commitment. While O'Rourke lost to Ted Cruz by 200,000 votes, it was the closest a Democrat had come to winning a Senate seat since 1988. Despite some of the country's harshest voter ID laws, Texas has seen a dramatic increase in voter registrations with the state now topping 17 million registered voters for the very first time. With O'Rourke committing to run for Governor in 2022 and with Greg Abbott's abysmal track record, Texas is trending Democrat. The question becomes how long it takes the state to get there, especially with Republicans knowing it is their last stand when it comes to being relevant at the presidential level. With renewed efforts to engage in voter registration and with O'Rourke entering the races with name recognition, Texas Democrats can continue to build on the progress made over the past two election cycles and can seriously move the needle with a strong showing in 2022. 

If the last decade has taught us anything, it's that each and every election matters. Over 700 Texans died last winter because they elected an incompetent Republican governor in 2014 who has waged a war against his own people through legislation aimed at deregulation. Floridians are dying by the tens of thousands because they elected a Trump disciple in 2018 that would rather pose for a photo op at the southern border than protect his own constituents. Meanwhile, California just voted in September to keep their sitting governor who has gone on to ensure that his state remains at the forefront of progressive policy and economic opportunity all while continuing to listen to scientist and experts to protect his constituents. A recent NPR article verified what many of us already knew: pro-Trump counties have higher COVID-19 death rates. At this point, electing Democrats to local office can literally mean life or death. That is why it is so critical that Democrats run a candidate in every single race no matter where that race might take place. It's time Americans of all backgrounds hear from those that want to save their lives rather than from those that want to kill them.

Georgia and Texas may very well represent the present and future of Democratic politics. But they are not alone in their importance. In 2022, we have critical Senate races in New Hampshire, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Florida. There are 36(!) governors' races including potential Democratic pickups in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maryland, Texas, and Vermont. And, of course, we have the entire United States House or Representatives up for re-election in a legislative body where Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities. With redistricting being implemented, there will be opportunities for first-time candidates to run, especially in areas where the current Congressperson may have been shifted out. Whether your district is deep red, deep blue, purple, or any color in between there will be a local or regional race for you to invest in. It's simply a matter of ensuring that those races are filled with strong, true, genuine Democrats wanting to make a difference.

And it's up to us to work our asses off to elect every single one of them in 2022.