Chop Wood, Carry Water 10/29

The wild ride continues.

Hi, all, and happy Tuesday!

What a funny morning it’s been. Both great and not so great. But totally fine in the end.

First the great part: I woke up to see that Kathryn Grody, wife of Mandy Patinkin, posted a Reel of herself reading the intro to yesterday’s CWCW newsletter aloud. I love Kathryn and her whole family and have collaborated with them on a few posts now, but this was something I hadn’t prompted her to do. She just did it! She’s a sheer delight, as is her delivery of my words. It may tickle you to watch it as much as it did me.

Now the not-so-good part: I got an email that my trip to Philly has been cancelled. I was going, you see, not just to canvass but to create content for social media. As such it was a paid gig. The company that hired me to do it pulled the plug this morning, for reasons that were unclear but didn’t seem to have to do with me. I’m disappointed, but it also opens up a world of possibilities. I can now go wherever I choose! Do I pick Mecklenburg County, NC? Arizona? Nevada? Or stay here and canvass in my own Congressional swing district right next door?

It’s a tough call, and I have to make it today. I’ll keep you posted!

In the meantime, here’s the latest on the state of the presidential race from Harris-Walz campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon:

1. As we have said from day one: this race will be incredibly close and we are on pace to win but no one should be comfortable – it's going to take everyone digging in and focusing on what we need to do to win. 

2. We have an incredibly strong ground game designed to win a close election: This weekend alone, our campaign knocked on over 1.5 million doors and made nearly 15 million calls across the battlegrounds to reach critical voters.

3. We feel good and are encouraged by what we're seeing:

   • When it comes to early vote, what we are watching most closely is progress to total turnout among our voters.

   • We expected Republicans to vote earlier this cycle given what Trump has been pushing, so what matters to us is whether we are on track to win a narrow race with the turnout we're seeing in all seven battleground states. We believe we are.

   • In a race this close, it matters how undecided voters break. Across the battlegrounds, there are more undecideds open to voting for Vice President Harris than Trump. The most recent NYT poll is the latest example of that, showing us leading by 10 points among voters who describe themselves as “not fully decided.”

4. Bottom line: This is going to be an extremely close race but we are putting in the work to win. Over the course of the next four days, VP Harris and Gov. Walz will barnstorm all seven battleground states – rallying voters in the final days of the campaign. It’s going to take everyone running across the tape, so go to go.KamalaHarris.com to get involved.

Pretty exciting!

I will be even more exuberant. I feel very good about where we are. For one thing, Trump has absolutely shot himself in the foot with Puerto Rican voters, and once again his pride will block him from remedying it. Remember: Trump can’t apologize. He has never, ever publicly done so, and he’s not going to start now. I assume there is a clinical explanation for this—perhaps a psychiatrist would like to weigh in. But regardless, we all know it’s true. And since an apology—from the heart, humbly delivered—is the only thing that might gain him back the large swath of Americans his rally just alienated, he’s mostly going to lose them. Sure, some will overcome their rage and stay with him, (for reasons none of us will ever understand), but in this election the thousands who refuse to do so are going to matter. A lot.

As for our side, Team Harris-Walz continues to run a nearly flawless and endlessly innovative campaign—this morning Vice President Harris continued her radio blitz across nationally syndicated programs, joining Charlamagne tha God, DJ Envy, and Loren LoRosa on The Breakfast Club—and we continue to blow our field work out of the water. I am getting reports from all sides—about huge canvass turnouts in Racine, WI, hour-long lines lines for early voting in Indiana, voter protection phonebanks filled to capacity, and so much more. We are showing up and turning out. It is because of this, not vibes, that we will win.

So keep it up. I’m truly proud of you folks. You are an army smart, strong, and true—one with which I am honored to stand.

Or maybe “stand” is the wrong word. Because we are on the move! There are lots of GOTV opportunities below. Let’s grab one (or two, or more) and get to work!

P.S. — If you’re not too sick of listening to me, I was recently interviewed on a podcast called the Healing Feeling Sh*t Show and the episode dropped this AM. Our conversation, which explored the intersection between politics and emotional wellbeing, was actually delightful. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Get Smart #1! 📚

Supermajority invites you to a quick call this Wednesday, Oct. 30, at 4 p.m. ET, where they’ll walk you through the different scenarios they’re planning for on election day and what each outcome will mean. They’ll be joined by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who has a unique perspective on election certification and the role that we can play in upholding democratic norms not only in Michigan, but across the country.

Register here

Get Smart #2! 📚

Read this post by my friend Bob Creamer to understand why we’re really in very good shape a week out.

Spread the Word! 📣

Brett Walter from Climate Action Now is printing up these letters and leaving them with his lit when he canvasses. They’re awesome! He’s encouraging us all to do it and I’m going to! (Remember, I also recommend giving people this one-pager on how Project 2025 will affect them.)

Give 💰!

Dan Osborn in the Nebraska US Senate race is 1 point ahead with registered voters in the NYT/Sienna Poll, but 2 points behind with likely voters with another 5 percent are undecided. Please help Dan reach voters and get them to the polls!  He needs money for rural radio and to keep his six field offices humming! You can give here to flip this seat. As a bonus, if you're mad at the Billionaires trying to buy this election, watch Dan's ad and help send a union-member to the Senate.

Win Races—Phonebank into PA in Spanish—corrected link!

Sorry I got it wrong yesterday. The correct link is here.  

Win Races—Last Day to Write Letters!

Today is the last day to write Vote Forward letters—they all need to be in the mail by tonight! There are only 47 letters left for Nevada, y’all! And other states have way more letters left. Please grab what you can in this final day and let’s finish with a bang!

Win Races—Rally with KH! 🗳

1. Don’t forget, Kamala Harris is making what I’m sure will be a historic speech tonight in D.C. — they are asking us to promote this event widely and ask people to attend in great numbers. The RSVP link is here.

2. Harris is also holding a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on Halloween! RSVP here!

Win Races—Montana! ⛰️

THIS SEAT IS WINNABLE!

On Tuesday, 10/29, at 5pm MT (4pm PST, 7pm EST) Tester Campaign Senior Advisor Brendan Koch will be giving an insider briefing on the race! Brendan is also a 2018 Tester Campaign alum and has played a large role in many of the closest senate races in the past 8 years. Sign up for this very exciting opportunity HERE! I AM GOING!

If everyone on this team signs up to make calls with the MT Dems 7 times between now and 7pm MT on Election day, they will get the phone coverage of the state they know they need. The 14 hours you commit in the next week could determine the Federal balance of power for the next 6 years and the fate of this Senate seat in our lifetimes. Sign Up to Step Up HERE!

Cure Ballots in NV

NV in-Person Canvassers: Do you live in or near NV and want to help voters at their doors?  Sign up here for Reno or here for Las Vegas.

Win Races! Canvass in NV!

Early vote totals from Nevada indicate that we need to do more work on GOTV there. In the first three days of early voting, more Republicans voted than Democrats, the first time that has happened since at least 2008. We need more canvassers in the field to turn out Democrats. For those of you in California, Reno and Las Vegas are close enough that two day trips to canvass are very feasible. This kind of canvassing is easy, because door-knockers are mostly doing GOTV and not persuasion.  Almost anyone can do it.

Cost is not an issue.  If you are willing to go to Reno, Seed the Vote will pay for your transportation and housing if financial assistance is needed.  STV will also help with logistics.  Sign-up to canvass with STV here.

If you would prefer to go to Las Vegas, you can sign up here and Cheryl Westmont, a top-flight organizer, will get in touch with you. Boosting turn-out in Nevada will not only help Harris win, it will also make sure that Jackie Rosen is reelected to the U.S. Senate.  If you can squeeze in two or more days of canvassing in Nevada, please do so.  Talking to people face-to-face is the very best way to influence the election results.

Win Races! 🗳

Indivisible’s suggestions for the next few days:

1. If you’re eligible, sign up for Neighbor2Neighbor. Our innovative Neighbor2Neighbor program is twice as effective as traditional door-to-door canvassing, connecting you with 10 likely-Democratic voters right in your neighborhood. Your first 10 neighbors (or next 10, if you’ve already volunteered) are waiting, so sign up now!

2. Call-o-ween! Call NY voters on Wednesday, October 30 at 6pm ET/3pm PT. The path to taking back the House runs through New York. Let’s scare the pants off of MAGA Republicans by joining fellow Indivisibles for our Call-o-ween phonebank to call voters to support Harris/Walz and congressional candidates Laura Gillen (NY-04), Mondaire Jones (NY-17), and Josh Riley (NY-19).

3. Call voters in North Carolina on Sunday, November 3 at 1pm ET/10am PT. Trump won NC in 2020 by an incredibly slim margin and recent polls show this race is within the margin of error. Join us in contacting NC voters to make sure they turn out for Kamala and Tim -- the voters we contact now could push this purple state in the right direction!

4. Join Indivisible co-founders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg for a special pre-election coffee klatch on Monday, November 4 at 3pm ET/12pm PT to take a deep breath and plan for Election Day (before knocking a few more doors or doing one more phonebanking shift)! Leah and Ezra will discuss what to expect, the best news sources to follow the results, and how to interpret returns.

5. Phonebank with podcasters on Monday, November 4 at 4pm ET/1pm PT. Join Indivisible and Andrea Chalupa of Gaslit Nation as we join forces to save our democracy in 2024! We’ll be calling voters in states like Montana and Nebraska that have crucial races that could determine control of the Senate.

Resistbot Letter (new to Resistbot? Go here! And then here.) 💻

[To: all 3 reps] [H/T and more info Climate Action Now] [Text SIGN PTKINF to Resistbot at 50409 or via Apple Messages / WHATSAPP / MESSENGER]

Bill Gates and the U.S. Defense Department are investing in Airloom, a startup building a redesigned wind turbine that’s easier to mass-produce. Airloom’s design has the wind pushing blades along a “racetrack” or “rollercoaster”-like course instead of spinning in place, allowing the wind turbine to be built with smaller parts and transported in smaller vehicles for a much cheaper and more easily installable final product. Essentially, wind turbine progress has historically come in the form of making bigger and bigger wind turbines, but that’s starting to make it physically difficult and highly expensive to move or build them, so Airloom is trying for a more solar panel-like “lots of smaller ones” strategy. With their new funding, the company plans to start building a new pilot project in Wyoming in 2025.

This is also a big deal because Airloom’s turbine design, built of smaller “modular” pieces, could eventually be manufactured at scale with a higher “learning rate” than traditional wind turbines. A big part of the reason why solar and wind saw massive price declines in the 2010s is because renewable energy technologies have a relatively high “learning rate” due to their modularity; companies can build lots and lots of little solar panels and wind turbines and learn how to make them better with each new generation.

If Airloom’s new design can improve the learning rate, modularity, and transportability of wind turbines, we could soon see a fast-growing, easy-setup new renewables champion providing zero-carbon clean electrons alongside the solar panel! This work has impressive potential.

Please maintain U.S. funding for wind energy research!

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OK, you did it again! You helped save democracy! You’re amazing.

Talk soon.

Jess