Congresswoman Barbara Lee invited about 40 local grassroots leaders to a workshop Saturday morning to learn skills to take back to our groups so that we can all contribute to the push to turn more California districts blue in 2018. The Democrats are aiming to flip at least 7 of 14!
Nicole Derse and Addisu Dimisse of the 2012 Obama campaign talked about the importance of using our own stories to make connections with others whether knocking on doors in Turlock or recruiting volunteers in Oakland.
And we heard some specifics about how we can help from The California Democratic Party’s organizer, Lucia Nuñez of district 10, where they have already identified a lot of voters looking to replace Jeff Denham, particularly after he voted for huge health care cuts in exchange for tax cuts for the wealthy.
District swinging isn’t something we’ve focused on much at Indivisible East Bay so far, although it’s something we all care about and many of us are working on at other organizations. But we at IEB, as well as other blue chapters across the country (and those at the Indivisible Guide national) have been looking at how we might put an Indivisible spin on this work—otherwise we might as well leave it to other organizations.
One clear way to do that is by doing that work along with our own members of Congress as part of building those relationship. Whenever we ask our reps. what we can do to help them, or to show our support, they talk about taking back the House. Rep. Swalwell, as it happens, hosted a phone bank for Jon Ossoff of Georgia also on Saturday.
So at Rep. Lee’s prodding, we’re planning our first official red district field trip. The California Dems. are canvassing and registering voters in District 10 every Sunday throughout Resistance Summer. We’ve looking at coordinating with them to send a group to participate (tentative date: July 16). Please fill out this form if you’re interested! https://goo.gl/Dk5ud3
