Other Critical Efforts

The ’68 Project (P68) officially launched in the fall of 2020 after an increase in attention to the killing of unarmed Black Americans met an appetite by artists and professional athletes to have a real impact in local communities in hopes of affecting systemic and long-lasting change. At its core, P68 was founded to develop relationships with key and culturally important messengers, while presenting those messengers with engagement requests that prioritized state-first asks; a clear departure from how the progressive community has engaged surrogates in the past. While the organization is continuing to build towards the future, here are a few highlights from their work in November elections:

• 7-state GOTV tour with Common
• North Carolina GOTV tour with Chris Paul and Dennis Smith Jr.
• Direct to camera videos from Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul across 6 states
• Advising Coach Bernie Bickerstaff on his Ohio engagement plan
• Formal partnerships with artist/athlete led-initiatives: Urgency 2020, Social Change Fund, CAA

Because of its commitment to state-based work, all of these and other P68 engagements were facilitated through the state donor tables, Strategic Victory Fund, Committee on States, and aligned progressive organizations.

In the summer of 2020, SVF came together with a few other partners to take a closer look at second and third tier US Senate races and ensure that progressives were not missing any opportunities. The initial states were selected to fill knowledge gaps in places where other partners weren’t working. A second phase was added over the final seven weeks to provide publicly available data that would generate earned media and small-dollar contributions.

In Phase 1 (July-August), we conducted 4 in-depth surveys examining the dynamics of the Senate races in Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, and South Carolina. At the time, these were states that were largely ignored by other actors in the progressive space. These surveys were all conducted by establishment pollsters using cell phone and landline live telephone calls based on a list of registered voters. 

In Alaska, the early August survey showed significant movement possible if the race became engaged. A larger independent expenditure effort came together with multiple partners under different auspices. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the Alaska data identified an opportunity that was the cheapest on the 2020 Senate map – and was corroborated by GOP Senate polling data showing Trump losing Alaska in early-October.

In Phase 2 (Sept-Oct), SVF partnered with several others to conduct over 30 surveys in key Senate races with Data for Progress reaching voters through text messages and web panels in the following 15 states: AL, AK, AZ, CO, GA, KY, IA, LA, ME, MI, MS, MT, NC, SC, and TX. Indivisible provided earned media support and Crooked Media covered the weekly releases of data (launch week, week 2, week 3, and week 4). Beyond the horserace data, these surveys showed significant support for progressive policy goals in many states that voted for Trump (a $2 trillion jobs program, USPS funding, clean energy, and prioritizing COVID relief over the SCOTUS nomination). DFP also conducted a final week round of surveys with another partner in many of these states plus MN and VA. All of the publicly released data is here.

Several of the DFP polls were the first public surveys to show a Democratic tie or lead; the candidate campaigns immediately used the news to raise momentum. The record-breaking 2020 fundraising by Senate candidates was probably overdetermined; however, the public polls helped ensure that no lower-tier race would be missed. Moreover, the DFP polls provided relatively high-quality data into the poll aggregation sites (like FiveThirtyEight) to balance some of the much lower quality public surveys that proved to be less reliable than ever. This prevented the aggregators from generating hurtful earned media stories.

SVF marshaled funding for For Our Future’s detailed research and strategic plan for Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to start direct voter outreach and build a narrative with voters about the Trump administration ahead of the 2020 elections. FOF’s work encompassed research, analytics, testing, and engagement. SVF believes that an integrated digital and ground operation built around Trump accountability was foundational to all of our work. 

Several donors in the SVF community worked with composer Nolan Williams, Jr., to produce a voting rights anthem and music video that raised awareness around voter suppression, encouraged voter education and registration, and increased voter motivation, contributing to the record turnout of ballots cast for a national election. The star-studded video features Billy Porter, Billie Jean King, and Christopher Jackson among others, as well as groups and notable sites from around the country. Long and short versions of the anthem got more than 1.2 million organic and paid views through election day, driving viewers to the Vote.org website to learn more about making a plan to vote.

Rural Utah: SVF helped fund organizers in an innovative registration project in rural Utah and expanding into the Arizona portion of Navajo Nation. Navajo Nation faces unique challenges to voter registration due to address formatting requirements. Our investment in this effort began prior to the COVID pandemic but this long-term organizing project has continued throughout the additional challenges the pandemic has brought as well – this included the launch of a mutual aid network to help those affected by COVID through April and May.

The Rural Utah Project traveled over 66,274 miles across the Navajo Nation and to register 5,875 voters across Arizona and Utah through a robust, one-of-a-kind digital organizing program and nearly daily voter registration events on chapters of the Navajo Nation and rural towns in Utah. As a result, progressive candidates swept elections in Grand County, Utah and influenced the outcome to push President-elect Joe Biden and Senator Mark Kelly to victory in Arizona.

This project was an effort to counter the right-wing takeover of smaller independent newspapers in rural America. Local papers are often trusted as less biased than national publications in these communities.

The Daily Yonder is a digital news platform that covers rural news for a national audience of rural residents, advocates, policymakers, and journalists. The Yonder aims to: 1) Inform rural Americans and the people who care about rural communities about important issues; and 2) Build bridges between rural and urban communities in ways that strengthen both.