All eyes on Colorado 👀

It's go-time, and CO's 8th district is up for grabs

My family and I moved to one helluva state!

[This post is intended as an introduction to the important and unique Deep Canvassing work I’m doing with a small team in Colorado. If you’re so moved after reading, I’ve included the ubiquitous “ways to give” at the bottom. ;)]

A bit of backstory:

We moved to CO in the summer of 2019, just in time for me to start rolling up my sleeves for the (mildly consequential) election coming down the pike. I got to work almost immediately, connecting with my state rep, getting deeply involved in her re-election campaign (she’d first won in 2018, when I made my own run and was fortunate to meet so many of you!) and getting the political lay of the land in my new home state. My kids, having absorbed the lessons of the prior three years, also agitated to create a weekly “standout” for Biden at a busy intersection here in Evergreen. As my mom often says, (mis)quoting the great Fozzy Bear, “pride swells.”

My son and his friend. Hunting for these pics was a master class in confronting the passage of time.

Our state rep won her re-election campaign (hooray!), one of many victory dances celebrated on that sunny day in 2020. I still get teary when I remember seeing Jen Psaki standing on that podium, after so many years of abuse. It was like allowing my frozen insides to melt; sometimes you don’t know how tense you’ve been until you start to relax.

The following year, I was introduced to the crew working to re-elect Phil Weiser, our phenomenal CO Attorney General. A number of conversations persuaded me that this campaign would be a great place to focus my energies, and I went all in, even becoming the Jefferson County Co-Coordinator for his campaign.

I have a million great stories from that effort, but the purpose of this message is to highlight one particular outcome that could — and I’m not overstating this, given to hyperbole though I am — have a dramatic impact on the complexion of the US House in 2024 and beyond.

I was invited to become a part of a kitchen-table effort to bring Deep Canvassing to Colorado, because research shows that deep canvassing is the single most effective tool in increasing the turn-out of people who previously didn't vote. A woman (now dear friend) and lifelong organizer had become steeped in the technology of Deep Canvassing through her voter work in Pennsylvania and wanted to gather a small team to bring the approach back to Colorado. She’d received permission to test the approach in concert with AG Weiser’s campaign in the spring of 2022.

Our effort was an unqualified success, and undoubtedly a factor in AG Weiser’s re-election.

My front row seat to AG Weiser’s swearing in. An unforgettable experience.

Now onto the present and the calm, uneventful year ahead of us:

After the campaign wrapped up, I reached out to AG Weiser to see if he’d be willing to have a brief conversation about my own political trajectory here in CO (“Will you run again?” is probably the most commonly repeated question I receive, second only to “how do you like Colorado?” Ask my husband, and you might get a different answer to the first q.) AG Weiser “did me one better” and invited me to meet for lunch, a gesture whose generosity perfectly illustrates his character and dedication not only to democracy and the rule of law, but also to directing his attention and his platform towards bringing out the best in people.

It turned out to be a really impactful meeting. Impactful for me personally, because I (once again) realized that the ripple effects of our efforts are never entirely foreseeable, or even quantifiable: when we put ourselves out there and make connections, beautiful things emerge.

It will also turn out to be impactful for Colorado itself. The Deep Canvassing team had been busy discussing pathways to building out a program in anticipation of 2024, including partnering with various issue-based non-profits as a means to mobilizing that same low-propensity voter pool. Now, as a result of our conversation — which reinforced to the AG the effectiveness of his campaign test-case — and thanks to the incredible support and leadership of AG Weiser himself, we have created a partnership with the Colorado Democratic Party to enable us to launch a full scale Deep Canvassing operation in CD8, the most flippable seat in Colorado.

Because of our work, Colorado will become the birthplace of a whole new crop of voters who would have otherwise sat it out, and those voters will be instrumental in keeping CD8 blue.

As I mentioned above, Colorado’s 8th Congressional District is undoubtedly the most vulnerable in CO and is slated to be one of the truly high-profile national races. If you’re thinking about where to put your energy this election season and want to know that your money is going directly towards getting low-propensity voters to the polls, this is your race.

While our kitchen-table team of volunteers will continue to work pro bono on this project — including the full-time dedicated leadership of my friend who started it all — over the next year, we plan to hire a full-time Deep Canvassing Organizer to start in March and run deep canvasses through the election.

Deep Canvassing will increase voter turn-out in November, and our work will train hundreds of people who will carry this skillset into future elections. To be in the room with this intergenerational group of volunteers, from college students to retirees, was to be moved to tears with a palpable sense of hope that has been hard to come by lately.

Deep canvassing is a way of reaching out to people who do not vote regularly that focuses on listening, empathy, sharing stories and creating an opportunity for people to reflect and change their own minds about voting.  The change in behavior endures because of an authentic conversation.

Deep canvassing is the opposite of ordinary canvassing. Whereas an ordinary canvass often sees dozens of volunteers spraying literature across a district they barely know, Deep Canvassing involves highly trained conversationalists connecting “political abstractions” to the lived experiences of people that voters care about; we even learn their names.

Going through this process brings you into true connection with real people, which is gratifying enough; but what it really does is bring politics to life for them, often for the first time. I remember one guy down in Denver: I’d shared a bit about myself and why I feel so strongly about healthcare after my dad had struggled with major health problems in the past. When the conversation turned to the man at the door and I inquired about people he cared about, it took a bit of gentle prompting until a light bulb went off: “Yeah, I guess you’re right! My wife is six months pregnant, and, now that I think about it, I guess it’s really important to me that our baby will have access to clean air and water.” BINGO! It took nearly seven minutes for me to even discover that his wife was pregnant, but by the end of the conversation, I knew the baby’s name and I knew that this guy was about 60% more likely to vote than he had been before I came along, because literally he told me so.

THAT’S DEEP CANVASSING.

I know that we all share a profound concern about the authoritarian direction that Trump's election in 2016 and continued popularity reflects.

His recent campaign speeches demonizing immigrants and talking about militarizing massive deportations are unlikely to be received favorably in CD8, where we’re focusing our attention, which has a large number of Latino and recent immigrant voters. But we need these voters to actually vote!

SO:

If you live in Colorado and want to get involved, PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME!

I’m also inviting all of my friends who live elsewhere and are willing to invest in this effort — 100% of these funds will be earmarked for Deep Canvassing in CD8 — to help build “The Horizon Project,” the new name for our hard-won effort.

We need to raise $100,000 to pay for the full time staff person and to cover the costs of training and running canvasses from March - November, and each individual can give up to $10,000 per calendar year to the Colorado Democratic Party; the link below will go directly (and only) to this project.

We’re starting early (really, we started back in 2022 with our eyes on the 2024 prize!) because that’s how we build effective campaigns.

As always, every little bit counts. If everyone on this newsletter gave $10, we’d cover a significant portion of that essential staff person’s salary!

I've included the link that, again, ensures that your gift goes directly to this project.
 
To give online: 
Colorado Democratic Party - Federal Account — Donate via ActBlue

To mail a check:  
Colorado Democratic Party
789 N Sherman St. Ste. 110
Denver CO 80203
Make checks out to "The Colorado Democratic Party" - on the memo line please put “Horizon Project.” As required by Federal Election Law, please include a note stating your occupation/employer and a preferred mailing address if different from the return address on your envelope.
 
As you begin to think about how and where you want to give money in 2024 to help win key swing seats, thank you for considering making a gift in support of our unique work in this critical swing district in Colorado.

Mostly, though, I want to thank you for all that you do for justice, and for your friendship.