FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 9, 2022
CONTACT: Summer Kim, [email protected]
Valeria Ojeda-Avitia, valeria@precisionstrategies.
GEORGIA – This election season featured one of the most consequential midterm elections in our history. We witnessed record-breaking turnout through election day due to the tireless work of grassroots organizations. Care in Action – a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting for dignity and fairness for the millions of domestic workers in the United States – has mobilized for 18 months on behalf of women of color candidates who are committed to care policies.
What we know for certain is that Care in Action’s strategy of building the political power of women of color in the Sunbelt region and Michigan is mission critical to winning and building power long term. Without women of color, the razor thin margins we needed to seize key elections would be lost. Care in Action made over 12 million voter contact attempts this year across seven states through door knocking, phone banking, text messages, direct mail to voter households, and hosting life-changing community care events in areas that are too often left behind – all of which focused on Black, Latina, Indigenous, and AAPI women.
And we know this worked because Care in Action helped deliver the following:
Because of our early investment in women of color voters in North Carolina and progressive down-ballot candidates like Diamond Staton-Williams, we helped prevent a Republican supermajority that would have had the unfettered power to overturn Democratic vetoes. This would have been detrimental to women of color and domestic workers, and caused generations-worth of harm to our communities.
We prioritized down-ballot races in Arizona, such as Analise Ortiz, by investing early and pushing direct voter contact in districts that not only helped build power in the state legislature, but also helped push statewide candidates such as gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs and U.S. Senator Mark Kelly into razor-thin “count every vote” campaigns.
While Nevada is still too close to call, it is important to note that if Care in Action and our allies did not prioritize hard conversations with Latinx voters where disinformation ran rampant, it is very likely that U.S. Senator Cortez Masto would be in a different scenario today. Between our work engaging communities of color throughout Clark County and our domestic worker canvassing program in Washoe County, Care in Action is proud of the work we’ve done to ensure that the voices and priorities of women of color are centered from the halls of the state legislature to the halls of Congress.
In Michigan, we were proud to be part of the powerful in-state coalition that organized to win constitutional protections for abortion access. We know that reproductive justice is a complex issue for women of color who have never known universal access to abortion – and now that Michigan voters have flipped the state legislature to Democratic control, we look forward to moving more pieces of the care agenda forward there through the legislative Care Caucus that we help anchor.
In Virginia, we were proud to run a powerful Latina voter contact program in Prince William County that focused on cutting through rampant Spanish-language disinformation there, and ensuring that voters had the information they needed to make sure that disinformation didn’t have the last word.
Power-building in South Carolina is a long-term project, and our program there this year focused on a massive voter contact program as well as a robust effort to ensure that Black folks across the state have reliable and accurate information about how to access the student loan debt relief that President Biden and Vice President Harris delivered for all Americans.
Last but not least is Georgia, Care in Action’s flagship state. In 2018, Care in Action was proud to stand by Stacey Abrams early on, and to believe in her strategy of expanding the electorate and engaging in year-round voter contact with communities of color. Because of the determination by Abrams, Care in Action, and our coalition allies, Georgia was able to deliver the state for President Biden and Vice President Harris in 2020 – and deliver a Democratic trifecta by electing Georgia’s first Jewish U.S. Senator, Jon Ossoff, and first Black U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock.Though Georgia is grieving a hard electoral loss this morning of our forever-leader Stacey Abrams, Georgia organizers are ready to clinch a run-off win to re-elect Senator Warnock.
While final results are still coming in – and as we wait for every vote to be counted – we are clear that 2022 has been a powerful repudiation of the racist, sexist, xenophobic agenda of the MAGA Republicans and a win for organizing (and organizers). As we look forward to more races being called, a run-off for the GA Senate seat that might determine the balance of power in Congress, and our 2023 organizing work, we remain focused on our long-term mission of building the power of women of color and building support for a care-based policy agenda that centers working families.
Care in Action Executive Director Hillary Holley and domestic worker canvassers are available for interviews upon request.
Care in Action is the policy and advocacy home for women who care, working on behalf of more than two million domestic workers and care workers across America. Among the fastest-growing sectors in our economy, domestic workers are also among the most vulnerable and undervalued. As a mostly women and majority women of color workforce, this growing constituency consistently and overwhelmingly supports progressive values in American political life. Learn more at www.careinaction.us.