2020 was the year we promised to leave it all on the field in order to flip the Senate and win back the White House.
And we did it — thanks to the determination of our amazing staff, volunteers, and supporters like you.
With Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Raphael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff all now sworn in, here’s an overview of our work in 2020. (Read our full 2020 Impact Report here.)
Our biggest program ever
Since 2015, we’ve built programs to elect Democrats across the country to state and federal office. We also conducted experiments to test our field tactics and fine-tune how we reach voters.
In 2020, we put all that expertise to work in our biggest program ever:
- 46.5 million voter-contact attempts in 37 states
- (+7.5 million more in the Georgia runoff)
- 21.2 million handwritten postcards
- 1,210 Field Representatives
- 174 Turnout Fellows
- $52.5 million total investment
We put our faith in organizers and voters — not TV ads — to get us across the finish line. That means direct voter contact: reaching voters where they are and making sure they have what they need to turn out to vote.
This past year, it also meant building robust digital and phone programs, running our first-ever volunteer program, and expanding our outreach to Latinx and Spanish-speaking voters.
Going the distance
Our work helped flip five states (plus the NE–02 electoral vote!) for Joe Biden. Here’s what we accomplished in three of those states:
In Georgia, our work through November 3 turned out the voters Democrats needed to win these 16 electoral votes, and advance now-Senators Warnock and Ossoff to runoff elections. We stayed put for those runoffs, making an additional 7.5 million contact attempts on top of the 4 million we made during the general election. We were also able to deploy staff to polling places for Vote Tripling (a relational organizing program) and to send millions of volunteer postcards.
(More on our Georgia runoff program →)
Michigan had been on our watchlist since November 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost the state by just 10,704 votes — her narrowest margin. We successfully turned that margin on its head, with the Biden-Harris ticket winning by over 150,000 votes, and Sen. Gary Peters winning re-election in a close race.
In Arizona, our teams in Phoenix and Tucson made more than 4.2 million voter-contact attempts. Years of work by local organizers — and an especially vulnerable incumbent Republican Senator — put Arizona in play for Democrats, and we’re proud to have helped deliver it.
What’s next
Our work continues at Progressive Turnout Project.
State-level races are more important than ever, with a far-right Supreme Court ready to rubber stamp laws that could restrict abortion rights, reduce access to the ballot box, and draw new gerrymanders. Later this year, New Jersey and Virginia will elect governors and state legislators, and we’ll be there to make sure Democrats turn out to vote.
And looking ahead one more year, Sen. Rob Portman announced this week that he won’t run for re-election in 2022. Richard Burr and Pat Toomey had already said the same, and that means Democrats have solid opportunities to pick up U.S. Senate seats in Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania at least. We’ll also have important Democratic Senate seats to defend in Arizona, Georgia, and elsewhere.
Thank you
We didn’t accomplish any of this on our own. Thousands of volunteers donated their time to make millions of phone calls and send millions of postcards. And millions of grassroots donors supported our work with an average donation of just $16.35.
It’s not just about one election. It’s about building the Democratic base and empowering a generation of lifelong voters to exercise their power. We’re excited to continue our work with you.
