In this issue:

• Please join me this Sunday July 26, 6-8 pm -- and/or any Sunday for the next 15 weeks - for a virtual phone bank with voters in the key swing state of North Carolina (NC)
• North Carolina is a critical state for Democrats to win on November 3. Learn how you can help flip the U.S.  Senate, elect Joe Biden President, pick up two seats in Congress, flip the NC Legislature and end gerrymandering &  voter suppression in NC

(Please note: I usually send only one email a month to this list, but the upcoming national election is likely the most important election of our lives.  We have the opportunity for a Democratic landslide that would change our country, the world and the future for the better.  I will be writing to you again tomorrow about phone banking with the Somerville Democrats every Tuesday evening to Maine and Sunday afternoons to Pennsylvania and other key swing states.)

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Please join me this Sunday July 26, 6-8 pm -- and/or any Sunday for the next 15 weeks --  for a virtual phone bank from the comfort of your home to talk with voters in the key swing state of North Carolina (NC)

Here is the link to sign up to phone bank to NC this Sunday evening or any Sunday evening:

Phone banking is rewarding, and it may even be fun!

I have decided to focus my political work and energy for the next 15 weeks on winning North Carolina for the Democrats on November 3.  I hope you will join me if you are not already engaged in volunteer work to win the November 3 national election for the Democrats. 

Why North Carolina?

President Trump’s popularity and polling numbers have dived as the Covid-19 epidemic and the economy worsened around the country and in the key swing states.  While Americans’ views of Black Lives Matter and racism have gone through dramatic change, President Trump is still appealing to White Nationalists.  Covid-19 and the economy are only going to get worse in the next 15 weeks.  I believe that Trump will likely lose the November 3 election – and by a lot.  Whether we agree or not with this conclusion, we still need to look beyond the presidential election to the Senate in order to stop the Republicans from using that chamber of Congress to block any major legislation and continue to appoint conservative judges.

If Joe Biden will be our next President, we must win the U.S. Senate for the Democrats so that Biden and Democrats are able to pass major legislation that will actually make a real difference in the lives of Americans and begin to address the huge unsolved problems that are destroying our country.  This could, in turn, usher in a generation or more of Democratic dominance of our national politics, with a resulting transformation of our nation for the better.  Therefore, in my view, flipping the Senate so that Democrats control it should be our top goal for the next 15 weeks.

So which are the most important U.S. Senate races to work on?  The answer is Maine and North Carolina.  Here is how I came to that conclusion.  The Democrats need to pick up three seats net to win the Senate, if Biden is our next President. (The Vice President breaks a tie if the Senate is split 50-50).  Democrats are likely to lose the Alabama Senate seat held by Doug Jones.  So that means the Democrats will need to flip four Senate seats currently held by Republicans to gain control of the Senate.  The consensus analysis is that Colorado and Arizona lean Democratic, and they have strong Dem Senate candidates, John Hickenlooper and Mark Kelly, so those two states are likely to flip to the Democrats.   Dems must win two more seats to control the Senate.  Maine and North Carolina are considered to be the two other most likely states the Democrats could pick up – they are tossup races, they could go either way.   Thus, the biggest difference we Democratic blue states like Massachusetts can make is to work on swinging Maine and NC to the Democrats.

I am not saying that working on Senate races in Colorado and Arizona is not important, it is very important.  There are a bunch of other states where Senate seats may flip to the Democrats as well, such as Georgia, Texas, Iowa, and Montana.  These are all important races and well worth getting involved in if you have a connection to these states.  But Maine and North Carolina seem the most likely to flip at this point in time.

Maine is our neighbor, many of us know people there, so Maine is a natural for us to focus on.  But there are already a huge number of people in Massachusetts working to defeat Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine, and this work has been going on for months.  On the other hand, very few people in our region are paying attention to the Senate race or anything in North Carolina, and there are not nearly as many volunteers from outside  NC making phone calls there.  North Carolina is also a large state, with 15 electoral college votes compared to Maine’s two. Winning NC will require a huge effort.

A big Democratic win in NC will not only flip the Senate to the Democrats, it can also help elect Joe Biden President by a larger margin, pick up two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, flip the NC Legislature and end gerrymandering and voter suppression in NC.  These wins would make a huge difference in the lives of millions of people in North Carolina, especially in the African American community there, which has been the target of Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression.

North Carolina needs our help more than any other state if we are to change things for the better in our country in the next few years.

Once I concluded this analysis, I started learning about North Carolina.  Two weeks ago, I didn’t even know the name of the Dem Senate candidate in NC – Cal Cunningham!  I am learning about NC politics as quickly as I can.  But we must act now to win this election.  Swing Left Boston and Together for 2020 (a coalition of progressive groups in MA working on the 2020 election) is organizing a bunch of phone banks into NC.  I can’t emphasize this point enough: phone calls to voters is the most impactful and powerful way to win this election (since doorknocking is out of the question).  Sending letters and postcards and texting are valuable, and complimentary, but if you want to have the biggest impact for your volunteer time, spend it talking to voters.  Winning elections is all about voter contact.   I encourage you to try to work through your discomfort and give phone banking a try.  You may be surprised.

I am working with my nephew Sam Weiss, an experienced political campaigner, to build a phone bank to NC that will hopefully grow to several dozen callers within a few months.  I invite you to join us this Sunday at 6 pm if you can, or any Sunday for the next 15 weeks.

We will begin our phone bank with a Zoom meeting where everyone will introduce themselves and say a few words about why they care about winning this election.  Then we will orient callers to the simple script.  Everyone stays on the Zoom meeting while they call.  Sam or I will continue to be available on Zoom to answer any questions and help with any technical issues or the script.  We will be calling unenrolled voters (no party) who are likely to lean Democratic.  At about 7:50, at the end of the phone bank, we will all get back together on Zoom to debrief and reconnect with the other callers.

We will help volunteers get set up with an account and an “Action ID” and log in to use the Virtual Phone Bank system.  I love this system, it is easy to use (even for old technophobe dinosaurs like me).  The voter’s name and phone number show up on your computer screen along with the script and a few drop down responses to fill in.  You use your cell phone or landline to dial .  Most calls go unanswered, but even data such as “Disconnected” or “Wrong Number” is valuable in terms of focusing get-out-the-vote efforts and future phone calling.  You get a live person on the line about 10-20% of the time, depending upon the list.  

To my surprise, I have found these phone calls, especially to southern states like Florida and North Carolina where people are friendlier, to be warmer and more enjoyable than I expected.  Like so many people, I have avoided making political phone calls in the past.  But this year is different, for two reasons.  Due to the Coronavirus epidemic, people are less busy, more isolated, and more willing to talk with a stranger.  And voters understand how critically important this election is for the future of our country.  I can’t promise you the time of your life making phone calls to voters in NC, but I can tell you that of the hundreds of people I have been on Zoom meetings with making phone calls to swing states this year, almost all of them have found it to be worthwhile.

North Carolina is a critical state for Democrats to win on November 3.  Learn how you can help flip the U.S.  Senate, elect Joe Biden President, pick up two seats in Congress, flip the NC Legislature and end gerrymandering and voter suppression in NC

I am pleased to share with you below the first Together for NC weekly newsletter. There is a link to a form where you can sign up to get future newsletters and other notifications about opportunities to help win North Carolina for the Democrats.

There are other phone banks to North Carolina that you can join if you are busy on Sunday nights or want to do more than one phone bank a week.  I encourage you to devote four hours a week – two phone banks – to volunteering to win the November 3 election for the Democrats to help save democracy, our country and the world!  That would be a total of 60 hours over the next 15 weeks.  This is a time-limited commitment; after November 3, the election will be over.   

There are also some links below to learn more about North Carolina if you are interested.  I especially recommend the Swing Left North Carolina Super State Strategy document, it is only three pages long and very informative.

If you are interested in North Carolina politics, please join us this Thursday evening, July 23 from 7-8 pm for a North Carolina Briefing and Strategy Meeting with Steve Schewel, Mayor of  Durham and co-founder of the Durham People’s Alliance, Sarah Shah , NC Dem Party Training Director and Out-of-State Volunteer Coordinator, and Susan Labandibar, the fabulous full-time, unpaid, Co-coordinator of Swing Left Boston.  You can sign up for the strategy call here:

Mark Niedergang, Ward 5 City Councilor

[email protected]

(617) 629-8033

www.markniedergang.com