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Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible here. I’m going to tell you something scary first, but I’m going to follow that up with how we can make it less scary. You may have seen that our right-wing Supreme Court just started its new term. Here’s the scary thing: They are considering giving power to MAGA state legislature to ignore the voters in 2024 and hand the election to Trump. Eek.
Yes that’s scary, but we’re not powerless. Here’s the game plan:
- The threat: MAGA Republicans are pushing the Court to adopt a fringe legal argument called the Independent State Legislature theory (ISL), which could give state legislatures unprecedented power to pass voter suppression laws, gerrymander districts, refuse to certify elections, and select presidential electors — all without any checks from governors, state courts, or even state constitutions. (I won’t go into deep detail here, but I’ve put together an explainer TikTok with more info)
- The urgency: The state candidates that get elected this year are the ones who get to choose to certify the election results in 2024. If we wait to fight back until the Supreme Court has already ruled on this, we’ll be too late.
- The plan: Indivisible is launching a new campaign – Crush the Coup – to back Democratic state legislative candidates running in the six key battleground states that are currently under MAGA control. Get these folks in office, and we stop this coup before it starts – easy peasy.
Here’s the good news: We launched Crush the Coup just a couple days ago, and it’s already raised more than $50,000 for these candidates. My not-so-secret goal: I want us to get up to $5,000 per candidate – and we’re already more than halfway there. What does $5,000 get? Well, for Indivisible that pays for 12,500 calls to voters, another 41,600 texts, 500 mailers, and 40 clipboards for door to door canvassing. Now imagine multiplying that times 29 candidates all across the country! This is real, impactful investment – and it’s achievable.
With just a few weeks left until Election Day, we all must focus on what we can do right now. You’re not responsible for saving democracy by yourself. We’ve had donations from all over the country. This is normal, grassroots donors tossing in $25, $50, $100 dollars to help out. I just tossed in $50 myself! All the donations are split evenly between the candidates and Indivisible to get out the vote. To make it more manageable, here’s what I’d suggest: adopt just one of these states, focus your attention, effort, and support there. Everybody else will be doing the same, and together, we’ll get this done.
Pick one:
- Adopt Arizona. MAGAs control the state by just two votes in the state House and state Senate. We’ve identified the six most competitive candidates.
- Adopt Georgia. The GOP has gerrymandered the hell out of this state. Our realistic goal is to weaken MAGA control and prevent 2024 shenanigans like we saw in 2024. We’ve identified the six most competitive candidates.
- Adopt Michigan. In 2020 in Michigan, Republicans retained control of the legislature with just 5 seats. In 2022, we’re within striking distance. In 2020 in Michigan, Republicans retained control of the legislature with just 5 seats. In 2022, we’re within striking distance. We’ve identified the three most competitive candidates.
- Adopt North Carolina. The state is heavily gerrymandered. We won’t be able to flip the entire legislature this cycle, but we can break the MAGA supermajority. We’ve identified the four most competitive candidates.
- Adopt Pennsylvania. The big opportunity here is to take the state House. We’ve identified the five most competitive candidates.
- Adopt Wisconsin. Similar to North Carolina – absurd GOP gerrymandering means the goal here is to break the MAGA supermajority. We’ve identified the five most competitive candidates.
Double bang for buck. One extra reason to click on one of those links: In every single one of these states there is ALSO a competitive U.S. Senate election. That’s Mike Kelly in Arizona, John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, and Raphael Warnock in Georgia. That means your support is doing double work – every voter the state legislature candidates gets out for themselves is ALSO a vote against the MAGA Senate candidate. So not only will you be helping to flip a MAGA state legislature, you’ll be helping expand our margins in the Senate to make McConnell, Sinema, and Manchin politically irrelevant next year.
Yes, you can adopt more than one state if you’d like, but please don’t get overwhelmed. Can’t donate? We still want you in on this. We have tools ready for you to use at crushthecoup.org to write letters to the editor or host a phonebank, so we can reach as many voters as possible in these races before November 8.
We’re all in this together. We’re all shouldering what we can. And together, I’m gonna say it — we’re gonna win.
In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Founder, Indivisible
