Nov. 10, 2025
Five Big Reasons I'm Feeling Optimistic, Plus About 100 Other Little Things
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a lot more optimistic than I was a week ago. In spite of daily news that can feel pretty daunting, I think we just got a lot of new information out of this past week's elections that give us a ton of reasons for optimism. And I want to share those with you.
A number of my clients have said to me in the last few days, give us a reason for optimism. How are you feeling about this? And each time I've had this conversation, I've gotten clearer about exactly what the big things were that represented major shifts.
I believe these shifts are reasons to get really excited about the rising power of a vast majority of people in this country who do not agree with what is happening. Who feel very strongly about it, and who are willing to go to the ballot box and make their voices heard.
This election was the first opportunity for voters to weigh in on things since the 2024 elections. And boy did they have a lot to say.
In this episode, we share:
- What the pollsters missed that made a huge difference
- The two most significant factors that drove voters’ shift to blue
- The most important thing that didn’t happen, and why it matters
- The two most critical groups of voters who shifted strongly in our favor, and why
- Why the right’s attempts at additional gerrymandering may backfire on them
- The very surprising data point that tells us how many strong allies we have
- What Nonprofit leaders can do to help fight voter suppression and ensure all eligible clients can make their voices heard in the next elections
Links:
Episode 54 – How to Help the People You Serve Make Their Voices Heard at the Ballot Box
Episode 62 – How Your Nonprofit can Help Your Clients Register to Vote in the 2024 Elections
Episode 66 – How to Help Your Clients Make Sure Their Vote Counts
Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, I’d be grateful if you would leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. Your reviews help other nonprofit leaders find the podcast. Thanks!!
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, I'm sharing five big reasons i'm feeling optimistic, plus about a hundred other little things.
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So stay tuned.
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If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them.
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Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I think we just got a lot of new information out of this past week's elections that give us a ton of reasons for optimism.
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And I wanna share those with you.
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It's interesting because a number of my clients have said to me in the latter part of this past week, give us a reason for optimism.
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How are you feeling about this?
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And each time I've had this conversation, I've gotten clearer about exactly what the big things were that represented major shifts that are reasons to get really excited about the rising power of a vast majority of people in this country who do not agree with what is happening.
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Who feel very strongly about it, and who are willing to go to the ballot box and make their voices heard.
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So let's get right into those.
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This election was the first opportunity for voters to weigh in on things since the 2024 elections.
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And boy did they have a lot to say.
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As you know, there were three big elections, two gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, and then the big race for New York City mayor.
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Those were sort of the marquee races of this just past election.
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And beyond that, there were dozens, if not hundreds of local elections.
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In some places like Virginia, the entire House of Delegates was up for election.
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In other places it was mostly city and county races for city council, county board, school board, any number of things that happen in these off-year elections that often don't draw much turnout.
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A lot of times off-year elections are kind of sleepy affairs, especially if there's not a marquee race happening.
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But one of the things that was so exciting was that turnout was massive.
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In many places turnout for this election rivaled the turnout for the 2024 presidential election.
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That's saying something.
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That's telling me voters are very engaged and are more than ready to make their voices heard.
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So let's talk about how they did that and what they had to say.
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This election represented essentially a complete sweep by massive margins, including in places where the polls said the race was gonna be close.
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In fact, none of the major races were close.
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There was all this talk about how the New Jersey governor's race was nip and tuck, and it could go either way.
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And it was a blowout.
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In Virginia it was an even bigger blowout.
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The Democrats won by double digit margins.
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And same in New York City.
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It was never close.
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That says a lot.
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This was not, oh, people aren't sure.
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They're still trying to decide whose side they're on and whose policies they think are gonna help them more.
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No, they're pretty clear.
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They're pretty clear about two things.
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One, they know who's not helping them.
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47 and his crew are definitely not helping them.
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They are actively making their lives worse and people are super clear about that.
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The other thing, and I'll get to this in a minute, is that the Democrats had a salient message and it resonated.
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And that's what leads, I believe, to the next big data point that is so encouraging, which is that all of the Democrats running substantially outperformed the margins achieved by the Democratic national ticket in 2024.
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And similarly, the Rs substantially underperformed their 2024 numbers.
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In other words, the Ds were pulling in votes, and the Rs were losing them by large numbers.
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Another exciting thing is that there was a massive shift in the Latino vote and voters ages 18 to 25.
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In 2024, the shift in both of those groups toward 47 was based largely on affordability issues.
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People were super frustrated at economic conditions.
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They felt like they were falling behind.
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Young people felt like there was very limited opportunity and there was no chance for them to get ahead.
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Everybody was feeling very economically pressed and frustrated and like the folks in power weren't doing enough about it.
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And so they were like, give us something new.
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47 was promising, i'll reduce prices on day one, blah, blah blah.
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Never said how he was gonna do it, but that was the message and folks were ready for a change.
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Now the other thing that was going on was, at the time, all that immigration stuff was just talk.
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And they were massively misrepresenting what they were gonna do.
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Most of their messaging was around, we're gonna round up the bad guys.
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We're gonna find all those people who are here without documentation, who are violent criminals, and we're gonna send them packing.
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Well, you know, lots of folks were cool with that.
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Problem was that wasn't what they actually meant.
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They lied.
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They lied about both things.
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They lied about what they were gonna do about the economy, and they lied about what they were gonna do about immigration.
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And the reality is that number one, not only has 47 failed to make things more affordable, his ridiculous tariffs, which are just a tax on consumers, plus the massive cuts to safety net programs, particularly healthcare and food, are crushing people.
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And they get it.
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They get it what's happening.
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They're not dumb.
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It doesn't matter how often 47 tries to tell'em that tariffs aren't taxes.
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They are.
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And people get it.
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They know that.
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They know the reasons their cost of living continues to go up.
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Daily necessities are less affordable than ever, and 47 didn't deliver on a single promise in that regard and has no plans to.
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In fact, they keep talking about how they're gonna cut off more.
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Let's keep the government shut down rather than agree to the utterly reasonable and sensible demand that affordable Care Act premium subsidies be extended.
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Naah, we'd rather have people lose their healthcare.
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That's crazy.
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So people get that.
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They get all of it.
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The other reality is that so many communities are being brutalized by a lawless ICE agency that is completely outta control and is terrorizing members of the community.
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Nobody is in favor of that.
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There's a lot of reaction against that as well.
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So there are very real reasons for these voting shifts.
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And what is very interesting to me is that the Rs are just doubling down on all of it.
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They're continuing down the path that is going to alienate voters more and more.
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Another thing that I think is super significant, and it shouldn't be.
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In a normal world, this would be unremarkable.
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But in the world we're in right now, I think this is very important.
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Which is the peaceful transfer of power.
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For example, in my state of Virginia, the incumbent Republican governor Youngkin who is now gonna be replaced by the Democratic Governor elect Spanberger.
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They had lunch together three days after the election to discuss the transition.
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Youngkin said all the right things about ensuring continuity and a smooth and seamless transition, and that he wanted to make sure that Spanberger had whatever she needed to get her new administration up and running.
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That he wanted a smooth transition for the citizens of Virginia.
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Now, again, that shouldn't be remarkable, but in the environment we're in, I think it's noteworthy.
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And you know, this is also a guy who still has presidential ambitions.
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And that means that he's looking ahead to a time when we return to normalcy and a fully functioning democracy at the federal level.
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And he doesn't wanna be on the wrong side of that when that shifts.
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And in the meantime, he's ensuring that democratic norms prevail in his own state.
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That is not nothing.
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These are all very important markers that I think warrant a ton of optimism.
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And another thing that didn't happen that I think is significant, is that there were not aggressive claims of voter fraud.
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There've been a few, but they're kind of half-hearted and they haven't been persistent.
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And that I find interesting because these were blowout elections.
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They weren't close, they weren't remotely close.
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And maybe that's part of the reason it felt not productive to try to claim voter fraud when you're getting blown out by 10, 15% in an election.
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Because that would be, you know, a lot of fraud.
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That would be really hard to achieve.
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In a razor thin race where there's a percentage point or two of a margin of victory.
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It makes it a little easier to try to make those claims and sew doubt about the outcome.
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But I think they understand that when the margins are that big, there's a message there.
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And the message is people are super unhappy with the Rs right now and they're letting them know it.
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They're also responding to the approach of the Ds.
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All three of the marquee races were won on the issue of affordability.
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Now these are very different environments.
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You could hardly be two more different environments than New York City and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
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Those are some super different places.
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And yet.
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Even with those very different environments and very different sets of specific issues and different sets of policy approaches to solving those issues, it didn't really matter.
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What was significant was that all three major Democratic candidates ran on the affordability issues that were most salient in their state or city.
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They spoke to the struggles that people are actually having every single day, and they offered concrete solutions without getting excessively wonky about the policy details.
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'Cause messaging does matter.
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Bottom line, the kitchen table issues that affect every single member of the community are what is resonating most powerfully right now.
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And will continue to because of the aggressive attacks by 47 and the Rs to try to destroy the safety net and just continue to pull these reverse Robinhood moves where they're taking from the less wealthy and giving to the most wealthy.
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Basically 99% of the population is not for that.
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The only people who are for that are the ones in the top 1%.
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And even not all of them agree.
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Those are my big things.
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But let me tell you about the hundred little things that also have me really excited right now.
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And that's the hundreds of districts everywhere elections happened where there was a substantial shift in the direction of a democratic vote.
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Even in the reddest of counties, there was still a significant shift.
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For example, every single district in Virginia shifted toward a bluer vote.
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That means that this wasn't just a matter of energized voters on the left turning out.
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That was there, obviously.
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But it also means that there is significant dissatisfaction deep in MAGA country.
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And that means that redistricting may not help the Rs as much as they think it's going to.
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First of all, the Ds are doing their best to match those moves to mitigate the effects of that.
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But also, here's the thing, if you take a super red district and you gerrymander a chunk of those voters into a blue district to try to make that one be red enough to win that one too, what you may have just done is made both of those districts winnable by a D who connects with all of the voters on kitchen table issues.
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Especially when the actions of the people in power are so unbelievably unpopular and are harming virtually every member of every community.
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People are fed up, they're dissatisfied, and they're gonna make their voices heard.
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The other thing that I think is really important for us to keep our eyes on.
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Is that shift in voting patterns, even in the reddest districts, tells us that there are far more people who support sensible policies that help individuals and communities thrive.
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That's really mostly what people want.
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I think it's notable that the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia ran on culture war issues, and was yammering about attacking transgender folks and bathrooms and all sorts of nonsense.
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And it did not land.
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It so did not land.
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She got absolutely crushed in this election.
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And a large part of it was two things.
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One, she refused to criticize 47 in any way.
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And she doubled down on all the culture war issues, which is not where people's heads are.
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It's not what people are worried about.
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What I think is really important for us to notice is that that means there's way more folks out there who really just want good, sensible policy.
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They want elected officials to help them.
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To make their lives better, to make life more affordable, to make individuals and communities be able to thrive.
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That tells us that we have way more allies than we might have realized.
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And it's up to us as Nonprofit leaders to reach out and bring those folks in to our world as well.
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Because we can contribute significantly to this conversation about how we can help every member of the community thrive.
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And in turn, that helps the community thrive as a whole.
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We are in a fantastic position to lead those conversations and to put that out there wherever we're engaging with people.
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So there's a lot to be hopeful about.
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But we also know, lest you think I'm a total Pollyanna here.
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The Rs have made it clear that they wanna do everything they can to suppress the vote in 2026.
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We're gonna have a lot of work to do to counter that.
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But what we have seen is that when people who have a stake in the outcome turn out to vote in massive numbers, we win by big margins.
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The fact is their agenda is massively unpopular and the polling numbers continue to fall on every single policy initiative they've put forward.
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Massive disapproval often by 20 points or more.
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Not coincidentally those are the same kinds of margins we saw in these elections.
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That dissatisfaction and the desire to vote for someone who is actually gonna help make their life better, are powerful moti vating forces.
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We have the numbers to win again in 2026.
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Now, a caveat to that is we're gonna have to do the work to turn people out.
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And to help make it safe and easy to vote.
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Now is a really good time to start thinking about what your voter registration and education efforts will look like in 2026.
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'Cause that is just around the corner.
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And what we wanna make sure of is that every one of our clients who is eligible to vote is registered.
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And that they have the information they need to make an informed choice.
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And that they feel safe voting.
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That last one is gonna take a community wide effort, and it's gonna involve lots of allies working together on that.
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That's not something that any one of us can do on our own.
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But what we can do is integrate voter registration and education into the work we are already doing.
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I did a number of episodes on how to do that in 2024, and I'll bring a lot of that back in 2026.
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But if you'd like to refresh your memory right now, you can go back to those episodes, and I'll link those up in the show notes.
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But mostly just be thinking about it now.
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Because what we wanna make sure of is that folks are not only registered, but all their stuff is in order around their registration.
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Because we do know the Rs will try to challenge voter registrations.
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They will particularly target black and brown people.
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They will particularly target people with names that aren't Smith and Jones.
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They will be looking to question ballots.
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And we don't want any one of our clients to wind up having to cast a provisional ballot.
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We want all their stuff to be completely in order so that when they cast a ballot, it is unchallengeable in any way.
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And we can do a lot to help make that happen.
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I hope you'll start thinking about how to make that happen now.
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We have a nice long runway.
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But the work will begin early in 2026,'cause when that calendar turns over suddenly we're looking at a 10 month timetable basically to get everything done.
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I know you're already slammed, so if you can build it in early, it'll make it a little bit easier to just roll this out in pieces over time.
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I hope I've given you a few more reasons to feel more optimistic than maybe you did when you started listening.
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I think there's a lot to be excited about, a lot to be optimistic about.
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We have to be clear-eyed.
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We're not foolish people.
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We understand what the score is here.
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But we also know that we have mounting evidence.
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Each time there's a No Kings protest the number's just about double.
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Millions upon millions of people are turning out for No Kings protests, and they're just the tip of the iceberg.
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You know that for every person who shows up to do that, there are 10 more like them who would've liked to be there, but for one reason or another were not.
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Another fun little piece of polling that I think I'll toss in, that maybe could count as item number six of why I'm optimistic.
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Is that in recent polling, over 40% of Americans say that they consider themselves aligned with the No Kings protest movement.
00:19:02.027 --> 00:19:06.516
That's not, do you align with Republicans or Democrats.
00:19:06.576 --> 00:19:10.596
That's, do you consider yourself aligned with a protest movement in this country?
00:19:11.365 --> 00:19:12.506
That's huge.
00:19:13.006 --> 00:19:18.683
Most average Americans don't go around thinking of themselves as being protestors.
00:19:18.923 --> 00:19:21.114
That is not who most people are.
00:19:21.614 --> 00:19:27.963
Some of us were basically born with a protest sign in our hand, but we're not the norm.
00:19:28.594 --> 00:19:30.784
So that's very encouraging too.
00:19:30.913 --> 00:19:41.023
What that means is that people understand that in addition to all of the damaging policy that just harm individual people on a daily basis in their daily lives.
00:19:41.473 --> 00:19:50.674
That there is also a very blatant attempt to consolidate power and to try to create an authoritarian regime where they can never be thrown out of power.
00:19:51.005 --> 00:19:52.714
That means people get that.
00:19:53.434 --> 00:19:56.825
That means that at least 40% of the population gets that.
00:19:57.698 --> 00:20:00.728
To say the least, that's not a kitchen table issue directly.
00:20:00.827 --> 00:20:02.028
It is not about the price of food.
00:20:02.028 --> 00:20:05.008
It's not about the price of housing, it's not about job prospects.
00:20:05.028 --> 00:20:05.988
It's not about any of that.
00:20:06.387 --> 00:20:07.827
It's much less tangible.
00:20:07.887 --> 00:20:16.738
And yet that many people feel so strongly, that they in polling will say that they feel aligned with that protest movement.
00:20:17.157 --> 00:20:17.938
That's huge.
00:20:18.268 --> 00:20:29.553
What that tells me is that if you look around your community, that if there are 10 people gathered in a room, four of'em feel strongly enough about this, that they feel like they would go protest too.
00:20:30.053 --> 00:20:30.863
That they agree.
00:20:31.363 --> 00:20:38.266
That is an enormous pool of potentially very strong and powerful allies.
00:20:38.776 --> 00:20:47.291
So I hope that you'll also start thinking about how can you tap into that energy and that passion, that strong belief.
00:20:47.622 --> 00:20:55.326
Because folks who feel that way are ready to stand up and fight for the work that you do and for the people that you serve.
00:20:55.747 --> 00:20:58.921
And we can use all the allies in that that we can get right now.
00:20:59.800 --> 00:21:07.517
I know it can be hard when you're under pressure about a lot of things every day, to think about reaching out beyond your normal sphere.
00:21:08.057 --> 00:21:14.826
But recognize how much support, how many allies are out there that could be called in.
00:21:15.217 --> 00:21:18.628
That we can call in to help support us and the work that we do.
00:21:19.128 --> 00:21:22.088
That to me might be the biggest reason for optimism.
00:21:22.588 --> 00:21:24.357
So think about all of that.
00:21:24.704 --> 00:21:30.285
I hope that this has given you a few more reasons to feel more optimistic than you did when you started listening.
00:21:30.914 --> 00:21:41.530
And I hope you'll feel inspired to take one or two actions to help call in some of that amazing and powerful energy that is out there to support us if only we bring them in.
00:21:42.221 --> 00:21:47.080
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:02.540
You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:02.750 --> 00:00:10.150
In today's episode, I'm sharing five big reasons i'm feeling optimistic, plus about a hundred other little things.
00:00:10.525 --> 00:00:11.855
So stay tuned.
00:00:18.035 --> 00:00:26.945
If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
00:00:27.545 --> 00:00:40.564
I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them.
00:00:53.795 --> 00:00:56.585
Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
00:00:59.765 --> 00:01:02.795
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I think we just got a lot of new information out of this past week's elections that give us a ton of reasons for optimism.
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And I wanna share those with you.
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It's interesting because a number of my clients have said to me in the latter part of this past week, give us a reason for optimism.
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How are you feeling about this?
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And each time I've had this conversation, I've gotten clearer about exactly what the big things were that represented major shifts that are reasons to get really excited about the rising power of a vast majority of people in this country who do not agree with what is happening.
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Who feel very strongly about it, and who are willing to go to the ballot box and make their voices heard.
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So let's get right into those.
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This election was the first opportunity for voters to weigh in on things since the 2024 elections.
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And boy did they have a lot to say.
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As you know, there were three big elections, two gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, and then the big race for New York City mayor.
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Those were sort of the marquee races of this just past election.
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And beyond that, there were dozens, if not hundreds of local elections.
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In some places like Virginia, the entire House of Delegates was up for election.
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In other places it was mostly city and county races for city council, county board, school board, any number of things that happen in these off-year elections that often don't draw much turnout.
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A lot of times off-year elections are kind of sleepy affairs, especially if there's not a marquee race happening.
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But one of the things that was so exciting was that turnout was massive.
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In many places turnout for this election rivaled the turnout for the 2024 presidential election.
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That's saying something.
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That's telling me voters are very engaged and are more than ready to make their voices heard.
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So let's talk about how they did that and what they had to say.
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This election represented essentially a complete sweep by massive margins, including in places where the polls said the race was gonna be close.
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In fact, none of the major races were close.
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There was all this talk about how the New Jersey governor's race was nip and tuck, and it could go either way.
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And it was a blowout.
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In Virginia it was an even bigger blowout.
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The Democrats won by double digit margins.
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And same in New York City.
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It was never close.
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That says a lot.
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This was not, oh, people aren't sure.
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They're still trying to decide whose side they're on and whose policies they think are gonna help them more.
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No, they're pretty clear.
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They're pretty clear about two things.
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One, they know who's not helping them.
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47 and his crew are definitely not helping them.
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They are actively making their lives worse and people are super clear about that.
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The other thing, and I'll get to this in a minute, is that the Democrats had a salient message and it resonated.
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And that's what leads, I believe, to the next big data point that is so encouraging, which is that all of the Democrats running substantially outperformed the margins achieved by the Democratic national ticket in 2024.
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And similarly, the Rs substantially underperformed their 2024 numbers.
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In other words, the Ds were pulling in votes, and the Rs were losing them by large numbers.
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Another exciting thing is that there was a massive shift in the Latino vote and voters ages 18 to 25.
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In 2024, the shift in both of those groups toward 47 was based largely on affordability issues.
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People were super frustrated at economic conditions.
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They felt like they were falling behind.
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Young people felt like there was very limited opportunity and there was no chance for them to get ahead.
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Everybody was feeling very economically pressed and frustrated and like the folks in power weren't doing enough about it.
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And so they were like, give us something new.
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47 was promising, i'll reduce prices on day one, blah, blah blah.
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Never said how he was gonna do it, but that was the message and folks were ready for a change.
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Now the other thing that was going on was, at the time, all that immigration stuff was just talk.
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And they were massively misrepresenting what they were gonna do.
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Most of their messaging was around, we're gonna round up the bad guys.
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We're gonna find all those people who are here without documentation, who are violent criminals, and we're gonna send them packing.
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Well, you know, lots of folks were cool with that.
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Problem was that wasn't what they actually meant.
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They lied.
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They lied about both things.
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They lied about what they were gonna do about the economy, and they lied about what they were gonna do about immigration.
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And the reality is that number one, not only has 47 failed to make things more affordable, his ridiculous tariffs, which are just a tax on consumers, plus the massive cuts to safety net programs, particularly healthcare and food, are crushing people.
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And they get it.
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They get it what's happening.
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They're not dumb.
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It doesn't matter how often 47 tries to tell'em that tariffs aren't taxes.
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They are.
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And people get it.
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They know that.
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They know the reasons their cost of living continues to go up.
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Daily necessities are less affordable than ever, and 47 didn't deliver on a single promise in that regard and has no plans to.
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In fact, they keep talking about how they're gonna cut off more.
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Let's keep the government shut down rather than agree to the utterly reasonable and sensible demand that affordable Care Act premium subsidies be extended.
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Naah, we'd rather have people lose their healthcare.
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That's crazy.
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So people get that.
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They get all of it.
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The other reality is that so many communities are being brutalized by a lawless ICE agency that is completely outta control and is terrorizing members of the community.
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Nobody is in favor of that.
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There's a lot of reaction against that as well.
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So there are very real reasons for these voting shifts.
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And what is very interesting to me is that the Rs are just doubling down on all of it.
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They're continuing down the path that is going to alienate voters more and more.
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Another thing that I think is super significant, and it shouldn't be.
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In a normal world, this would be unremarkable.
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But in the world we're in right now, I think this is very important.
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Which is the peaceful transfer of power.
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For example, in my state of Virginia, the incumbent Republican governor Youngkin who is now gonna be replaced by the Democratic Governor elect Spanberger.
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They had lunch together three days after the election to discuss the transition.
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Youngkin said all the right things about ensuring continuity and a smooth and seamless transition, and that he wanted to make sure that Spanberger had whatever she needed to get her new administration up and running.
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That he wanted a smooth transition for the citizens of Virginia.
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Now, again, that shouldn't be remarkable, but in the environment we're in, I think it's noteworthy.
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And you know, this is also a guy who still has presidential ambitions.
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And that means that he's looking ahead to a time when we return to normalcy and a fully functioning democracy at the federal level.
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And he doesn't wanna be on the wrong side of that when that shifts.
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And in the meantime, he's ensuring that democratic norms prevail in his own state.
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That is not nothing.
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These are all very important markers that I think warrant a ton of optimism.
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And another thing that didn't happen that I think is significant, is that there were not aggressive claims of voter fraud.
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There've been a few, but they're kind of half-hearted and they haven't been persistent.
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And that I find interesting because these were blowout elections.
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They weren't close, they weren't remotely close.
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And maybe that's part of the reason it felt not productive to try to claim voter fraud when you're getting blown out by 10, 15% in an election.
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Because that would be, you know, a lot of fraud.
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That would be really hard to achieve.
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In a razor thin race where there's a percentage point or two of a margin of victory.
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It makes it a little easier to try to make those claims and sew doubt about the outcome.
00:10:02.533 --> 00:10:08.687
But I think they understand that when the margins are that big, there's a message there.
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And the message is people are super unhappy with the Rs right now and they're letting them know it.
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They're also responding to the approach of the Ds.
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All three of the marquee races were won on the issue of affordability.
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Now these are very different environments.
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You could hardly be two more different environments than New York City and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
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Those are some super different places.
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And yet.
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Even with those very different environments and very different sets of specific issues and different sets of policy approaches to solving those issues, it didn't really matter.
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What was significant was that all three major Democratic candidates ran on the affordability issues that were most salient in their state or city.
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They spoke to the struggles that people are actually having every single day, and they offered concrete solutions without getting excessively wonky about the policy details.
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'Cause messaging does matter.
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Bottom line, the kitchen table issues that affect every single member of the community are what is resonating most powerfully right now.
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And will continue to because of the aggressive attacks by 47 and the Rs to try to destroy the safety net and just continue to pull these reverse Robinhood moves where they're taking from the less wealthy and giving to the most wealthy.
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Basically 99% of the population is not for that.
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The only people who are for that are the ones in the top 1%.
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And even not all of them agree.
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Those are my big things.
00:11:41.081 --> 00:11:45.761
But let me tell you about the hundred little things that also have me really excited right now.
00:11:46.261 --> 00:11:53.602
And that's the hundreds of districts everywhere elections happened where there was a substantial shift in the direction of a democratic vote.
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Even in the reddest of counties, there was still a significant shift.
00:11:58.842 --> 00:12:03.493
For example, every single district in Virginia shifted toward a bluer vote.
00:12:04.182 --> 00:12:09.643
That means that this wasn't just a matter of energized voters on the left turning out.
00:12:10.273 --> 00:12:11.623
That was there, obviously.
00:12:12.283 --> 00:12:18.623
But it also means that there is significant dissatisfaction deep in MAGA country.
00:12:19.123 --> 00:12:24.263
And that means that redistricting may not help the Rs as much as they think it's going to.
00:12:24.763 --> 00:12:29.336
First of all, the Ds are doing their best to match those moves to mitigate the effects of that.
00:12:29.936 --> 00:12:52.706
But also, here's the thing, if you take a super red district and you gerrymander a chunk of those voters into a blue district to try to make that one be red enough to win that one too, what you may have just done is made both of those districts winnable by a D who connects with all of the voters on kitchen table issues.
00:12:53.206 --> 00:13:02.336
Especially when the actions of the people in power are so unbelievably unpopular and are harming virtually every member of every community.
00:13:02.817 --> 00:13:07.254
People are fed up, they're dissatisfied, and they're gonna make their voices heard.
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The other thing that I think is really important for us to keep our eyes on.
00:13:12.712 --> 00:13:27.350
Is that shift in voting patterns, even in the reddest districts, tells us that there are far more people who support sensible policies that help individuals and communities thrive.
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That's really mostly what people want.
00:13:30.297 --> 00:13:44.038
I think it's notable that the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia ran on culture war issues, and was yammering about attacking transgender folks and bathrooms and all sorts of nonsense.
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And it did not land.
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It so did not land.
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She got absolutely crushed in this election.
00:13:51.386 --> 00:13:53.096
And a large part of it was two things.
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One, she refused to criticize 47 in any way.
00:13:56.568 --> 00:14:02.001
And she doubled down on all the culture war issues, which is not where people's heads are.
00:14:02.361 --> 00:14:03.772
It's not what people are worried about.
00:14:04.654 --> 00:14:12.274
What I think is really important for us to notice is that that means there's way more folks out there who really just want good, sensible policy.
00:14:12.485 --> 00:14:14.884
They want elected officials to help them.
00:14:15.230 --> 00:14:21.346
To make their lives better, to make life more affordable, to make individuals and communities be able to thrive.
00:14:21.956 --> 00:14:26.403
That tells us that we have way more allies than we might have realized.
00:14:27.227 --> 00:14:33.768
And it's up to us as Nonprofit leaders to reach out and bring those folks in to our world as well.
00:14:34.067 --> 00:14:42.673
Because we can contribute significantly to this conversation about how we can help every member of the community thrive.
00:14:43.092 --> 00:14:46.273
And in turn, that helps the community thrive as a whole.
00:14:46.452 --> 00:14:53.470
We are in a fantastic position to lead those conversations and to put that out there wherever we're engaging with people.
00:14:54.125 --> 00:14:55.895
So there's a lot to be hopeful about.
00:14:56.298 --> 00:15:00.048
But we also know, lest you think I'm a total Pollyanna here.
00:15:00.857 --> 00:15:05.357
The Rs have made it clear that they wanna do everything they can to suppress the vote in 2026.
00:15:06.250 --> 00:15:08.370
We're gonna have a lot of work to do to counter that.
00:15:09.062 --> 00:15:17.283
But what we have seen is that when people who have a stake in the outcome turn out to vote in massive numbers, we win by big margins.
00:15:17.783 --> 00:15:25.613
The fact is their agenda is massively unpopular and the polling numbers continue to fall on every single policy initiative they've put forward.
00:15:26.513 --> 00:15:29.332
Massive disapproval often by 20 points or more.
00:15:29.832 --> 00:15:34.062
Not coincidentally those are the same kinds of margins we saw in these elections.
00:15:34.562 --> 00:15:44.321
That dissatisfaction and the desire to vote for someone who is actually gonna help make their life better, are powerful moti vating forces.
00:15:45.118 --> 00:15:48.849
We have the numbers to win again in 2026.
00:15:49.349 --> 00:15:54.359
Now, a caveat to that is we're gonna have to do the work to turn people out.
00:15:54.917 --> 00:15:57.970
And to help make it safe and easy to vote.
00:15:59.102 --> 00:16:06.182
Now is a really good time to start thinking about what your voter registration and education efforts will look like in 2026.
00:16:06.482 --> 00:16:07.923
'Cause that is just around the corner.
00:16:08.475 --> 00:16:14.090
And what we wanna make sure of is that every one of our clients who is eligible to vote is registered.
00:16:14.830 --> 00:16:18.948
And that they have the information they need to make an informed choice.
00:16:19.489 --> 00:16:21.708
And that they feel safe voting.
00:16:22.349 --> 00:16:28.453
That last one is gonna take a community wide effort, and it's gonna involve lots of allies working together on that.
00:16:28.866 --> 00:16:31.297
That's not something that any one of us can do on our own.
00:16:31.716 --> 00:16:39.025
But what we can do is integrate voter registration and education into the work we are already doing.
00:16:39.933 --> 00:16:46.524
I did a number of episodes on how to do that in 2024, and I'll bring a lot of that back in 2026.
00:16:46.825 --> 00:16:52.375
But if you'd like to refresh your memory right now, you can go back to those episodes, and I'll link those up in the show notes.
00:16:53.304 --> 00:16:55.164
But mostly just be thinking about it now.
00:16:55.164 --> 00:17:04.787
Because what we wanna make sure of is that folks are not only registered, but all their stuff is in order around their registration.
00:17:04.997 --> 00:17:08.672
Because we do know the Rs will try to challenge voter registrations.
00:17:09.297 --> 00:17:12.307
They will particularly target black and brown people.
00:17:12.307 --> 00:17:16.913
They will particularly target people with names that aren't Smith and Jones.
00:17:17.452 --> 00:17:20.943
They will be looking to question ballots.
00:17:20.973 --> 00:17:25.963
And we don't want any one of our clients to wind up having to cast a provisional ballot.
00:17:26.354 --> 00:17:33.752
We want all their stuff to be completely in order so that when they cast a ballot, it is unchallengeable in any way.
00:17:34.252 --> 00:17:37.373
And we can do a lot to help make that happen.
00:17:38.131 --> 00:17:41.066
I hope you'll start thinking about how to make that happen now.
00:17:41.145 --> 00:17:42.496
We have a nice long runway.
00:17:42.915 --> 00:17:53.465
But the work will begin early in 2026,'cause when that calendar turns over suddenly we're looking at a 10 month timetable basically to get everything done.
00:17:54.036 --> 00:18:01.040
I know you're already slammed, so if you can build it in early, it'll make it a little bit easier to just roll this out in pieces over time.
00:18:02.347 --> 00:18:08.759
I hope I've given you a few more reasons to feel more optimistic than maybe you did when you started listening.
00:18:09.259 --> 00:18:12.740
I think there's a lot to be excited about, a lot to be optimistic about.
00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:14.210
We have to be clear-eyed.
00:18:14.259 --> 00:18:15.220
We're not foolish people.
00:18:15.220 --> 00:18:17.559
We understand what the score is here.
00:18:18.009 --> 00:18:22.782
But we also know that we have mounting evidence.
00:18:23.113 --> 00:18:26.607
Each time there's a No Kings protest the number's just about double.
00:18:27.451 --> 00:18:33.030
Millions upon millions of people are turning out for No Kings protests, and they're just the tip of the iceberg.
00:18:33.672 --> 00:18:41.729
You know that for every person who shows up to do that, there are 10 more like them who would've liked to be there, but for one reason or another were not.
00:18:42.464 --> 00:18:50.724
Another fun little piece of polling that I think I'll toss in, that maybe could count as item number six of why I'm optimistic.
00:18:51.204 --> 00:19:01.289
Is that in recent polling, over 40% of Americans say that they consider themselves aligned with the No Kings protest movement.
00:19:02.027 --> 00:19:06.516
That's not, do you align with Republicans or Democrats.
00:19:06.576 --> 00:19:10.596
That's, do you consider yourself aligned with a protest movement in this country?
00:19:11.365 --> 00:19:12.506
That's huge.
00:19:13.006 --> 00:19:18.683
Most average Americans don't go around thinking of themselves as being protestors.
00:19:18.923 --> 00:19:21.114
That is not who most people are.
00:19:21.614 --> 00:19:27.963
Some of us were basically born with a protest sign in our hand, but we're not the norm.
00:19:28.594 --> 00:19:30.784
So that's very encouraging too.
00:19:30.913 --> 00:19:41.023
What that means is that people understand that in addition to all of the damaging policy that just harm individual people on a daily basis in their daily lives.
00:19:41.473 --> 00:19:50.674
That there is also a very blatant attempt to consolidate power and to try to create an authoritarian regime where they can never be thrown out of power.
00:19:51.005 --> 00:19:52.714
That means people get that.
00:19:53.434 --> 00:19:56.825
That means that at least 40% of the population gets that.
00:19:57.698 --> 00:20:00.728
To say the least, that's not a kitchen table issue directly.
00:20:00.827 --> 00:20:02.028
It is not about the price of food.
00:20:02.028 --> 00:20:05.008
It's not about the price of housing, it's not about job prospects.
00:20:05.028 --> 00:20:05.988
It's not about any of that.
00:20:06.387 --> 00:20:07.827
It's much less tangible.
00:20:07.887 --> 00:20:16.738
And yet that many people feel so strongly, that they in polling will say that they feel aligned with that protest movement.
00:20:17.157 --> 00:20:17.938
That's huge.
00:20:18.268 --> 00:20:29.553
What that tells me is that if you look around your community, that if there are 10 people gathered in a room, four of'em feel strongly enough about this, that they feel like they would go protest too.
00:20:30.053 --> 00:20:30.863
That they agree.
00:20:31.363 --> 00:20:38.266
That is an enormous pool of potentially very strong and powerful allies.
00:20:38.776 --> 00:20:47.291
So I hope that you'll also start thinking about how can you tap into that energy and that passion, that strong belief.
00:20:47.622 --> 00:20:55.326
Because folks who feel that way are ready to stand up and fight for the work that you do and for the people that you serve.
00:20:55.747 --> 00:20:58.921
And we can use all the allies in that that we can get right now.
00:20:59.800 --> 00:21:07.517
I know it can be hard when you're under pressure about a lot of things every day, to think about reaching out beyond your normal sphere.
00:21:08.057 --> 00:21:14.826
But recognize how much support, how many allies are out there that could be called in.
00:21:15.217 --> 00:21:18.628
That we can call in to help support us and the work that we do.
00:21:19.128 --> 00:21:22.088
That to me might be the biggest reason for optimism.
00:21:22.588 --> 00:21:24.357
So think about all of that.
00:21:24.704 --> 00:21:30.285
I hope that this has given you a few more reasons to feel more optimistic than you did when you started listening.
00:21:30.914 --> 00:21:41.530
And I hope you'll feel inspired to take one or two actions to help call in some of that amazing and powerful energy that is out there to support us if only we bring them in.
00:21:42.221 --> 00:21:47.080
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
