Swing Left Raises More Than a Half-Million Dollars in Grassroots Donations to Virginia Legislative Candidates 

11 September 2019 — Swing Left, the national grassroots organization of nearly a million volunteers and donors working to defeat Trump and the GOP– starting with flipping Virginia in the 2019 elections — announced today it has raised more than $550,000 from individual grassroots donors for Virginia legislative candidates in Swing Districts. Swing Left’s grassroots community is one of the largest (if not the largest, based on publicly available data) direct grassroots funders of Virginia candidates this cycle to date.

The race for control of Virginia’s state legislature is seen by many as the most important election of 2019, and its outcome will be viewed as a major bellwether for the 2020 cycle. In developing its Virginia Strategy, Swing Left leveraged the data-driven down-ballot targeting expertise of Flippable, the state race-focused grassroots group that recently merged with Swing Left, and identified a slate of the 20 most competitive seats on the ballot this November.

Democrats only need to flip two State House and two State Senate seats to win full control of the state government, allowing them to undo Republican gerrymandering, expand voting rights, help ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and jumpstart a blue wave across the country in 2020.

This grassroots investment in Virginia’s Swing District candidates is powered by thousands of Swing Left volunteers, groups and donors, including from its Flippable community and groups like 31st Street Swing Left, a DMV-area grassroots group that has made Virginia elections a key priority of their 2019 organizing efforts.

“The energy of Swing Left’s extensive community of activists, volunteers, and donors– who are not just raising money but also engaging in extensive voter contact activity across the state– is both a sign of deep grassroots engagement in down-ballot races and a bellwether for Democratic participation in 2020,” said Catherine Vaughan, Chief Strategy Officer at Swing Left, and Co-Founder of Flippable.

Ahead of November’s elections, Swing Left’s grassroots volunteer community is working to knock on thousands of doors across the 20 target districts, and to send more than 150k hand-written letters to Virginia citizens encouraging them to vote.

Swing Left’s targets in Virginia include 15 key House of Delegates races and 5 State Senate races clustered in three specific regions of Virginia (D.C. Metro Area, Richmond, and the Hampton Roads Region in SE Virginia), and encompass purple districts that have become bluer only in the last 3 years, showing that Democrats are expanding the map in Virginia, as well as Republican-held seats that voted for Clinton, Northam, and Kaine by significant margins and are prime flip opportunities.

Several local candidates expressed the value of these contributions to their campaigns:

“Democrats win because of our support at the grassroots level. Swing Left has been instrumental in mobilizing and directing that support to campaigns like ours. We want to thank Swing Left as well as our all of our grassroots supporters.” – Delegate Wendy Gooditis (House District 10)

Thanks to Swing Left bolstering our grassroots support, making voters aware of the upcoming elections, and being a great cheerleader for our campaign, we have no doubt this will be the last year a red dot stays in our area. We are grateful to Swing Left and 31st Street Swing Left, we couldn’t do this without their support.” – Josh Cole (House District 28)

“Swing Left has been instrumental in growing our grassroots support for Democrats across the Commonwealth. They have helped us build early momentum, and we are so grateful for the support of Swing Left and 31st Street Swing Left.” – Missy Cotter Smasal (Senate District 8)

“We don’t have the big corporate donors that our opponent has, so the early grassroots support that Swing Left directed to this district has been critical. Their help has allowed us to put together a campaign infrastructure that will lead us to victory in November.” – Clint Jenkins (House District 76)