Run For Something is launching an ambitious plan to find, train and support 5,000 candidates for local offices in charge of election administration, as reported by Politico. The effort plans to recruit candidates in 35 states for everything from “county probate judges in Alabama to county clerks in Kansas and county election board members in Pennsylvania” to fight election subversion from ongoing conspiracy theories.
The democratic group hopes to raise $80 million over the next three years. Co-founder Amanda Litman spoke about how elections can be impeded, especially with the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential elections. RFS’s “Clerk Work” is a plan that will be run on more than just battleground states because “democracy is at stake even when the electoral college outcome isn’t.”
“Election subversion in 2024 is not going to be a mob storming the Capitol, it’s going to be a county clerk in Michigan or a supervisor of elections in Florida who decides to fuck the whole thing up,” Litman said. “The only way to make long-term democracy protection is by electing people who will defend democracy.”
Litman has told Politico that the group raised nearly $6 million for the push and has partnered up with others like American Bridge, a Democratic group that compiles and shares opposition research, and Open Democracy PAC, a super PAC that’s spending on advertising to boost these candidates.
“There’s clearly an effort on the right, and there needs to be a clear effort on the Democratic side as well,” said Stephanie Schriock, former president of EMILY’s List, another Democratic group focused on recruiting and supporting pro-abortion rights candidates who run for office. “This is the moment to go big on this.”
With Run For Something’s pilot program, they spent $1 million to recruit candidates for 50 election offices across the country. They’ve achieved a 42 percent win rate for their endorsed candidates, supporting 639 winning candidates over the last five years.