Update From the Gardiner Democratic Committee–Election 2020

November 22, 2020

Fellow Gardiner Dems:

This is the first chance I have had to communicate with you since the election and I wanted to give you an update and a call to action on Georgia.

Key Races 2020

We have a lot to be thankful for this week of Thanksgiving.  Our four-year Trumpist nightmare is almost over.  Despite his pathetic attempts to hold onto a job he obviously detests, Donald Trump will vacate the White House and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States on January 20 2021.  Personally, I am looking forward to the beginning of recovery from the damage the Republicans have wrought and, at a personal level, simply not hearing from the worst president in our nation’s history multiple times every day.  THANK YOU for going out to vote and for everything else our volunteers and supporters did to make this victory a reality.  Your engagement wins elections!

Antonio Delgado will be our Congressman for another two years.  He was re-elected with 52% of the vote to Kyle Van De Water’s 46%.  The remaining two percent was split among the third-party candidates.  We congratulate Congressman Delgado and will do all we can to make help this next term a success for him and for all of us in New York’s 19th Congressional District

Jen Metzger’s race for State Senate has not been called yet, after a week of counting absentee ballots.  As of Friday, there were still about 10% of those still left to be counted, mostly from Sullivan County.  Senator Metzger was about ten points behind on election eve and she still trails by a significant margin we are told.  There is still a path to victory possible, but chances, frankly, are not good.  The good news is that redistricting will take place soon and our 42nd Senate District will look different in a couple of years, hopefully transformed to not heavily favor Republican candidates as it is now.  I will keep you posted on the results as they come in.  Jen has been a great State Senator and we hope for the best.

More good news came Friday night with the announced victory of Michelle Hinchey in her race in our neighboring 46th State Senate District.  She was significantly behind the Republican Rich Amedure on election eve but more than made up the difference when the absentee ballots were counted this week.  The Democratic pick-up (the seat had been held by Republican George Amedore, who retired) leaves our party just one seat shy of a supermajority in the NY State Senate.  New York continues to rock Democratic!

Georgia! Georgia! Georgia! We Win Georgia, We Change America!

As Democrats, we had two significant disappointments on Election Day.  One was simply that, despite losing, Donald Trump got 70 million votes from our fellow Americans, including many of our neighbors. While Joe and Kamala’s victory has turned out to be significant (it will turn out to be 306 to 232 in the Electoral College and more than a six million margin in the popular vote), there will be strong headwinds along the way.

The other disappointment was not outright taking the Senate.  As of right now the Republicans hold a 50-48 majority in the Senate with both Senate races in Georgia headed for a January 5 run-off.  If the Democratic candidates win both races, the Senate will be evenly divided and, with Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote, the all-important Senate majority will go to us.

This means that ALL of our efforts for the next five or six weeks need to go into ensuring that Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win their run-offs challenges against their Trumpist Republican incumbents, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.  It is the responsibility of each and every one of us give and do what we can.  We all know that if Mitch McConnell continues to control the Senate, he will obstruct everything Joe Biden and Kamala Harris try to do.  On the other hand, with our own Chuck Shumer running the Senate and Kamala breaking ties, we can change America!  So PLEASE, give until it hurts and volunteer your time and effort between now and January 5 to pitch in and help bring about victory.

Here is a list of worthy organizations and ways to get involved (thanks to Melissa Servant for help with this):

  • The Warnock campaign website is here and the Ossoff website is here. You can find out more about them and donate using their donate buttons and you can also volunteer to do phone banking by clicking the sites’ volunteer buttons.
  • The Democratic Volunteer Center helps volunteers make calls, write to voters, and send texts to help get out the all-important Democratic vote in Georgia. This is a great way to contribute.
  • The work of Stacey Abrams and others helped turn Georgia blue in the presidential race for the first time in almost 30 years. Her organization, Fair Fight works to raise money for progressive candidates, organize on the community level, and register voters.  This is a great cause to contribute to and will help flip both Georgia Senate seats blue.
  • The New Georgia Project also holds volunteer registration drives and other activities to register progressive voters. It is also a great organization to volunteer for.
  • Indivisible Ulster for Georgia Run-offs runs a phone and text bank Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-6 pm. Contact Indivisible Ulster if you wish to participate with a group of your neighbors trying to bring about change in Georgia.
  • Black Voters Matter is an organization whose goal is to increase power in black and other minority communities to allow community members to determine their own destiny. They focus on voter registration, GOTV, and policy advocacy.
  • Post Cards to Voters focuses on having volunteers write friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races. This is an easy and satisfying way to pitch in on the Georgia fight.

Please do something—contribute what you can, volunteer to make calls, or write letters or post cards.  Your activism helped us make gains on election day this year.  We are extremely thankful for your generosity in that regard.  But Georgia on January 5 will be make-or-break.

THANK YOU, and I wish you a peaceful and healthy Thanksgiving holiday.

Tom Kruglinski
Chair, Gardiner Democratic Committee