Congratulations, SMDC. This victory is yours. 

All of us, together, over the past four years, dropped everything we were doing to focus on our national crisis: a racist demagogue in the White House threatening to undermine our very democracy. We made millions of phone calls, knocked on thousands of doors, sent hundreds of thousands of postcards, and sent who knows how many text messages. We hosted fundraisers and grassroots activist events. We created the first ever midterm Westside Democratic HQ and flipped seven House seats in California, then converted the HQ into a virtual operation when we could no longer meet in person. Despite all of the obstacles thrown at us, including massive voter suppression, it is now official: America has once again defeated fascism. This time, we did it at the ballot box. 

This is simply halftime; we still have so much work to do now, especially pushing the Biden Administration to pass democracy reform measures as well as a bold slate of progressive legislation. In the immediate future, we are ballot curing to ensure every last vote is counted for our California House races. If you have phonebank withdrawal, sign up for a shift to help out our friend, Rep. TJ Cox: https://www.mobilize.us/coxforcongress/event/355740/

After that, it will be time to have Georgia on our minds for the next two months. Control of the Senate will come down to two runoff elections on January 5. Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock will face off against the two Republican incumbent senators directly implicated in the coronavirus insider trading scandal earlier this year, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Stay tuned for more information about how you can get involved with those efforts. 

And finally, on a local note, congratulations to all of the SMDC-endorsed candidates who won election this year: Ted Lieu, Richard Bloom, George Gascón, Gleam Davis, Kristin McCowan, Anastasia Foster, Caroline Torosis, Jon Kean, Maria Leon-Vazquez, Jen Smith, Susan Aminoff, Margaret Quinones-Perez, and Rob Greenstein Rader. We know you will serve in accordance with our shared Santa Monica Values.
And to the challenger candidates who won seats on City Council, Phil Brock, Christine Parra, and Oscar de la Torre, congratulations to you, and we look forward to developing our relationships with you as well.

Our final Membership Meeting of 2020 will be held on November 18, via Zoom, for a post-election analysis. We will discuss the state of play. How to interpret the closer than expected election results? What are the immediate post-election questions? Are any races still being counted? What is happening in the lame duck session of Congress? Who will control the Senate in January? And what is next for Democrats going into 2021?

We will discuss all of the above and more with our panel:
– Assemblymember Miguel Santiago
– CDP Black Caucus Chair Taisha Brown
– CDP Women’s Caucus Chair Christine Pelosi
– and an assortment of winners in our local Santa Monica elections!

Date:  November 18, 2020
Time:  6:30pm Doors, 7:00pm Program Start
Place: Zoom Conference Call 
RSVP Here: https://forms.gle/BCMrA5y6yqGS4cYA6