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Letter from the Executive Director
Friends and allies –
We live in profoundly confusing times — it’s hard to know how to feel.
On the one hand, for the past ten months (yes, I’m counting), our federal government has been run by people who do unimaginably ghoulish things every day. The damage is real. The pain is real.
On the other hand, they are harming, robbing, and pissing off so many people that on November 4th, Democrats had their best electoral overperformance in years — a stunning rebuke that creates an opportunity for major corrections in 2026 and 2028.
In the past few months, I have felt my own state of mind shift from misery, fear, and despair to — dare I say it? — an almost giddy energy to leverage every molecule of MAGA awfulness to create a more hopeful future over the next one to three years. As a parent, I am intensely motivated to not let my children grow up under tyranny and climate collapse. The direction we are headed is absolutely unacceptable. As we have many times before, we now face a fork in the road between two radically different futures. As we have many times before, we have the ability to be protagonists. It is our job to show Trump and his ilk the door. As responsible adults who are taking it upon ourselves to actually turn the Titanic, I believe it is the least we can do.
As a strategist, part of my job is to see around corners. 2026 will be my thirteenth major election cycle, and I can almost taste the potential for a political turnaround — not unlike the turnaround from the crushing blow of 2004 to the wave election of 2006 to the euphoria of Obama and Dems winning a trifecta in 2008. Admittedly, the circumstances today are completely different. The world has changed. We have a lot of lessons learned — and still to learn! — from that experience. But the opportunity for a massive political comeback in 2026 and 2028 is every bit as clear.
One of the things I believe we need to do collectively is to make a psychological pivot. We’ve been down for so long! From Trump I to the pandemic to the Biden years, swimming upstream against the tide of public opinion and demoralization. Suddenly, on November 4th, 2025, we came up for air, and — what is this you say? — the tide has started to turn! In a really big way.
Part of our job now is to reorient ourselves toward creating a positive future. How can we harness this incredible pissed-off energy and win as much positive change as we possibly can over the next three years? Not just to halt the slide into autocracy — which is a low bar — but to create a true political realignment that turns us toward a wise, new progressive era.
We have to be smart and sober — not reactive or overconfident. We have to make sure we are learning the right lessons. Not over-learn nor fall back on our prior assumptions. We have to organize with a vision, ethos, and leadership that earns people’s trust and makes people want to put our big-tent Democratic coalition in charge. It’s a tall order. That’s what we came here to do. That’s our purpose.
As Movement Voter PAC (the political arm of MVP), we have one main job in 2026: swing for the fences and flip everything we possibly can.
I am happy to report that, as an organization, MVP is in the strongest position we have ever been in, by far. We have an excellent team and a strong operation. Ten years in, we have the organizational chops, operational maturity, strategic acumen, relationships, trust, and nimbleness to lead (always collaboratively!) in this extremely challenging time.
We have a bold 10-Step Comeback Plan for the next three years. We have a successful model of building independent political power at the state level, which we are sharing and adapting alongside our partners (the Minnesota Model – if you do nothing else, watch this video). We have an extensive and prioritized 2026 political plan. We have a five-pronged new-media plan to regain the upper hand in our increasingly fragmented information environment. We are launching a national program to take our collaborative, movement-wide interventions to the next level.
In short, we have a big, hairy, audacious vision. We are ready to grow, step up, lead, and swing for the fences. Thank you for coming along with us on this journey. We expect the next chapter to both be the most challenging and also to hold enormous potential for positive transformation in people’s day-to-day lives, in our democracy, and in what we believe is possible.
Let’s go!!
Billy Wimsatt
Executive Director, Movement Voter PAC
PS: Before we swing for the fences in 2026, let’s take a moment to reflect on and savor all that we accomplished together in 2025. Our team is pulling together our full 2025 report and wanted to give you a sneak peek with some of the highlights — MVP’s Top 25 of 2025.
Wisconsin Working Families Party, an MVP partner mobilizing voters for the state Supreme Court race on April 1, 2025
The Top 25 of 2025
In 2025, MVP invested $5.3 million of partisan funds in 126 national, state, and local organizations across twenty-six states, supporting their work to resist, organize, and win.
Our grantee partners faced so many obstacles under the mounting pressure and chaos of rising authoritarianism. And yet, they defied the odds and won major victories.
Check out our toplines below, then keep reading for a deeper dive on how these victories (and more!) fit into our strategy to beat back autocracy, push for policy progress, and win electoral power.
Photo: Citizen Action of Wisconsin ahead of the Wisconsin Supreme Court victory
Winning Elections
1. WISCONSIN - Saving a Supreme Court Majority in the Ultimate Swing State
MVP partners helped defend a 4-3 Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court, opening the door for voting rights protections and victories in 2026 and 2028.
2. VIRGINIA - Securing a Trifecta and Picking up 13 Legislative Seats
MVP partners helped elect Democrat Abigail Spanberger, flipping the governor’s seat and securing a trifecta. They also helped flip thirteen seats in the House of Delegates, increasing Democrats’ margin to 64-36 (a near-supermajority) and opening the door to policy breakthroughs and U.S. House redistricting. Of these thirteen seats, five were won by less than 2,000 votes — two by 961 and 801.
3. NEW JERSEY - Saving and Expanding the Democratic Trifecta
MVP partners helped elect Democrat Mikie Sherrill, maintaining a Democratic trifecta in the Garden State. This victory, along with a newly won supermajority in the New Jersey Assembly, means it will be that much harder for MAGA to make any moves in the state.
4. PENNSYLVANIA - Saving the State Supreme Court Majority
MVP partners helped retain all three Democrats on the state Supreme Court, holding a 5-2 Democratic majority — a huge win for voting rights, abortion access, and fair redistricting. They won against a MAGA-billionaire-funded campaign riddled with mis- and disinformation aimed at confusing voters.
5. GEORGIA - Winning Statewide on Clean, Affordable Energy
MVP partners helped flip two GOP-held seats on the statewide Public Service Commission, which could lead to better utility rates and energy conservation in millions of homes and businesses. Now our partners are planning to channel this energy into the 2026 race to re-elect U.S. Senator John Ossoff.
6. NEW YORK CITY - Winning the Mayor’s Race and Expanding the Democratic Electorate
MVP partners helped elect Zohran Mamdani as Mayor, who ran on a platform of affordability and “Trump-proofing NYC”. Our partners helped fuel his victory over disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo, catalyzing huge turnout among young voters, voters of color, and even Trump 2024 voters.
7. WELCOME BACK, TRUMP VOTERS! Winning Back 2024 Voters
In Virginia and New Jersey, nearly every county voted more Democratic in this year’s governors’ races than in the 2024 presidential election, with some of the biggest swings (22 points in Virginia! 18 points in New Jersey!) in counties with large Latine populations.
8. MAINE - Winning Ballot Measures! Next Stop? House and Senate in 2026!
MVP partners helped defeat a ballot initiative that would have enacted strict voter-ID requirements and made voting absentee harder. They also helped pass a “red-flag” ballot measure that will increase gun safety. This work sets the stage for 2026, when our partners will swing for the fences to flip GOP U.S. Senator Susan Collins’ seat and defend retiring Democratic House Rep. Jared Golden’s seat.
9. WISCONSIN - Securing $190 Million in School Funding by 941 Votes
In Racine, our partners helped pass a referendum securing $190 million in public school funding over five years — winning by just 941 votes! Wins like this help our partners build trust, increase voters’ agency, and open the door for high turnout in high-stakes races in a key swing state in 2026 and 2028.
10. MICHIGAN - Galvanizing Voters Around Game-Changing Ballot Measures
Taxing billionaires to fund public schools? Getting money out of state politics? Heck yes! MVP partners are gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures to get two measures on the ballot to make this a reality in 2026 — right when we can also win a state trifecta and protect a key U.S. Senate seat.
11. SPECIAL ELECTION FEVER - Democrats Overperformed by 13 Points!
An early sign of life against the Trump regime has been Democrats' overperformance in special elections, by an average of 13 points across 59 races. In one stunning example, MVP Pennsylvania partners helped flip a GOP state Senate seat by 482 votes in a district Trump won by 15 points in 2024. Now, our partners are three state Senate flips away from helping secure a Democratic trifecta.
12. EVERYWHERE - Winning Mayors’ Races! City Councils! Boards of Elections!
In Arizona, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and elsewhere, our partners helped win city council, mayor, and other impactful local races. Even better: Many partners recruited, endorsed, and trained candidates who won their races — some by under one hundred votes!
Photo: People Not Politicians Missouri
Fighting Autocracy
13. CALIFORNIA - Passing Prop 50! Securing up to 5 U.S. House Seats!
MVP partners helped win Prop 50, allowing the state to adopt new maps that could gain Dems as many as five U.S. House seats next year — and they did it by talking with overlooked and undervalued voters in 2026 swing districts. A huge blow to Trump’s power-grabbing, partisan gerrymandering!
14. MISSOURI - 2026 Ballot Measure: Blocking the GOP Gerrymander and Dirty Tricks
MVP partners have gathered over 200,000 signatures to force a statewide referendum on U.S. House maps gerrymandered by the GOP. With the GOP Secretary of State challenging the validity of 92,000 signatures, our partners are going far beyond the required 106,000 signatures before the December 11 deadline to make sure their effort is foolproof. Wild but true story: the opposition got so spooked by our partners’ efforts that they started offering canvassers $5,000 to stop collecting signatures.
15. CONGRESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY - Holding Electeds’ Feet to the Fire
In competitive districts around the country, MVP partners have been mobilizing their communities to show up at their reps’ town halls, outside their offices, and just about anywhere they set foot in their home districts. Our partners are reminding vulnerable GOP Reps that we have the power to vote them out in 2026, while also holding Dems’ feet to the fire to do more to stand up to Trump and MAGA.
16. NO KINGS! - Rallying in the Streets
MVP partners across the country helped galvanize millions of people to stand up to Trump on three national days of action: Hands Off and No Kings 1 & 2 — some of the largest single-day mobilizations in American history. MVP helped resource key national partners like Indivisible and Working Families Power, and, in many places, state-based MVP partners contributed to local organizing and mobilizing.
17. NO ICE! - Protecting Our Neighbors
MVP partners across the country, in tandem with local mutual-aid groups, have been instrumental in setting up rapid-response networks, recruiting and deploying thousands of volunteers, and building sophisticated operations to warn, accompany, and protect impacted community members from ICE. Check out this story from Pittsburgh on what our partners are doing to melt ICE.
Upping Our Game at MVP
18. BATTLEGROUND ALLIANCE - Joining Forces to Flip the House in 2026
MVP instigated and provided initial funding for Battleground Alliance — a growing coalition of labor, activist, and community groups aiming to build permanent organizing capacity in nearly 40 battleground House districts.
19. NEW MEDIA - Building a Powerhouse Progressive Media Ecosystem
MVP has always invested in media and cultural strategies, but after Democrats’ trouncing in online spaces in 2024, we got much more serious about winning the information wars, hiring a brilliant, full-time digital media strategist, and launching a full-blown new-media organizing program.
20. INNOVATION - Funding Outside the Box
We launched an internal “Innovation & Collaboration Fund” to scout, vet, and invest in especially innovative projects that could make an asymmetric difference — like a randomized control trial (RCT) to measure the impact of a new Pennsylvania Neighborhood Captains Program. The RCT will measure the effectiveness of relational organizing — repeatedly engaging voters in meaningful conversations — over transactional canvassing for and turning out voters and keeping them civically involved.
21. MOVEMENT STRATEGY - Stepping Up MVP’s Leadership
Clearly, we need to improve many things about the big-tent Democratic coalition. MVP has been actively prodding donors, organizers, movement strategists, and party leaders with memos such as 7 Questions and The Comeback Plan that aim to spark honest reflection, creative thinking, and generative conversations about how we build a movement powerful, popular, and compelling enough to win. Most recently, we’ve hired a National Director of Partnerships and a National Director of Civic Engagement to take our movement-wide interventions to the next level.
Photo: Pennsylvania Working Families Party urging voters to “Vote YES” in PA Supreme Court election
Leveling Up the Whole Movement
22. MORE EFFECTIVE CANVASSING - Launching a Neighborhood Captains Model
Canvassing is seeing diminishing returns — as field programs (and funders) often prioritize quantity of doors knocked over quality of interactions with voters. To solve this problem, MVP and seventeen of our Pennsylvania partners launched a Neighborhood Captains Program, training and deploying 1,100 community members to more meaningfully engage their own actual neighbors to vote together as a community.
23. STRONGER TOGETHER - Spreading the “Minnesota Model”
After over a decade of organizing, Minnesota partners helped win a Democratic trifecta in 2022 and, in 2023, helped pass the most ambitious legislative agenda since the New Deal. Now, we are working with the architects of this “Minnesota Model” to replicate it in other states. For example, MVP partners in North Carolina are forming a new coalition with labor allies to build their base, organize around key issues, and win electoral power.
If you don’t know yet about the Minnesota Model, stop what you’re doing and watch this amazing video. Then come back and keep reading.
24. COUNTERING GOP DISINFO - Empowering Social Media Creators as Digital Organizers
In the November 2025 Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention elections, Republicans intentionally used disinformation and co-opted Democratic messaging to confuse voters — for example, urging them to “defend democracy.” To counteract this deception, MVP and our partners formed the first-ever Pennsylvania Creators Cohort, training forty-three digital creators and supporting them to organize the internet. These creators-turned-digital-organizers swarmed the internet with content, garnering a total of 2,046,610 views, 125,620 likes, 58,877 shares, 3,296 comments, and hit a whopping 7.1 percent average engagement rate (in laypeople’s terms: That’s high!).
25. BETTER DEMOCRATS FOR A BOLDER PARTY - Building the Bench from the Bottom Up
You know it, we know it: We need a better, bolder Democratic Party. See our six-prong strategy here. One of the most effective ways we’ve been supporting partners in this area is by investing in recruiting and training state and local candidates who will fight for the voters Democrats have been losing. In North Carolina, our partners graduated thirteen participants from their first-ever Candidate Academy this year, who helped power a working-class wave in November’s municipal elections.
Photo: Down Home North Carolina members and graduates of their first-ever Candidate Academy
From Big Plans to Big Progress: A Deeper Dive on 2025
The Top 25 of 2025 represent the best of the best this year. So much work, commitment, and investment (thank you!) got MVP and our partners to these incredible wins. If you’re interested in the forest, the trees, and everything in between, here are details on how these victories fit in our strategy.
This year, we had three goals:
- Beat back autocracy
- Push for policy progress
- Win electoral power
And because we are all about accountability at MVP, we wanted to give you the deep-dive look at what we did to meet those goals.
Screenshot: The New York Times reporting on No Kings mass mobilizations across the country.
Part 1: Beating Back Autocracy
We knew the first step in our 2025 strategy had to be blocking Trump’s authoritarian attacks on our democracy, our communities, and our rights. MVP partners were ready to organize in the streets, in their communities, in voters’ social media feeds, and at the ballot box to beat back autocracy.
Electoral Victories: Bulwarks Against MAGA
State and local governments are the first line of defense against MAGA attacks. In Virginia, MVP partners, New Virginia Majority, CASA in Action, and UNITE HERE Virginia helped elect Abigail Spanberger to flip the governor’s seat and secure Democratic control. In New Jersey, Make the Road Action and Community Change Action helped elect Mikie Sherrill, retaining the Democratic trifecta.
Securing Democratic power at the state level is crucial for thwarting the MAGA agenda. As we’ve seen in Arizona, Illinois, California, New York, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, Democratic governors are vetoing GOP legislation, shaping budgets, appointing judges, and suing the Trump Administration for deploying the National Guard, withholding SNAP benefits, and more.
With the bonus of increasing Democrats’ margin of power in the New Jersey General Assembly and flipping thirteen seats in the Virginia House of Delegates, our state partners will have an easier time pushing for legislation to counter Trump attacks before they even start.
Spotlight: Scaling Up New Media - Pennsylvania Creators Cohort
On Election Day this year, MVP’s Pennsylvania partners ensured that the three Democrats up for a retention vote on the state Supreme Court retained their seats, preserving a Democratic 5-2 majority — a key victory in beating back autocracy and blocking the Trump agenda.
Testing new strategies to win the media war, MVP partners One Pennsylvania and Commonwealth Communications flooded the digital airwaves as part of a strategic communications campaign that demonstrates our partners’ increasing sophistication in new-media work.
MVP and our partners worked with forty-three creators and accounts to develop and integrate “Vote Yes” messaging into their regular content — whether politics and journalism, comedy, or even beauty tutorials — and countering GOP mis- and disinformation on the retention election. Leveraging the cohort’s reach and engagement, our partners created a specific amplifier account — @PAVotesYes — to boost the cohort’s current content and capture audiences interested in the election.
This successful program shows that testing new strategies, especially after our 2024 losses, is a must and has helped set the stage for victories in 2026. Read more about the PA Creators Cohort here.
Civil Resistance and Defending Impacted Communities
From protests to rapid response and mutual-aid efforts, MVP partners consistently showed up to say “no” to tyranny and protect our communities.
- Hands Off! and No Kings Rallies - MVP partners across the country — including Indivisible and Working Families Power — galvanized millions of people (including many MVP donors!) to protest the Trump Administration’s actions, first in April at Hands Off! rallies, then again in June and October at No Kings protests across the country. Once again, we demonstrated the power of people, with turnout growing from three to five to seven million people.
- Taking on Trump in Court - In January, MVP partner CASA and others sued to stop the order to end birthright citizenship. In February, a judge granted an injunction, blocking the order until the Supreme Court ruled against nationwide injunctions in June. Since then, two more courts have blocked the order, and the Supreme Court will likely decide the case by next summer. Now, CASA and other partners are pursuing other legal and policy avenues to stop this attack.
- Taking on ICE - In Pittsburgh, Casa San José implemented a comprehensive program to defend against ICE crackdowns. Through their Rapid Response Network, they recruited 800 volunteers and developed a pipeline that provides people with immigration services and moves them into leadership development and to serve as on-site witnesses to ICE kidnapping efforts throughout Western PA.
Legislative Organizing
Throughout the year, Trump and his allies have pressured local and state elected officials to enact the MAGA agenda, which many have been more than willing to do. But MVP’s savvy partners know the power of organizing and a well-executed pressure campaign to block MAGA attacks.
- New Hampshire - ACLU of NH helped push the Governor to veto a book ban and an anti-trans bill, and is staying vigilant and prepared to defeat future attacks on rights and liberties.
- Tennessee - Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition and allies in the Education for All campaign killed a bill that would have allowed schools to refuse enrollment to children without legal immigration status.
- Georgia - Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Georgia Youth Justice Coalition organized students to successfully kill House Bill 18 — legislation aimed at excluding undocumented students from the state’s Dual Enrollment Program, which enables students to earn college credit while still in high school.
Fighting GOP Election Rigging
In June, Trump kicked off a mid-decade redistricting fight in Texas in a clear attempt at partisan gerrymandering for Republican gain in 2026. Democrats and MVP partners quickly fought back, launching campaigns in California, Virginia, and Missouri to protect fair representation.
- California - In one of the most high-profile elections in 2025, MVP partners — led by the California Donor Table and its affiliate, Progressive Era Issues Committee — helped pass Prop 50, allowing the state to temporarily implement new electoral maps that could gain Dems as many as five seats in the U.S. House next year. Our partners on the ground led a massive effort to canvass infrequent Democrats and unaffiliated voters of color to vote yes on Prop 50 — with a targeted focus on current and future competitive House districts. Read more here.
- Missouri - MVP partner, People Not Politicians Missouri, has gathered more than 200,000 signatures to force a statewide referendum on newly-redrawn GOP maps. Opponents are so panicked that they are offering canvassers $5,000 to stop collecting signatures and leave the campaign altogether. MVP partners are now fighting in the courts against the GOP Secretary of State’s attempt to invalidate nearly half of the signatures already collected. Read more here.
- Virginia - With a Democratic trifecta, the path is now open for the state legislature to approve a redistricting amendment that would go before voters in April; if passed, the new maps could gain Democrats 2-3 U.S. House seats in 2026. Read more here.
As the redistricting wars continue, MVP is watching the whole map and working closely with our ally, Fair Representation in Redistricting (FRR) Action, to support the highest-leverage efforts nationwide.
It’s also worth noting that Trump’s attempts at changing the rules of the electoral game may backfire, in large part due to our partners’ work. The above efforts — combined with recent redistricting wins in Utah, Indiana, Kansas, and, most notably, Texas — paint a potentially bleak picture for the GOP. See recent press coverage here, here, and here.
Screenshot: Indivisible Brooklyn’s Bluesky account, 3/19/2025: Staten Island “Empty Chair” Town Hall to Pressure NY-11 GOP Rep. Malliotakis - Organized by MVP partners Citizen Action of NY, Make the Road NY, Indivisible Brooklyn, and other allied groups
Congressional Accountability
In swing districts across the country, MVP partners have been organizing to hold vulnerable GOP reps’ feet to the fire — while keeping that same heat on Democratic reps — to block the MAGA agenda.
- Arizona - In Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, MVP partners Working Families Power, LUCHA, and Care in Action teamed up with local allies Honest Arizona, AZ Jews for Justice, and SEIU to hold an “empty chair” town hall meeting to call out GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani (2024 win margin: 2.5% - 10,822 votes) specifically around his willingness to cut funding to vital federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
- New Jersey - MVP partner Make the Road Action NJ has had a sustained canvassing presence in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District to hold GOP Rep. Tom Kean accountable for his support of MAGA budget cuts, including cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Speaking with voters, canvassers are highlighting the negative impact of Rep. Kean’s voting record, hoping to shape media coverage and drive down his approval ahead of the 2026 elections.
- Colorado - In Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, MVP partners Indivisible, Working Families Power, Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition Action Fund, and others held a town hall to protest GOP Rep. Gabe Evans (2024 win margin: 0.7% - 2,449 votes) and federal workforce cuts, the dismantling of federal agencies, and devastating cuts to social safety net programs.
- Maine - In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, MVP partners Maine People's Alliance and Food AND Medicine (as well as other groups) organized a town hall in Bangor, pressuring absentee Democratic Rep. Jared Golden (2024 win margin: 0.7% - 2,706 votes) to fight back forcibly on GOP attacks on veterans’ benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, and the Constitution.
Also in Maine, Food AND Medicine members make regular visits to Senator Susan Collins’ Bangor office to share their stories about how losing SNAP benefits, cuts to school lunches, and other Trump policies have negatively impacted their lives — an important effort that could help flip this U.S. Senate seat next year.
Photo: Georgia Youth Justice Coalition canvassing ahead of the Public Service Commission race
Part 2: Pushing for Policy Progress
MVP partners are leading the charge, not only going on defense against MAGA attacks by blocking regressive policies, but also going on offense by building their base and winning key elections to open the door for policy progress.
Spreading the Minnesota Model - Base Building and Local Organizing
What Is the “Minnesota Model”?
In Minnesota, MVP partners built a durable, cross-sector coalition of organizing, labor, faith, electoral, and advocacy groups, which, in 2023, won the most ambitious policy agenda in decades. They won universal school lunches, codified abortion rights, paid family medical leave, and more. But these victories didn’t happen overnight. It took over ten years of dedicated collaboration, organizing, and base building to create a broad “state ecosystem” powered from the ground up. As a result, voters elected leaders who would fight for a bold and progressive agenda, knowing this new ecosystem would hold those leaders accountable once in office.
Now, MVP is working with our partners to spread and adapt the Minnesota Model to their respective states (see below), building the big-tent movements we need to win real change.
What Is “Base Building”?
Base building is the work of bringing people together to exercise power as a unified constituency, while winning more and more people over to our side. Base building moves beyond transactional interactions and centers relational and deep organizing — taking the time to engage people on the issues they care about, listening to the solutions they want to see, and helping them understand the power they have to create change when we fight together. Base building then moves beyond outreach and engagement to bring people into our movements, develop them as leaders, and train them to organize within their communities, exponentially expanding our power and impact.
Base building is the heartbeat of MVP partners’ work, and it's how they achieved so many substantial victories this year.
- North Carolina - Our core base-building partners, Down Home North Carolina, the Carolina Federation, and others — and local labor organizations supported by the AFL-CIO’s Center for Transformative Organizing — are working with MVP’s very own Co-Director of State Programs, Javier Morillo, to build durable, multiracial, working-class alliances to win more electoral and policy victories that will benefit all North Carolinians.
- Michigan - MVP’s partners Invest in MI Kids and Michiganders for Money Out of Politics have built cross-issue and cross-sector coalitions working to get two ballot measures in front of voters in 2026. They are using signature collection as an avenue for volunteer recruitment, organizer training, and base building to give people a sense of their power to make a tangible impact on people’s lives through policy change.
- Multi-State - MVP partner, Addition Collective Action Fund, is following up with attendees of Bernie Sanders’ Fighting Oligarchy Tour to train people in key House districts to start new grassroots organizing efforts in their communities.
Electoral Victories - Opening the Door for Better Policies
MVP partners’ electoral wins this year mean we can go on offense — instead of just defense — by winning policies that will positively impact millions of people’s lives.
- Georgia - MVP partners, including Georgia Conservation Voters, Georgia Youth Justice Coalition for Action, Georgia Working Families Party, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights Action Fund, Asian American Advocacy Fund, helped elect Democrats Peter Hubbard and Dr. Alicia Johnson to the Public Service Commission (PSC). As a result, Democrats now hold two out of five seats on the PSC, which means more power to stop sky-high utility rate hikes and growing momentum to win an all-out Democratic majority next year — not to mention new enthusiasm and energy to protect Georgia’s Democratic U.S. Senate seat in 2026.
- Maine - MVP partners Maine Votes, Maine People's Alliance, Community Organizing Alliance (COA), Maine Youth Power (MYP), and Food AND Medicine helped defeat a voter-suppression ballot initiative that would have enacted strict voter ID requirements and dramatically restricted absentee voting. COA and MYP also worked to pass a “red flag” ballot measure that will increase gun safety in the state, saving lives and building momentum for common-sense gun laws around the country.
Spotlight: Expanding Local Organizing - Pennsylvania Neighborhood Captains Program
MVP partner, Pennsylvania Working Families Party, anchored a coalition of seventeen local- and state-based organizations, most of whom are MVP partners, to launch a Neighborhood Captains Program to help retain three of the five Democratic seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, defeating a Republican campaign backed by conservative billionaire, Jeffrey Yass.
MVP partners recruited 1,100 Captains who knocked more than 175,000 doors in geographically concentrated areas of Captains’ neighbors and community members. They used deep canvassing — rather than transactional door-knocking — to engage voters in a series of meaningful conversations about their lives and the issues they care about.
In contrast to traditional canvassing — which generally involves a short interaction around whether the person at the door supports a given issue or candidate, or has a plan to vote — “deep canvassing” conversations build connection, trust, and understanding, which in turn can:
- Actually change voters’ minds on an issue or voting preference,
- Increase voters’ likelihood to cast a ballot, and also
- Inspire voters to engage in year-round organizing campaigns in the future.
The Neighborhood Captains Program relied on expanding partner organizations’ base through local organizing efforts to turn out neighbors and community members that the Democratic Party may not have reached — ultimately, solidifying a victory in the Supreme Court retention elections.
Part 3: Winning Electoral Power
We must win electoral power to stop the rise of MAGA authoritarianism and set a course for a new era of progress. In 2025, MVP seeded new initiatives to win and keep swing House districts, while MVP partners helped win back voters Democrats lost in 2024, paving the way to flip the House in 2026.
Setting the Stage to Flip the House
The most effective thing we can do to stop authoritarianism is flip the House in 2026. That’s why MVP co-convened and provided seed funding for the Battleground Alliance — a growing coalition of labor, activist, and community groups focused on organizing in nearly forty battleground House districts, whose goal is to raise $50 million to flip Republican-held seats. Read more about Battleground Alliance in the news here, here, and here.
Winning Back Trump Voters
Our partners’ work this year was critical to winning back voters who shifted to Trump in 2024 — especially Latine voters, Black voters, and young people. With additional investment, our partners can build off of this year’s Democratic overperformance to keep these voters engaged and ready to turn out again in 2026.
Virginia - According to The New York Times, nearly every Virginia county and city voted more Democratic in this year’s governor’s race than in the 2024 presidential election, including in counties where MVP partners specifically focused their work.
MVP partner CASA in Action targeted counties with large Latine populations, including:
- Prince William County - Spanberger won by 34 points, and the county shifted 16 points toward Democrats from 2024.
- Manassas - Spanberger won by 31 points, and the county shifted 16 points toward Democrats from 2024.
- Manassas Park - Spanberger won by 42 points, and the county shifted 22 points toward Democrats from 2024.
CASA in Action also won a major victory in Stafford County, which Spanberger won by 12 points and which shifted 11 points towards Democrats from 2024. One month before Election Day, CASA expanded its field program to four precincts in state legislative House District 64, which partially encompasses Stafford County, and where no other organizing group was active. CASA helped flip this House seat by just 2,230 votes.
New Jersey - Similar to Virginia, every county in New Jersey voted more Democratic than in the 2024 presidential election.
The biggest swings occurred in counties with large Latine populations, including Hudson and Passaic Counties. Make the Road Action New Jersey focused strategically on the towns of Passaic (Passaic County), Elizabeth (Union County), and Perth Amboy (Middlesex County), to engage and galvanize the plurality-Latine population in those areas.
- Passaic County - Sherrill won by 15 points, and the county shifted 18 points towards Democrats from 2024.
- Union County - Sherrill won by 35 points, and the county shifted 11 points towards Democrats from 2024.
- Middlesex County - Sherrill won by 25 points, and the county shifted 17 points towards Democrats from 2024.
New York City - MVP partners Jews For Racial & Economic Justice and New York Working Families Party helped elect Zohan Mamdani as NYC’s next mayor. Mamdani ran on a bold, pragmatic, and populist agenda focused on affordability and meeting the needs of working New Yorkers. His platform — combined with enthusiastic backing from independent political and community organizations — resulted in record-breaking voter turnout with more than two million people casting ballots.
Most notably, young voters age 18-29 fueled Mamdani’s victory. According to exit-poll data collected by CIRCLE (the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), young people turned out at a rate of 28 percent, a major increase from previous municipal elections, with young women and young voters of color leading the way.
- 75 percent of young voters voted for Mamdani, compared to 50 percent of all voters.
- 82 percent of young women voted for Mamdani, compared to 65 percent of young men.
- 83 percent of Black youth and 82 percent of Latine youth voted for Mamdani, compared to 62 percent of white youth.
While NYC is not the rest of the country, and what worked there will require translation elsewhere, Mamdani’s campaign can provide a blueprint for Democrats to tailor and adapt in 2026 to galvanize a cross-class, multiracial voter base that includes working-class and young voters that Democrats lost in 2024.
Spotlight: Emboldening Democrats - North Carolina Down Home Academy
In North Carolina, MVP partner Down Home North Carolina graduated its first-ever Candidate Academy class in September, recruiting, training, and developing seventeen candidates to run, win, and govern boldly. Thirteen Down Home Academy graduates ran in local races in the general election, with seven of them winning their races. These newly elected leaders will protect and defend their communities in meaningful ways, at the hyper-local level.
The Down Home Candidate Academy is building a bench of multiracial, working-class candidates who are ready to run and to champion bold, popular policy agendas once elected. These victories at the local level will help shape and embolden the state Democratic Party from the ground up, bolstering momentum for electoral gains in 2026 — including winning an open U.S. Senate seat — and preparing for 2028.
As the “Down Homies” say: “When we choose to lead, there is so much more to win than just an election.”
Photo: 603 Forward recruiting young candidates to run for office in New Hampshire
Winning Power and Tipping the Scales Down-Ballot
MVP partners have their greatest proportional influence on down-ballot races that can have an outsized impact on people’s lives, building power from the ground up to win long-term.
Winning Power Down-Ballot
- In Pennsylvania, PA United members swept the Meadville city council and mayoral races. Winning under the Vote for Meadville banner, the three candidates ran on a platform of safe, affordable housing, open and sustainable government, and community and public investment.
- In Maine, Food AND Medicine’s field program helped their endorsed candidates win three city council races and two school board races in Bangor. Multiple voters told the press that they voted for these candidates because they saw Food AND Medicine had endorsed them.
- In New Hampshire, 603 Forward recruited and trained sixty-six candidates, forty-one of whom won their races, from city councils to school boards. 603 Forward also invested in independent expenditures to support thirty-two candidates, twenty-five of whom won their races.
- In North Carolina, Down Home North Carolina Academy graduates won seven municipal races across the state. These newly elected leaders have committed to “co-governing” — working with people in local communities to put working-class needs first.
- In Arizona, Arizona List targeted the Tucson City Council elections and helped elect Selina Barajas and Miranda Schubert — Democrats who will fight for immigrants and their families. Tucson is the last major city before the southern border with Mexico, and now has more city council members who will fight for immigrants’ rights, protect communities, and set a standard for other cities to follow.
- In Georgia, the Asian American Advocacy Fund and the Georgia Working Families Party helped win several city council seats. In Atlanta, they helped elect Kelsea Bond, a young, queer, democratic socialist who ran on a popularist platform of public transit, affordable housing, and workers’ rights — and won 64 percent of the vote.
Tipping the Scales and Winning on Slim Margins
Our partners' efforts often provide the decisive votes to win close elections — especially down-ballot.
In Virginia, our partners’ wide-reaching and targeted field programs helped tip the scales for Democrats in several very close House of Delegates races:
- House District 41 - Flipped and won by 961 votes
- House District 30 - Flipped and won by 809 votes
- House District 69 - Flipped and won by 1,189 votes.
- House District 75 - Flipped and won by 1,632 votes
- House District 73 - Flipped and won by 1,779 votes
In New Hampshire, MVP partner Granite State Interfaith Action’s endorsed candidates won races by just a handful of votes, showing the power our partners can have in hyper-local but important races.
- In Nashua, Vengerfulatta Smith won the Ward 6 Alderman race by 22 votes.
- In Manchester, Jason Bonilla won the Ward 5 Alderman race by 189 votes.
In North Carolina, seven candidates recruited and trained in Down Home North Carolina’s first-ever Candidate Academy won their races — several by very close margins.
- In Burlington, Beth Kennett won the mayor’s race by 530 votes.
- Also in Burlington, Ian Baltutis finished first to win one of two seats on the city council, making it to the top two by 334 votes.
- In Archer Lodge, Franky Echols finished first, winning one of two council seats by 86 votes.
- In Oxford, Karen McGee finished first to win one of four commissioner seats, making it to the top four by 324 votes.
Squeakers and Landslides
Sometimes our partners help win by just a handful of votes; other times, they help drive key victories by a landslide! In some cases, this provides exactly the momentum needed for higher-stakes contests.
For example, take Erie County, PA — one of the most important swing counties in one of the most important swing states. MVP partner-endorsed candidate, Christina Vogel, flipped the county executive seat, beating the incumbent by 19,000 votes.
Guess the loss margin for the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat in 2024: 15,115 votes. Voter enthusiasm for change in Erie County this year — thanks, in part, to our partners’ work there — could be the tipping point we need to win the Senate (and a state trifecta!) in 2026 and the presidency in 2028.
Photo: One Pennsylvania at No Kings rally urging voters to vote yes in state Supreme Court retention elections
Epilogue: Swinging for the Fences in 2026!
We say it all the time at MVP: there are no “off” years, only “odd” years.
In fact, it’s our work together with you — our donors and partners — in the odd years that makes our successes in the “even” years possible.
Thanks to you, our partners got a jump start on the year, and they never stopped. Thanks to you, they defended local communities against Trump’s attacks, organized for electoral and policy wins, and expanded their bases of support to build long-term power. And thanks to you, they are writing their organizing, advocacy, and electoral plans for 2026 as you read this.
As of this writing, Trump’s approval rating is near an all-time low. Our movement is feeling the momentum from our electoral victories, and our partners are ready to turn that momentum into power next year.
It’s time to swing for the fences in 2026.
Here’s our full strategy.
Beating Back Authoritarianism
With more attacks coming from the Trump Administration every day, MVP will continue to support our partners to fuel civil resistance, peel off support for the Trump regime from all pillars of society, and fight GOP election rigging everywhere we possibly can.
Winning the Media War
In 2024, we learned we cannot solely rely on our in-person organizing and ground game; we must pair local organizing with new-media engagement. In short, we must organize the internet.
Read our full plan to win the media war here.
Emboldening Democrats
Democracy is on the brink, and we need Democratic leaders who are ready to meet the moment. Earlier this year, the party was polling at its lowest point in three decades, and, despite making up ground, Democrats are still polling behind Republicans in favorability.
The Dems need to do more to win back people's trust and, ultimately, their vote. The good news is that Democrats step up when broad-based movements lead the way, and our 2025 victories have opened the door.
- Focusing on affordability - This year, we saw candidate after candidate win by addressing voters’ top concern: affordability. From Zohran Mamdani’s consistent messaging on fast and free buses, rent control, and free childcare, to Georgia’s Public Service Commission candidates’ platform on lowering utility costs, focusing on lowering the cost of voters’ everyday lives has proven to be a winning strategy.
- Building power from the ground up - MVP partners know the power of community organizing and winning elections at the hyper-local level. This year, in Arizona, Georgia, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, progressive candidates won city council, mayoral, and school board races that will help shape the Democratic party from the ground up.
- Building a true “big tent” - The political landscape is full of distracting hot takes, including which way the Democratic Party should move to win: more liberal or more moderate. The answer is to do both — and to also move beyond this false dichotomy. Voters want leaders who will fight for the issues that matter to them on the campaign trail and once they are in office. We saw this in 2025 with a focus on voters’ perennial top issue — affordability and the cost of living — from more moderate candidates, like Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, to more progressive candidates, like Zohran Mamdani. And guess what? They all won.
Read our full plan to embolden Democrats here.
Flipping the U.S. House (and maybe Senate!)
2026 is a must-win election year. We have no choice but to go all-out to win back governing power and bring our country back from authoritarianism.
Even with continued challenges — including Democrats’ lagging favorability, GOP-rigged maps, and a lot of tight races — there is still good news.
- Dems won big in the 2025 elections, galvanizing support from voters who swung right in 2024.
- Recent polling shows Democratic voters are more energized for 2026 than Republicans.
- Trump is facing more and more defectors from within his own party.
MVP and our partners have targeted and strategic plans to build on this momentum to win back the House — and possibly the Senate — next year.
Graphic: MVP’s electoral targets to win a federal Democratic trifecta by 2028
Flipping the House
MVP is targeting 26 districts held by members who are A) electorally vulnerable and B) likely to face constituent anger due to MAGA bills. Our targeting reflects past election results, current developments, the 2028 Presidential map, and the presence of well-positioned local partners. Read the plan here.
Swinging for the Senate
Flipping — or at least gaining ground — in the Senate would help us block Trump’s agenda in big ways, including judicial (and possibly Supreme Court) appointments. And, each seat we win in 2026 brings us closer to a Democratic federal trifecta in 2028.
In 2026, MVP’s goals are to:
- Defend seats in GA, MI, and NH, and,
- Work against the odds to flip seats in ME, NC, OH, and at least one other state, such as AK, IA, NE, or TX.
Breaking the Boom-and-Bust Funding Cycle to Invest Early in Local Organizing
Boom-and-bust funding — funding that comes right before Election Day — is too little, too late, especially in House and Senate races. Most of that last-minute funding goes to expensive ads and superficial voter contact that alienate voters and fail to move the needle.
Our partners need consistent funding to do the deep organizing required to win power and keep it.
MVP’s partners aren’t just turning out voters in November 2026. They are organizing community members at town halls and local events, launching deep-canvassing programs to meaningfully engage voters now, organizing digital creators to shape the narrative online, endorsing candidates and mobilizing voters for the primaries, and building their bases.
This way, when it comes time to vote in November, their constituents are ready — they understand the power they have to win electoral victories and create their own future.
Let’s Swing for the Fences!
Picture it: It’s November 4, 2026 — the day after Election Day. What future do we want to face?
Scenario A - Too Little, Too Late: A future where Donald Trump is allowed to continue desecrating our climate, destroying our democracy, terrorizing our communities, and consolidating his power. A future where everyday people can’t afford to put food on the table or a roof over their kids’ heads — where, for more families, making ends meet is no longer a struggle but an impossibility.
Scenario B - We Met the Moment! A future where our elected officials are pushing for bold, popular policy agendas that will win real progress. A future where immigrants, LGBTQ+ community members, women, and people of color can access affordable healthcare, leave their homes without fear, make their own choices about their bodies and lives, and raise their kids in safe, thriving communities. A future where MAGA tyranny is halted in its tracks because everyday Americans — young people, voters of color, and working-class people of all races — showed up at the ballot box to say, “enough!”
The best-case scenario is possible — but it’s going to take everything we’ve got.
MAGA attacks will continue. Winning more races in a higher-turnout, less Democratic-leaning electoral environment will present new challenges. Countering GOP mega-donors and MAGA’s well-established “vertically integrated meta-church” will be a heavy lift. That’s why we cannot slow down.
We must double and triple down on our efforts and investments, starting right now.
If you’d like to help us sustain and expand our victories next year, you can make a plan to give right now - here’s how:
We are so grateful for your support and unwavering commitment to creating the future we want and need. It’s been a long ride from November 2024 to now, but we have stepped up to the plate.
With you by our side, we won incredible victories this year. Now, we have the opportunity of a lifetime: to swing for the fences in 2026.
Let’s do it!!!
Thank you,
The MVP Team
