By Billy Wimsatt, MVP Executive Director

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Dear friends in movements, politics, and philanthropy:

I am hesitant to write this.

We have already been told by President Biden and his surrogates that he will be our nominee this fall. We need to get behind him and focus on defeating Trump; any questioning or deviation from this “buck up and get in line” plan is going to weaken him further and help elect Donald Trump this fall, which obviously none of us wants. 

At the same time, MVP did an informal survey this week of our partners who work on the ground in the battleground states, whose job it is to actually talk with tens of millions of voters to convince them to vote. 

New warning signs for Biden from the states

Here are some of the major themes from our survey of leaders of 65 local and national battleground state voter mobilization organizations to date (as of 3:08 pm on Friday, July 12th – view here as PDF). These are organizations working primarily in the top seven presidential battleground states (PA, MI, WI, NV, AZ, GA, NC):

• Of the 42 voter mobilization organizations who expressed an opinion, groups said they would prefer another candidate to President Biden by a ratio of more than two-to-one. 74% of local grassroots organizational leaders who expressed an opinion said they would either strongly or lean toward preferring to see Biden withdraw, compared with 26% who said they think he should stay in the race. 

• A very high percentage expressed uncertainty. Approximately one-third of those surveyed (36%) declined to express a clear preference either way, citing multiple reasons: Frustration with all of the options; not feeling clear on what the process of choosing a new candidate would be; and not feeling able to speak for their organizations on this issue.

• Many are not planning to proactively talk with voters about President Biden in their voter contact scripts this cycle because they believe doing so would undercut their effectiveness in engaging with many voters. Instead, they plan to lead with Project 2025, stopping Trump, engaging voters in down-ballot races, and issues such as abortion. Notably, even some of the organizations who believe President Biden should stay in the race are not planning to proactively talk with voters about him.

• Many expressed that it would make their voter turnout and persuasion work easier if President Biden were to pass the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris. Not that they are all enthusiastic about Harris, but she is seen by many as more likely to motivate at least some segments of voters, especially younger voters, women, some voters of color, and even white suburban or multiracial communities – to provide a reset, new energy, and to re-engage discouraged voters. 

• Many emphasized that if Biden were to drop out, it would be important for the nomination to go to Harris. Interestingly, this sentiment was echoed by many of those who want Biden to stay the course. Many said they would also be equally if not more happy with Kamala, but mostly feared a chaotic process.

• There is a deep level of frustration that Biden didn’t pass the torch much earlier and allow for a real primary process. Many expressed a sense of powerlessness to change anything. They feel resigned to making the best of a bad situation, but expressed overall frustration about the state of the Democratic Party. 

This was an initial qualitative, confidential (non-scientific) survey of 65 voter mobilization organizations and was conducted mostly by phone, given the sensitive and nuanced nature of the topic. 

It’s not just the “elite” donors and the pundits.

There has been a narrative that the people who want Biden to pass the baton are a small group of media, donors, and “elites,” even though mounting concerns are reflected in polling across the entire electorate – and have been for some time.

Here are some anonymous quotes, shared with permission directly from partners we surveyed (we are confirming permission to share others):

“We can only run a campaign on Project 2025 [vs. focusing on positive messaging for Biden].”

“People are not too enthusiastic. Internally they are struggling with Biden being the nominee. Gaza has been a big issue with youth. His age has also been a concern – will he be able to lead for the next four years? We had to have a two-hour conversation on whether we feel comfortable working on the Presidential race because the team was not excited with Biden on the ticket. In the last week, there has been a lot of momentum toward excitement for Kamala Harris.”

“Our base is more divided than ever, with conflicts between members who are desperate to defeat Trump (pro-Biden) and members who just can’t with Biden and, increasingly, the Democratic Party in general. The consensus: Joe Biden out there being Joe Biden is making it increasingly impossible to organize for Joe Biden AND against Trump.”

“The risk assessments are paralyzing everybody. [Replacing Biden] could be the most energizing thing ever. People in politics have to stop being terrified of politics.”

The results from our local voter mobilization partners largely mirror the email survey we sent to MVP’s supporter community, in which 1554 people (most of them grassroots supporters) responded and 73% supported Biden withdrawing.

How should we meet this moment?

How should we meet this moment wisely and strategically? 

As MVP, we could just keep our heads down and continue focusing on our core mission: We support local organizations in swing states that are going to get out the vote for Democrats up and down the ballot. In this time of crisis, we need them to be well-funded trusted messengers who can persuade disillusioned voters why they need to turn out and vote in record numbers no matter who the candidate is (instead of voting for Trump, or for spoiler candidates, or simply staying home). 

MVP has a clear and compelling model that is easy to unify around. We urgently need to raise hundreds of millions more dollars to fund the field. Immediately. Narrowly defined, our job is to get money to fund the field.

But more broadly defined, our job is to make sure we win. And it is also to listen to our partners, to do things that MVP is uniquely well-positioned to do to help build progressive and Democratic political power and prevent a worst-case scenario.

This is why, to maximize our chances of defeating Trump, MVP is publicly joining the growing chorus of calls for President Biden to pass the baton.

MVP’s strategic assessment 

Problem: Lack of leadership. People who want Biden to pass the baton have a collective action problem. The vast majority of voters, and the majority of Democrats, staff, and volunteers of voter mobilization organizations in swing states (and privately, of many Democratic elected officials) believe we have a better chance of winning with a new candidate. But for a variety of understandable reasons, many are hesitant, as I have been, to speak out. 

Solution: Hope is contagious. By speaking out, we create space for others to speak out. Hope is contagious. By working over the next 4 weeks to ask President Biden to pass the baton, MVP is doing everything in our power to shift the dynamics and create space for others to join us: local and national organizations, elected officials, donors, DNC delegates, and rank-and-file Democrats. 

Goal: Influence the influencers. We aim to influence elected officials, donors, media, and rank-and-file Democrats to influence people around Biden, who can eventually influence Biden himself. We believe support for Biden’s candidacy is at least as thin as the press is openly reporting, even among Democratic Party leaders who are publicly supporting him. At the end of the day, we are all worried about the same thing: losing to Trump and getting wiped out down-ballot.

Our strategy: More voices. More data points. Our primary intervention is to help expand the conversation with new voices from swing states who have not been heard from yet. Leadership from communities who have not weighed in. Calls, texts, and social media posts to elected leaders from community leaders, friends, and donors, asking them to be courageous. All of these data points will be taken into account by Democratic Party leadership as they assess the right thing to do.

What are our chances? We figure that we have at least a 20% chance of success – much higher if another shoe drops before the Democratic convention. We aim to increase our odds of success by empowering as many private voices as we can to go public, preparing to support a smooth transition if the dam starts to burst.

What if we don’t succeed? Very importantly, we are committed to running this campaign in a positive and responsible way that does not damage Biden, and we are prepared to pivot to supporting whoever the Democratic nominee is 200% at the end of this brief campaign.

But isn’t this going to weaken Biden? No. Biden is already weakened. Prominent members of Congress and others have called for him to step down and it has been reported that many more are saying so privately. This problem is not going to go away. The toothpaste is out of the tube. The best way to engage people who are demoralized, angry, hopeless, and disaffected (ie. the vast majority of our base!) is not to scold them to get back in line. It is to listen, to meet people where they are at, to work side-by-side for common goals, and to rebuild hope by working towards a larger vision and strategy (for more on this, see Bat Signal 3!).

Because our ultimate goal is to defeat Trump, and we understand that Biden might not drop out, we are waging our campaign in the most kind and responsible way possible. 

Why calling for Biden to pass the baton is strategic even if it doesn’t succeed: By engaging in trying to get Biden to pass the baton, we’re spending the next few weeks in the best way possible – meeting disaffected folks where they’re at: Similar to the Bernie or Warren campaigns, we are building relationships with disaffected voters, organizers, and donors with valid concerns that are not being heard.

No matter what happens, we will work side-by-side to stop Trump and MAGA this fall. People who are asking Biden to pass the baton will be all the more trusted as messengers to disaffected voters, volunteers, and donors who we will need to re-engage in the final stretch – no matter the outcome of our efforts. 

In short, this brief effort is a win-win in terms of beating Trump, MAGA, and the autocratic architects of Project 2025 this fall.

Why haven’t voter mobilization groups spoken up before?

The reasons our local partners have not spoken up are varied. 

Most importantly: Our partners have been grappling with this for months, contorting themselves in an effort to game out how best to defeat Trump, given the incredible lack of enthusiasm for Biden. 

As we wrote in Bat Signal 3, “The first rule of electing Biden is don’t talk about Biden.” Local groups have been sounding the alarm throughout this entire election cycle that if we beat Trump it will be in spite of Biden. In essence, frontline organizers have been praying for someone to take away Biden’s keys to the car for quite a long time – and unfortunately, it took the car wreck that was the June debate for the powers that be to wake up to the severity of the problem.

Additionally, they feel like they don’t have any real power to change the situation. It’s extremely late; they have expressed valid concerns that speaking up could risk their funding and/or ability to move their issues legislatively; and they fear being blamed if the Democratic candidate loses. Right after the debate, several partners who are part of a national network that engages millions of voters discussed the idea of writing a joint letter asking Biden to step down. But when they saw the New York Times and bigger players taking such a public stand, they decided to pause, wondering if their voices would be needed.

Where are the national progressive organizations?

A similar dynamic is playing out with major national progressive organizations who have largely been quiet, along with most progressive members of Congress. Conventional wisdom, at least in the early days of this debate, was that progressive voices in this moment were not the most influential – and could even be counterproductive. Their calculation has been that the most influential factors for the President would be party leadership, frontline House Democrats, donors, and polling averages. 

This strategy makes sense on lots of levels. But it also meant that progressive advocacy heavyweights who would normally be organizing millions of grassroots Democratic and progressive activists to call their members of Congress have been eerily absent, leaving the centrist politicians, political analysts, and major donors to do the early heavy lifting. This is not in any way a critique. It’s simply an explanation for why the overall reaction we are seeing has seemed oddly muted and establishment-led. In short, grassroots and progressive organizations have been strategically holding their fire. 

So we find ourselves in a somewhat surreal situation where many of the people and organizations who have the most to lose from a Trump presidency – and have wanted Biden to step aside for months and years – have been the most silent. This has allowed the Biden campaign to paint the debate over his candidacy as being driven by “elites.” As usual, the voices of the people with the least power and the most to lose have not been heard. And the silence has been self-reinforcing. 

Staying the course with the Biden-Harris ticket

It needs to be said that the desire for Biden to step aside among MVP partners is by no means universal. A significant number of MVP’s partners feel that doubling down on Biden is the more strategic choice to make right now for a variety of very valid reasons:

• Biden’s deficits have already been “priced in” for many voters who knew he was old and didn’t love him, but are nonetheless motivated to support him in order to defeat Trump.
• For almost all of our partners, this election was never about Biden in the first place; it has always been about defeating Trump and MAGA, and stopping an authoritarian takeover.
• Sexism and racism are real and pervasive, and not just on the right. Harris is already facing high levels of both. The risk of either running a Black woman, or worse yet having a messy and uncertain contested “mini-primary” in which Harris is passed over or attacked by other Democrats, is seen by some as riskier than sticking with a white man everyone knows. To put it more bluntly: Can white people really be trusted to vote for a Black woman?

Some Black organizations in particular, such as Our Voice Our Vote (OVOV) in Arizona, are explicitly supporting the Biden-Harris ticket. Our long-time partner Black Voters Matter is running a brilliant campaign called “We Fight Back,” which has deeply resonant themes such as The People vs. Trump. This is Bigger than Biden. It’s About US. Democracy vs. Dictatorship. 

Black Voters Matter is one of the best communicators and messengers on our side. As MVP, we want to say unequivocally that we support and stand with Black Voters Matter, OVOV, and our other partner organizations that feel similarly. 

Black Voters Matter still has a $15 million gap to run their ingenious and motivational anti-Trump campaign, which will support hundreds of smaller local Black-led organizations in key states. I want to challenge anyone who feels strongly that we double down on supporting Biden right now: Put your money where your mouth is and do everything in your power to organize donors to close Black Voters Matter’s funding gap. 

If you want to know about other organizations strongly supporting Biden, we are happy to make recommendations. In Bat Signal 3, we wrote that there is a huge funding gap specifically for Black organizing. So whether you want Biden to stay in or not, everyone who cares about this election needs to fund Black organizing. This should be something we can all agree on.

We all agree we have to stop Trump – 2,000% 

Our movement is a big tent and we will not always agree with each other on strategies, tactics, or candidates. That is the nature of a broad coalition. What we all 2000% agree on is the need to prevent Trump, MAGA, and Project 2025 at all costs.

It should be underscored that MVP’s partners and their communities have the most to lose from a Trump presidency, representing, as they do: Communities of color; multi-racial, working-class communities; women; immigrants; youth; Indigenous, Arab, Muslim, and LGBTQ communities; and others who are intensely aware that they would be deeply and personally negatively impacted by a Trump presidency and Project 2025. 

What Is MVP doing besides writing this note?

MVP made a big decision this week to engage in a brief, intense, probably 2-4 week mini-campaign to add support to the growing movement to ask Joe Biden to pass the baton – presumably to Vice President Kamala Harris – through a process to be determined by the Democratic Party. To this end, we will engage in multiple activities:

• Amplifying voices from MVP partners: We will continue to support MVP partners to have their voices heard, anonymously or otherwise, to media, elected leaders, Democratic donors, and anyone who will listen. To be clear, we are just as passionate about supporting our partners who disagree with this strategy – we are all on the same team to defeat Trump in the fall.

• Bolstering the Pass The Torch campaign: We will support, with a modest amount of staff time and financial resources, the #PassTheTorch campaign – a new, volunteer-run effort to organize grassroots Democrats and convention delegates to ask Biden to pass the baton. MVP supporters who are so moved are encouraged to take action through them.

• Boosting Kamala Harris: Whatever happens, we effectively have two presidential candidates right now. The RNC plans to attack her like a presidential candidate, and betting markets have her as more likely to be the nominee than Biden. We will partner with Way to Win and others on their brilliant Kamala support campaign and provide financial and other resources. This will be critical in any scenario because we now effectively have two candidates to defend.

• Supporting Next Generation PAC: We will help organize interested donors to support the newly launched Next Generation PAC, through which donors can pledge funding to support a new presidential candidate. If Biden stays in the race, funds will be distributed to support key down-ballot races (many of which overlap with presidential swing states – so it’s a win-win). Funnily enough, when The New York Times reported last week that MVP was “likely” helping them, we weren’t. But after thinking about it more, we have decided to!

• Organizing Democratic donors: We will join forces with others to help organize Democratic donors who are rightly concerned about the state of the election to move funding in productive ways to defeat Trump instead of sitting on the sidelines. This is mostly what we do anyway, but we’re doubling down, at this moment especially, to engage disaffected donors to remember their enormous agency, recognize their courage, and act accordingly. 

Will MVP funds go to this effort?

Yes – a small amount of our overall funding will go to this effort from gifts explicitly designated by donors for this purpose. 

The vast majority of MVP’s staff time and resources over the next few weeks will still be devoted to our core electoral work of supporting local organizations in swing states to defeat Trump no matter who the candidate is. 

Thank you for being brave.

This was not an easy decision for me or for the MVP team to make. We did not make it lightly. And we know we’re going to get yelled at. But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. And we believe that this is the right thing for MVP to do at this moment to do our part to help save the country. This is a rapidly evolving situation and we will be evaluating our decisions constantly and iterating as the situation demands.

We draw inspiration from the recent French elections where, in the course of a few weeks, the left and center-left formed an unprecedented emergency alliance, got two hundred candidates to drop out of their races to unite, successfully upset the right-wing party, and shock the world. In recent weeks, we’ve seen similar promising signs in the UK and India. The future is not written. Nothing is inevitable. We can win this. We could even have a landslide. This big internal argument we are having is creating a lot of good energy already! People who are arguing for staying the course are heated about it! People who want a new candidate are heated about it! We are all talking about how critical it is to defeat Trump no matter what. When we come back together at the DNC, we’re going to be one hell of a fired-up team!

We draw inspiration from the many Democratic elected officials from Nancy Pelosi on down who have bravely questioned the conventional wisdom. Our hope is that this challenging situation will bring out the best in all of us. Everything we love is truly threatened. And yet we have agency. Our North Star is to win a federal Democratic trifecta this fall, pass bold and historic legislation in 2025, and make this a turning point toward a new Progressive Era. 

Whatever your views, we are a team and we need each other. Thank you for being brave and being on this journey with us.

With gratitude and respect,

Billy Wimsatt, MVP Executive Director

Addendum: More Strategy & Context

Added July 17, 2024

Where MVP is at now

We are focused on winning this fall – now more than ever! We said what we had to say last Friday. We shared this with Biden’s team via every channel we could. Biden will make his decision. And MVP is focused on mobilizing donors to fund the biggest grassroots voter mobilization in history, in the battlegrounds that matter most, no matter who the candidates are – and you should be too! We need everyone in this fight! 

The rest of this note is context and backstory.

Why MVP put out a statement

We saw an opportunity to potentially make all of our jobs easier – and we saw a disconnect between public and private sentiments: We heard from multiple well-placed sources in the first week after the debate that Biden was actually considering passing the baton. In the second week after the debate, we heard that many more elected Democrats than reported were hoping that he would – including many of those who were publicly saying otherwise. There was a major disconnect between public and private sentiments. If Biden was really considering it, we wanted to make sure he had all the data points from which to make his decision.

Many local voter engagement groups have been sounding the alarm about this for a long time, but it took until the debate for people to listen.  When we surveyed 65 c4/PAC voter mobilization organizations in battleground states,. 74% of those who we asked believed that they would be able to engage voters better if there was another candidate (presumably Harris) on the ticket. That is an important data point. And yet almost none of these groups felt like they were in a position to share that information publicly. 

MVP’s goal was to share these data points with the Biden team as quickly as possible. The views of local voter mobilization groups are an important data point that he and his team should have in making this decision. We were told on Friday morning that “today was the day” we needed to send him a message (via Dem leadership and Politico) if we wanted our partners’ voices to be factored into his thinking. So we fast-tracked the release of our findings and shared them publicly.

Why MVP’s statement was strategic even if Biden stays in

By taking a public stand to pass the baton, MVP is now a better messenger to engage pissed-off and disillusioned donors and organizers. Too many donors are feeling stuck and depressed right now – with eight weeks until the start of early vote! Our message: People! Wake up! It’s time to go all hands on deck with organizing and funding no matter who the candidate is!

Collectively we are helping Biden AND Harris get stronger. Three weeks ago, few people were excited about Biden or Harris. Now they’re like The Little Engine That Could. Biden has become a stronger candidate over the past two weeks. Turning up the pressure has helped force him to step up or step aside. And we’ve seen a groundswell of support for Harris who has emerged as the favored choice and President-in-waiting. People are rallying around both of them now as a Biden-Harris team. The existential threat of Project 2025 has awakened the anti-MAGA coalition and that’s a beautiful thing. But counterintuitively, all of the work that has been done to pressure-test Biden and elevate Harris is a big part of what made that happen. 

Screw doom and gloom – let’s win! For us, ultimately, this is about winning and hope. A “senior House Democrat” recently told told Axios: “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.” Our take: Forget that malarkey! We are going to fight with everything we’ve got – we invite you to join us!