With Friends & Family: The Lanfair Family

By Jameela and Jordan Lanfair
Jordan is an Educator Ambassador and The Institute for CP and Team WI Lead

Helping People Learn About Voting With My Dad by Jameela Lanfair (Transcribed by her Dad Jordan Lanfair)

When we went to Virginia to help people learn about voting I was happy. I was excited about voting because voting is all about using your voice. When we were canvassing, we would go knock on people’s doors and tell them about the election and who they could vote for. We went together and it was fun. We got to play, meet people, have snacks, and see new places. People were nice and wanted to talk to us. I want to go canvassing again because it was fun the last time we went and voting is important. People should vote because if you don’t use your voice people may not understand you or know how you feel about things. I’m happy I got to help. 

Helping People Learn About Voting with My Daughter by Jordan Lanfair (Supervised by his daughter Jameela Lanfair)

Getting to go to Virginia with Common Power was one of the best experiences of my life. It wasn’t just that we got to be a part of a vibrant community, or that we got to see how New Virginia Majority and other partners think about political strategy, it was that I got to show my daughter how showing up for people and elections matter.

Everyday, we’d wake up, have breakfast, and then engage in conversations with volunteers from all over before setting out to knock on doors. The kids became pros at hanging literature and using different doorbells and over the course of traveling it became clearer that we do this because the best way to change things is to meet each other.

We were also honored to meet amazing women that she could learn from and ask questions like Celestria, Victoria, Larcy, and Dr. Geary, and Dr. Scott of CP, as well as Tram Nguyen of New Virginia Majority. It’s one thing to tell her that she can be and do anything she sets her heart to, it's another for her to walk alongside people who are actually doing it. 

We’ll be heading to Wisconsin in the coming weeks to do the same and I continue to hope that we will see more families and parents out together. The best way I know to show my daughter what matters to me is by bringing her along and engaging her in the act. Every election she goes to vote with me, but these trips have been about how we help others engage in the process of using their voice and showing everyone what is most important to them. There are a lot of political issues that she is still asking me about and trying to wrap her mind around, but at the most basic level, we love getting to canvas because action is the gift we can give to our community. It’s a gift I’m proud to give to places with my favorite person ever and i hope we get to see you all out there as well.

With Friends & Family: The Casey-Goldsteins

By Mary Casey-Goldstein and Steve Goldstein
Long-time CP Volunteers

We were feeling devastated by the results of the 2016 election, so when friends invited us to join them in a new volunteer group that was just being started by David Domke in the spring of 2018, we jumped on it. After a few Saturday workshops, we signed on to participate on the Wisconsin Team and made our first trip there that summer.  Now here we are 6 years, several trips to Wisconsin and other states, as well as many phone banks and postcards later, and we really feel like we have made a difference. Taking action feels good - and it’s been fun too!

We have now been to 4 states with CP - Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida and Georgia – and we’ve had lots of great experiences on all of our trips.  But when all is said and done, Wisconsin has become our home team. We’ve gotten to know the city of Milwaukee and some of the surrounding areas. We have our favorite restaurants and coffee spots, and free time activities. No trip is complete without a visit to the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Third Ward, Collectevo coffee shops, the shores of Lake Michigan, and good old Beans and Barley. 

We have met new friends on each of our trips, many of whom have become part of our social network here in Seattle. Some we see regularly in town at social functions, the gym, and we even joined a book group with some of our Wisconsin folks. We feel lucky that we have so many opportunities to interact and work with people of different backgrounds and ages. That is one of the things that is so special about our involvement in CP.  We look forward to new events and trips so we can catch up with the folks that we don’t see regularly and to meeting new people as CP grows.

Charles (Douglas) has often said - “You come for the work, but you stay for the people.”  That has definitely been true for us. The work is important and it has been rewarding, but it’s the people that keep us coming back!

With Friends & Family: Luke Michener

By Luke Michener
Senior Education Specialist, The Institute for CP

My kids have this book we read together called “Vote For Our Future.” It’s this cute story about an elementary school in Anytown, USA that closes down on election day so that it can become a polling place. My young sons and I have read that book together a number of times. 

In the book the elementary students learn about what elections are and they talk to their friends and loved ones about the importance of voting. They share lessons they have learned about the history of voting, and about how some people used to not be allowed to vote. The students learn that some people today vote in every election, and to their bewilderment they learn that some people chose not to vote. 

The students also learn that they can take action. They help organize to get out the vote and they help unregistered voters to sign up. 

It’s a beautifully illustrated story about what America should be; a diverse and inclusive democracy that hears and respects the will of the people - all people. The children learn that the winners in these elections get to make the rules, and the candidates that lose accept the outcome.

It’s in the spirit of this story and of this vision for our country that my six-year-old son joined me and Common Power Team Wisconsin on a field work trip to Milwaukee. 

Our local partners in Milwaukee were the Wis-Dems and a Milwaukee based org called Power to the Polls. The Wis-Dems were canvassing in Milwaukee to increase voter turn-out in an upcoming primary and Power to the Polls was trying to engage more Black folks in the city in the democratic process. 

My son and I were on a small canvassing team which included Jordan, an educator from Chicago and dear friend of mine, along with Lilly and Davis, two incredible gen-z organizers. Together we knocked on hundreds of doors over four days. Team Wisconsin that weekend knocked on approximately 3,400 doors.  

My son became quite the expert at finding the doorbell or figuring out just the right force to knock with, and the best place to drop the literature if nobody answered. He also met a few new buddies, including a sweet little girl in North Milwaukee who offered him a pack of her fruit snacks. We also took some breaks at playgrounds in the neighborhoods, stopped for a rootbeer (and an IPA for dad) at a local brewery. The Green Bay Packers are now his second favorite NFL team. Go Seahawks! 

We knocked on doors and talked to voters in the same way that children did in “Vote For Our Future.” We asked people what mattered most to them, if they knew who they were voting for in the upcoming election, and if they needed any help finding their polling place. We connected with people, together.

It’s an experience that my son still talks about. It wasn’t all easy; travel with a young one presents challenges, canvassing is tiring, and there was the occasional grump at the door, but the experience made a big impression on both of us, and we made a difference. 

With Friends & Family: Carri Urbanski

By Carri Urbanski
Ohio Team Lead

I’ve been a team lead with Common Power since 2021, but it wasn’t until recently that I brought along loved ones on fieldwork travel. Voter activism adds purpose and fulfillment to my life, and I wanted them to share in that joy. So, when I traveled to Columbus, Ohio for the primaries this year, I brought along my husband, our 10 year-old son, and a friend.

In addition to being a volunteer, I’m a busy mom with a career and lots of responsibilities. Trying to make it all work while separating out all those identities (mom, wife, employee, volunteer, etc.) gets overwhelming. However, when I can blur the lines and combine some of those roles, as I did in Columbus, I’m able to fully live in the moment and focus on what matters most. And, since they are already structured towards multigenerational fieldwork, Common Power was able to offer me the flexibility and support I needed to balance out my personal commitments, even while serving as a team lead.

During the trip, my husband, Chris, was canvassing with a CP staffer when a woman stopped them to ask what they were doing. After they explained, she told them she was interested in getting involved and asked for contact information to help in the general election.

This is the kind of ripple effect we have on others. My work brought in Chris, who paid it forward by bringing in another volunteer, and so on.

One of my favorite memories of the trip was when my friend and I canvassed the home of a 78 year-old woman who recounted her first voting experience. She has cast her ballot in every election since then, despite voter suppression tactics in her way. She was so grateful for the work we’re doing that she gave us each a hug. We’ll win some elections, and we’ll lose some, but it was a reminder to stay in the fight for people like her. My friend just signed up for her second CP trip.

If you’re ready to bring loved ones into fieldwork, remember that they may need extra support at first. Common Power is intentional about cultivating an inclusive, respectful community based on core values and principles, and they do it through awareness and education. Even if they’ve canvassed before, volunteers who are new to Common Power can benefit from the (free!) training series to help them do fieldwork in the CP way.

As a parent, it’s my job to create a better future for my son through civic duty, while at the same time teaching him to proactively stand up for his own ideals. And when he sees both parents doing this work together, the importance is compounded. It made me proud to show them my leadership on this trip, and in turn I was proud of them for getting involved. There is no better way to learn than through action, and there is no better way to act than together.

A Note From David Domke 7/19

In February 2007, I went to Springfield IL to see the launch of a campaign for the US presidency by Senator Barack Obama. The thermometer outside was at zero but the sun was bright. With his wife and daughters, Obama stepped onto the stage set up outside the Old State Capitol building, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous “House Divided” speech in 1858.

Canvassing in Kentucky, October 2023

Standing there with thousands, it felt like the dawn of a new era. A New American chapter. And indeed it was, but a chapter that has been far more painful than expected.

That day launched AND unleashed both the best and the worst of the United States. Obama became our first African American president, the kind of small-d democratic mountaintop for which Common Power today fights every day. Obama’s ascendancy, however, was a trumpet call for anti-democracy forces – particularly ones imbued with racism and xenophobia – to rise up. Today, the MAGA Movement headed by Donald Trump is opposed to freedoms and democracy on all fronts: reproductive freedom, the freedom to vote, racial justice, immigration opportunity, LGBTQ+ identities and safety, health care for all, and the struggle to save the planet. When Trump lost in 2020, he led an insurrection. And yet last night, the Republican Party nominated Trump as their presidential nominee for 2024.

In 2007, imagine if some supernatural entity tapped each of us on a shoulder and offered this deal: “If you want Obama for president for 8 years, you will get Trump as president for at least 4 years but you, the people, will get a chance to work to stop Trump from winning a second 4 years.”

That’s exactly the deal that we have right here, right now.

American history makes clear that a progressive advance like Obama’s presidency would be met by the kind of cultural backlash that Dr. Carol Anderson of Emory University has called “white rage.”

We are now, in July 2024, engaged in an unguaranteed, brutally uphill climb to win the Presidency, hold the US Senate, and win the US House. If we do these, the Democrats will start 2025 by passing laws to guarantee reproductive and voting freedoms. We have a chance to sustain this imperfect experiment in American democracy, and it’s our time to work. Please devote as much of your time, by doing voter fieldwork, and treasure, by donating to support our work and our volunteers, as you possibly can. It’s our time and our turn to step up. 

— David Domke, Associate Director, Org Development

All of US - Florida Trip

By: Bert Greenwood

My third CP fieldwork trip to Florida brought me to the communities of Hillsborough; underserved and nearly forgotten by political parties, these primarily Latinx neighborhoods were filled with folks who wanted to talk about issues. From Nando, the Iraq-war vet, to the Ramirez family from Puerto Rico, I heard over and over that they felt ignored and forgotten - and they were frankly surprised we were walking their neighborhoods, talking to voters.

Listening to them, I discovered that the same issues that trouble me, bother them. How will they pay for the healthcare they so urgently need? Who is a role model in politics for their grandchildren? Will we engage in another rush to war - a rush that will unfairly target their communities? I learned how selected and targeted voter suppression efforts had denied many folks the right to vote - and one young man told me that after voting in the 2018 election, nothing changed so he's never voting again. I came to realize that the easy and efficient ways of voting in the PNW are truly precious gifts - gifts that are restricted to many fellow Americans. 

Long days of canvassing were supported by the team that waited back at our hotel at the end of each shift. We sat together and debriefed our day, and I often learned a new trick to connect with a voter from one of my teammates. Group dinners brought us together to laugh and celebrate. I enjoyed learning about my teammates - where they were born, what their hobbies and interests were, why they chose to spend a week in Florida with a group of 44 folks, knocking on doors in neighborhoods very unlike their own. I also enjoyed a quiet moment together, when feeling tired or discouraged, a friendly word bolstered my spirits. Our motto "we come for the work, we stay for the people" is true. The CP community is a remarkable family - and the people extends into our local partners and the neighborhoods we walk. Suddenly, the great experiment that is America becomes clear for me...we are all indeed in this together.

My Call To Action is best summed up by the parting words of Mr. Ramirez. An ex-military man, he served his country and raised his children with what he described as "good, Christian values." He quietly stated that he voted for Trump in 2016 and was registered as a Republican but he wanted to re-register as a Democrat and participate in the Florida Presidential Preference Primary. His reason? "Trump thinks the government belongs to him; he's wrong. The government belongs to us." He registered as a Democrat and the next day, we returned to register his wife and daughter. That's what makes my work with CP, our local partners and their communities important to me...it is US. All of US. 

Notes From The Field - Charlotte North Carolina

By: Susan Storer Clark

It’s been an exhilarating, exhausting, inspiring week with Common Purpose in Charlotte, North Carolina. We partnered with You Can Vote, an organization that “trains and mobilizes volunteers  to register, educate, and empower all North Carolina citizens to successfully cast their ballot.”

We registered 310 people to vote in our time in Charlotte. We also talked to them about how to vote in the upcoming primary and general elections. Because of the work we did, We Can Vote not only reached its goal for all of February but is 160 registrations ahead on their goal for March.

That’s the kind of work I want to do. It’s the reason I joined Common Purpose. I want to do this kind of work because my religious faith impels me to do so.

My denomination has no creed, but it does have seven principles. The first one is that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being (boldface mine). The fifth one says that we believe in the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large. To me, that means that every citizen has a right to vote, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, poverty, or previous condition of incarceration.

Because the right to vote is under threat in so many places in our country, I decided this is the work I want to do, for this election cycle and probably for many years to come.

I didn’t know anybody in our group of eighteen before I came to Charlotte. My flight got canceled, so I missed the whole first day of getting to know people. I was a little afraid that I would be out of the loop and playing catch-up the whole time.

I needn’t have worried. I got a quick orientation from our team captain Jordan Goldwarg and from Zion Lemelle, the regional director for We Can Vote. Soon I was with my team out on a sidewalk, asking people if they were registered where they currently live.

On my first day there I realized that people who will travel on their own time and their own dime to do this work are likely to be interesting, engaging people. That’s because they all were. It was a very accomplished group: teachers, doctors, nurses, former political staffers, people who had built projects and programs to benefit their community. Because we were working together on something we cared about, it was easy to build camaraderie.

There’s a lot at stake for North Carolina in the 2020 elections. Their election districts were recently redrawn, in obedience to a court order to fix obvious gerrymandering. There’s a vulnerable Democratic governor up for re-election, as well as a vulnerable Republican senator. Charlotte’s current Republican member of Congress won a narrow victory in 2018 and is considered vulnerable this year.

The citizens of North Carolina—all the citizens of North Carolina—have a right to determine the future of their state. I think that, in some small way, I have helped. Some people who should be able to vote, will be able to vote, because of what I did. And that makes me happy.

The Adventures of Team Texas

By:  Russ Daggatt & Gemma Valdez Daggatt

The Common Purpose team of Seattle volunteers spent five days (January 24-28) in Texas working on the special election campaign of Dr. Eliz Markowitz. This was the race for Texas state representative in District 28 in the Southwestern Houston suburbs (primarily Fort Bend County), to fill the seat of a Republican incumbent who resigned in September.

Why bother with a special election for state representative in Texas (besides the fact that the weather is a lot better there than Seattle in January)?

No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994, but Beto O’Rourke came within 2.6% of beating Ted Cruz in 2018. In the process, he garnered 200,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Also in 2018, two long-time Republican Congressmen lost and Democrats picked up 12 seats in the 150 member State House of Representatives. The writing is on the wall - Texas is turning purple!

The stakes are high for 2020. The census and subsequent redistricting will reshape state governments and Congressional districts across the country for the next decade. In Texas, an estimated 200,000 Latinx voters will become registered every year over the next decade. Texas is already a majority minority and Latinx voters could overtake non-Hispanic whites as soon as next year. Democrats currently have 66 seats in the State House and need to flip nine to take control. (That, in turn, would help ensure a (more) fair redistricting, and more electoral gains in the future.)

Dr. Eliz (as she is known) got the most votes last November, but no candidate got a majority, requiring this runoff election. She was the sole Democrat with 39% of the vote. Her Republican opponent got 28%, and other Republicans split 30%. In other words, Republicans got roughly 60% of the vote. So we had to change the composition of the electorate to win it. This special election was the only race on the ballot, so turnout would be the key to victory. That was a big challenge – special elections have notoriously poor turnout. And this had been considered a safe Republican district. But picking it up would be seen as a harbinger for November, when the entire State House (and the state’s 38 electoral votes) will be on the ballot. 

That’s where Common Purpose’s Team Texas comes in.

We arrived on the Thursday night before the election. We awoke Friday to hear that a major, deadly chemical explosion had happened earlier that morning only a few miles away from our canvassing areas. It killed two employees, destroyed the factory and damaged dozens of surrounding homes, breaking windows and doors a half-mile away.  (This follows at least five major chemical incidents in the area in the last year. Infamous for its lack of land-use regulation, the Houston area is home to more than 2,500 chemical facilities, with a major chemical incident on average every six weeks.)

This provided a concrete example of the kinds of real world issues at stake.

We canvassed in an area called Cinco Ranch. Turns out, this was the area hardest hit during Hurricane Harvey. The hurricane dumped more than 50” of rain and was called “the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event in United States history,” by the National Weather Service. Cinco Ranch and surrounding areas were in the Army Corps of Engineers’ “flood pool” to protect Downtown Houston and were inundated with an average of over 4’ of flood water. When the water receded, thousands of homeowners returned to ravaged houses. Only 30% of the homeowners stayed to rebuild. The rest sold their gutted homes at well below pre-storm prices. These were among the people we met canvassing.

Fort Bend County is the most diverse in the country. It comes closer than any other county to having an equal division among the nation’s four major ethnic communities — Asian, Black, Latinx and White residents. We encountered a large number of immigrants from Vietnam, India, Africa, Latin American and elsewhere around the world. (At first, it seemed that there were few native-born Whites in the area. Then we figured out that we were hitting homes that had already been screened as likely Democratic voters. It was not a random sample.)

On Friday morning, our Seattle group met up at a coffee shop with Max, our field director. Our team was given our assignments and worked to get voters out for the last day of early voting. (For some inexplicable reason, there was no early voting over the weekend – when it would be most convenient for the working people who comprised most of those we were targeting.) On Saturday and Sunday mornings, we gathered together with about 100 other volunteers at a local home to get the routes we would cover each day. There, we were greeted by our cheerleader-in-chief, Beto (at least among this group, he had attained single name status – like Prince, Sting or Madonna). He had made this race his top priority since ending his White House bid in November. He also joined the larger group for dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Saturday night.

Team Texas

With Beto

Here are a few random highlights from our experiences:

• One lady said she hadn’t had time to Early Vote since she was too busy getting ready for the Chinese/Vietnamese New Year’s celebration.  But even though she was busy, she ran back into the house to get her Voter Registration card to show us. We left her with a plan to vote on Election Day. About a half block away, we heard her calling out.  She had run back home to pack us a box of freshly-made egg rolls, offering both her vegetarian and meat options – delicious!

• A group of 5-7 year olds playing in a cul-de-sac asked us, “What’s voting?”  When told them it was how grownups decided which one of them should make the big decisions, they said, “Oh that’s what our mom does!  She’ll be happy to hear about this!”

• One middle aged African American man said, “The fact that you made the effort to come to my door to ask for my vote has persuaded me. I’ll get out and vote.” We asked, “Your wife, too?” “Absolutely,” he replied.

• Some of our group asked this gentleman for directions.  He was so excited to tell his story about meeting Beto!

• At one home, a 19-year old answered the door. He was not the person on our canvas list, but he was happy to find out there was an election, and who he should vote for, since it was his first time eligible.

• A group of teenagers resoundingly replied, “We’re IN!

• “Be Safe!” A number of our team got this advice when leaving “Likely” houses in conservative neighborhoods. After a particularly unfriendly house, one of the neighbors greeted us saying, ”Thank you, we’ve already voted. God bless you! This is a terrible neighborhood to doorbell, but you’ll be OK three doors down.”

• Even when some people had been canvassed multiple times, they told us they appreciated it, since it must be very important that we would visit them that many times!

• We canvassed the first three days in clear skies, but over Sunday night that changed to unhealthy air quality levels. (Despite progress, Houston air quality is still among the worst in the nation. Yet another reason to elect Democrats!) That took a couple members of our crew who were particularly sensitive to air quality out of commission on Monday.

On Election Day, the remaining members of the group divided up between poll greeting, flyer drops, and phone banking. One of the poll greeters had an African American woman recognize her. “You came to my door! That’s why I’m here!”

Most of the group flew back to Seattle together on Tuesday night right around the time the polls were closing. We got the results when we landed. Alas, they were not what we had hoped for. Dr. Eliz came up short, with 41% of the vote. 

Only about 20% of registered voters turned out – high for a special election, but low compared with a general election. While the outcome was disappointing, these two candidates will meet up again in November. And state Democrats note that there are another dozen seats or more in the state legislature higher on their target list for the Fall when turnout should be considerably better.  It’s all just part of a long term effort to turn Texas Blue.

And for Team Texas, it was an adventure!