This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
David Beard:
Hello and welcome. I’m David Beard, contributing editor for Daily Kos Elections.
David Nir:
And I’m David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. Welcome to the second season of The Downballot, a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency, from Senate to city council. You can subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts, and please leave us a five-star rating and review.
David Beard:
Well, it’s been a few weeks and a ton has managed to happen in the world of politics and elections since we’ve been gone. What are we covering?
David Nir:
It was not a sleepy holiday season and not a sleepy start to January. Of course, we have to talk about all of the insanity on Capitol Hill, but there are a couple of other races for House speaker, at the state level in Pennsylvania and Ohio, that threw some real curve balls. We want to hit those. There was actually a primary in December, believe it or not, in Virginia, that we are going to recap. There is of course also George Santos and his never-ending saga of lies. We are going to let you know what will happen when he eventually has to resign. And finally, there has been some big movement against a pick for New York’s most important court by Democratic governor Kathy Hochul.
And then in the second half of the program we are going to be talking with Sara Garcia, who is the strategy and outreach manager of Crooked Media. That’s an organization you almost certainly are familiar with since they are the creators of the very popular Pod Save America podcast. She has a lot to tell us about how things work at Crooked Media and all of the fantastic offerings they have and what’s in store for 2023. This is going to be a very fun episode on our return from our holiday break. So let’s get rolling.
Beard, I am so glad that my job involves following politics super, super closely all day long because if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten any work done for the last two days watching this utter, utter shitshow to end all shitshows that is taking place in the United States House of Representatives. What the fuck?
David Beard:
Yeah, it has been a truly incredible past couple of days and potentially many more days because we have no idea how or when this will end. It’s literally changing hour by hour. We’re of course recording this on Wednesday evening. So by the time you’re listening to it, Kevin McCarthy may not be GOP leader anymore or maybe he’ll be Speaker. We really don’t know. Most likely we’ll just still have a continuing stalemate where about 200 GOP Reps. want Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker, about 20 GOP Reps. really don’t want him to be speaker and are continually voting for other candidates. And 212 Democrats are laughing all the way to voting for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker, even though we know he’s almost certainly not going to become speaker. We’ve had six votes in the House so far as of this recording. Jeffries got 212 every time, every single Democrat. Republicans have been all over the place, particularly the dissenters who keep voting for different candidates just to not vote for McCarthy.
I think the biggest takeaway that we can take from this in terms of the next two years is that the House is going to be a shit show all year long and into 2024. This Republican caucus with a five vote majority has no ability to consolidate around anything, much less a Speaker, much less any sort of legislation, much less trying to push that legislation through a Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden. So it is really just going to be a mess of chaos the entire time. Whoever ends up becoming the Speaker for the Republicans is going to have to cut deals with Democrats to keep the government open or reopen it after a shutdown. They’re going to have to figure out a way not to have the debt limit destroy the world economy. And so this is just what we’re going to have to deal with and see for the next few years, which is A, kind of scary, but also B, probably good for Democrats going into 2024 when the GOP proves that they cannot govern at any level.
David Nir:
But the United States House was not the only legislative body in America where leaders were being chosen this week. A number of state legislatures were engaged in the same process as well. And something totally unexpected happened in Pennsylvania where at the last moment, every single Democrat in the Chamber plus 16 out of 101 Republicans banded together to support moderate Democrat Mark Rozzi to become Speaker of the State House, who immediately announced that he would become an independent, making him the first non-aligned speaker in Pennsylvania state history. And he promised to have staff from both sides and to govern as a true independent. But obviously he was elected as a Democrat, and he mostly got this job with Democratic support. How we got here was a complete, complete surprise.
After November, Democrats had won 102 seats and Republicans had won 101 seats. So it should seem like Democrats should have been able to elect a Speaker on their own. However, three of those Democratic-held seats were vacant. One was held by a member who actually died shortly before the election, and two were held by members who won higher office and had to resign their seats. So as a result, Republicans had a nominal 101 to 99 majority. And it was unclear whether Republicans were going to be able to get their own Speaker through. If they did, how long that speakership would last? These are all three pretty safe or very safe Democratic seats, the vacant ones. So once those special elections happen, then Democrats would be back to a 102-101 majority. When that happens, would Democrats then be able to replace a Republican speaker? There was also a dispute still ongoing actually over when to actually hold those special elections. The Republicans want them to be further off in the future so as to keep Democrats from filling those seats sooner rather than later.
So Democrat Joanna McClinton was supposed to be the speaker. She would’ve been the first Black woman Speaker in Pennsylvania history, but instead out of nowhere she wound up backing Rozzi for the job. It’s really not clear if this is intended to be a long-term arrangement or if once Democrats actually have that legit 102-101 majority with members, no more vacancies if they’ll switch horses and go back to McClinton. But it was like I say, a total surprise. And even though Rozzi is saying he is an independent and again got the job with some Republican support, the fact is this is a flip from Republicans. They no longer control the State House, which they have controlled for more than a decade.
David Beard:
I think it’s a little unclear. Obviously these seem to come together very quickly about Rozzi’s future intentions in terms of he says he is an independent now and he wants to govern as an independent speaker. Of course it does look like at some point, as you said, there’ll be 102 Democrats if you include him again, does he intend to try to sort of keep this going? Is this something where he’s going to return to the Democratic Party and step back as soon as there are 102 Democrats again? That’s a little unclear and still to be worked out, but obviously, either way, a far better situation than Republicans trying to govern the Chamber when they did not win a majority of the vote in the last election.
David Nir:
Something similar actually happened in the Ohio State House. That was much, much more surprising because Republicans have a huge advantage there, thanks in part to heavily gerrymandered maps. A while back, Derek Merrin had won the vote of his caucus to become the House speaker, won the vote of the GOP caucus. However, this week, instead of that happening, all 32 Democrats and 22 of the 67 Republicans in the Chamber united to back Jason Stephens instead. Now, Jason Stephens is still quite conservative, but is widely regarded as being less conservative than Derek Merrin. So basically, Democrats united with more pragmatic Republicans to avoid an even worse choice.
What’s pretty ironic about this is that this is actually the second time in recent years that something like this has happened in the Ohio State House. Merrin was part of a group of Republicans who joined with a majority of Democrats to help Larry Householder become Speaker over another Republican. Householder now is a awaiting trial for corruption. So that didn’t really work out. Why did Democrats do this aside from electing maybe the slightly lesser of two evils? The Democratic leader in the State House, Allison Russo, said there was no “grand deal” with Stephens, the new Republican speaker. She did say though there was something of an understanding on how they would work together on certain topics including redistricting. We’ll see if Stephens really sticks to his word on that, or once he’s Speaker he just decides to toss any of those probably verbal agreements in the trash. But either way, Republicans got another huge surprise in Ohio and did not get what they expected.
David Beard:
Absolutely. And in a state like Ohio where Democrats are in rough shape, obviously it’s a pink or sort of reddish-lean state. Democrats have been really, really hurt by gerrymandering and by just having their votes very concentrated now in a few cities. Anywhere where you can have some power to make some positive change, I think you have to take that opportunity even if it’s electing a relatively conservative speaker if they’re the better of the two candidates, which I think the Democrats here did.
So now I want to take us to a couple of the stories that happened over the holidays, one of which was the primary in the special election in Virginia’s 4th district. We previewed it at the end of the year last year, and the result took place. More than 27,000 Democrats voted in this firehouse primary that was put together very quickly. There were only a handful of locations. Many people had to wait hours to make sure that they voted. But there was an incredible amount of turnout to make sure that a good candidate won the Democratic nomination for this seat because it’s such a blue seat.
And as we talked about, state Senator Jennifer McClellan was the establishment candidate that had been endorsed by Virginia Democrats across the board including the U.S. Senators, and including the mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney. She absolutely dominated the controversial opponent, Joe Morrissey, a fellow state Senator who has been mired in scandal after scandal and decided to run for this seat. The Democratic Party came together to stop him, and they did so extremely successfully. McClellan won nearly 85% of the vote to Morrissey’s 13.5%. There’s not much more of a spanking than you will see than 85 to 13 in a race that people at least thought had the potential to be close. So McClellan’s going to face Republican Leon Benjamin in a special election on February 21st, but she’s expected to win that extremely easily and then will go on to Congress in a safe blue seat soon afterwards.
David Nir:
You know, if this nightmare mess in the House keeps going on, McClellan could be seated and have the chance to vote for Speaker.
David Beard:
Oh God, I don’t know if that would be hilarious or awful. I don’t know how many days I can take this.
David Nir:
I think there’s a German word that means both hilarious and awful.
David Beard:
Of course.
David Nir:
So speaking of hilarious and awful, we got to talk about George Santos in New York’s 3rd Congressional District. I took some time off over the holidays. I spent every day reading about George Santos. Because how could you not? It was so amazing. There’s no point in even discussing the lies he’s told about his biography because it’s all lies. And when he’s caught in a lie, he just tells more lies.
David Nir:
What really matters though is all the legal trouble that he faces. He’s under investigation—this is incredible—by local authorities, by state authorities, by federal authorities, and by international authorities because Brazilian prosecutors said they were reopening a case into some check fraud that he engaged in many years ago. I think the biggest problem for him is going to be the campaign finance stuff. A lot of it is very complex, but the bottom line is it appears that he spent money from donors on personal use; on travel and stuff like that. And that is just one of the most black-and-white things that you cannot do. It is one of the rare crimes that members of Congress, or he’s actually not a member of Congress yet, members of Congress-elect, go to jail for, quite a number have over the years. And I think that there’s probably no way Santos will resign on his own, but prosecutors will want that resignation maybe in exchange for some leniency.
It’s a big feather in their cap, obviously, to get a member of Congress to resign and send them to jail. And I think that’s ultimately what’s going to happen here. If and when that does happen, there would be a special election. The good news is that the law in New York was changed last year. It used to be that governors had wide latitude over when to call special elections to fill vacant seats. And Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor, he was notorious for delaying special elections as long as it suited him for purely partisan purposes. Now though, once there’s a vacancy, the governor has 10 days to call a special election, and that election has to happen within 70 to 80 days after that 10-day period. So we would know when it would happen sooner rather than later.
The one problem still is that in New York, special elections, the nominees are chosen by the parties rather than through primaries. So it would be just a group of insiders on both sides who would pick their candidates. So there’s really no telling who they might choose in that situation. We can bet that any special election would be hotly contested. Obviously the GOP majority in the house right now is so small, just five seats. They would do anything they can to defend this. Democrats of course, this was their seat until the 2022 elections and they really, really want to take it back. Biden won the district by about nine points. It’s almost certain, though, that Republican Lee Zeldin carried the seat in the governor’s race last year. So I would say this probably starts out as something of a toss-up, if and when there is a special election, but it will be a huge, huge, huge one, if and when that happens.
David Beard:
Absolutely, and I think as we’ve seen, the wheels of justice can sometimes turn pretty slow. Occasionally they turn pretty quick, so you never know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if this special election doesn’t take place until end of this year, into 2024. So it’s something we’re just going to have to keep an eye on as these many, many investigations close in on George Santos. But I would be pretty surprised if he makes it to the end of this Congress without resigning. And you’re absolutely right, this is going to be a hotly contested seat whenever this special election takes place.
David Nir:
There is one last bit of New York news we want to finish with, and it doesn’t directly concern an election, but it concerns a topic that is of great importance to us here at The Downballot and also can have a huge impact on elections. New York’s highest court, it’s called the Court of Appeals—there is currently a vacant seat on that court because the Chief Judge Janet DiFiore unexpectedly announced her resignation last year. Now, even though every member of the court was appointed by a Democratic governor, because Andrew Cuomo had picked a number of reactionary jurists to serve on the court, a four-member conservative majority had emerged in recent years that voted almost always in lockstep. This majority has repeatedly ruled against victims of police misconduct, workers who are seeking compensation for getting injured on the job, tenants who’d been overcharged by their landlords.
And most notoriously of all, this quartet voted to reject the maps for Congress and state legislature that Democrats in the legislature had passed, and that ruling was on entirely specious grounds. Instead, a Republican judge in upstate New York got to oversee the process for redrawing those maps, and the new maps wound up really hurting Democrats in November, certainly in the U.S. House, cost them several seats.
DiFiore, the Chief Judge was part of that four-member conservative contingent. So her leaving gives governor Kathy Hochul the chance to appoint someone who would take the court in a more progressive direction. The shocking thing is, she decided to name one of the most conservative judges in New York state, Hector LaSalle to fill that role. And LaSalle has been terrible in so many ways, particularly with regard to criminal defendants, labor organizing rights, and reproductive rights. He helped shut down an investigation by the state Attorney General into so-called crisis pregnancy centers.
And the amazing thing here is there was no reason for Hochul to pick someone like this, and progressives and labor unions immediately came out gunning for LaSalle and opposing Hochul’s pick. And truly the astonishing thing is that judicial nominations in New York state tend to be these really sleepy affairs, but we are now up to 14 democratic state senators who have come out against LaSalle and against their very powerful governor from their own party saying they will not support his nomination. And that number is really critical. There are 42 Democrats in the State Senate. There are 63 total members. And so what this means is that enough Democrats have now come out against LaSalle that in order for him to have a chance of being confirmed, Hochul would have to rely on votes from Republican state senators. And that is just a humiliating position to be in when your own party has a literal supermajority in the State Senate.
The other thing is that I think Republicans are enjoying watching Hochul twist on this because not a single one has come out for LaSalle, even though he’s probably the best that they could hope for. Right now, progressives are putting intense pressure on Hochul. They want her to withdraw the pick. She obviously should. There are any number of fantastic progressive mainstream jurists who would make excellent choices. And I really don’t see this ending well for her. If she has to rely on Republicans to ram LaSalle’s nomination through, boy, that is going to be super, super ugly and maybe even call her future career as a Democrat into doubt.
David Beard:
Yeah, I think there’s a good chance, given that we’re already at 14, that a majority of the Democratic caucus could very well come out in opposition to LaSalle. And I don’t know how the Democrats could then let him go through on the back of a minority of Democrats and Republicans. So you have to think that we’re heading towards the very real possibility that he gets voted down or withdrawn, more likely in these sorts of situations, before the vote. It’s just such a mistake from Hochul, who seems to have just so totally misread where the Democratic party is at in New York.
Post Cuomo, there’s a real effort to actually create a Democratic party that is progressive, that is focused on making things better for New Yorkers, and actually moving on some of these issues. And she had the opportunity to be at the forefront of that, she still has big majorities of Democrats in both chambers. She just won her own election for a four-year term. And instead, she seems to have been cowed by all of this, tough on crime, old-school thought, that she had to appoint somebody who was super conservative or people would attack her for being bad on crime and letting people out on bail and all of this stuff that Republicans constantly use to fearmonger about New York City. And so that was just incredibly disappointing.
And just from a political mistake, putting someone as your nominee who has the opposition of labor unions in New York is just, like, Politics 101 mistake. Now, if just progressive groups had been opposed and LaSalle had labor support on his side, I think he probably sails through without too much trouble. But the fact that he has this anti-labor record and a bunch of labor unions have come out in opposition, and these are labor unions that these Senators rely on to win their elections and to fund their campaigns is just such a mistake and such an error. And the hope is that this will end up with a more progressive nominee after LaSalle is hopefully gone.
David Nir:
Well, it has been a hell of a start to this year. There is so much more we could talk about, but we need to make time for our guest, Sara Garcia, who is the Strategy and Outreach Manager for an organization you very likely have heard of, Crooked Media, the progressive powerhouse that is home to Pod Save America. We are going to hear all about the work that her organization does to advance the progressive cause, and about her favorite shows that Crooked Media puts out. It’s a really fun conversation, so please stick with us.
Welcome back everyone. We are so pleased to have on the show this week, Sara Garcia, who is the Strategy and Outreach Manager for Crooked Media, a company that I am sure many of our listeners know as the producers of the very popular podcast, Pod Save America. Sara, thank you for being here.
Sara Garcia:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m very, very excited to join you.
David Nir:
Fantastic. So I am sure a lot of our listeners would like to know, probably because they are also listeners of the Pod Save empire themselves, what was the background story of the creation of Crooked Media? Why did it come to be and how did it come to be this juggernaut that it is now?
Sara Garcia:
Yeah, that is a really great question. So to give the spiel, Crooked Media is the great progressive media network that it is. It was founded in 2017 by former Obama aides, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor, and Jon Favreau (not actor-writer-director Jon Favreau, very different person, but former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau). And in the wake of their time in the Obama White House, they wanted to create something with the mission to inform and entertain and inspire action in a way that they weren’t seeing other media and news outlets do at the time.
And since they started, Crooked has launched more than 30 podcasts and digital series that showcases those unique stories and voices across news, politics, entertainment, and culture. And most relevant to this conversation, I think the thing that makes Crooked unique, is their launching of Vote Save America ahead of the 2018 midterms, which is a massive initiative and Vote Save America is kind of like the one-stop shop for everything that voters might need to get smart, get involved, and engage year-round in civic action. Whether that’s voting or volunteering, or supporting groups that are trying to make their communities more equitable and have high impact. And so Vote Save America is a really unique and core part of Crooked’s mission. And I think one of the things that has made kind of the Crooked Media monolith really, really impactful over the course of the last few years.
David Nir:
So, I sort of feel that there is some synchronicity in terms of how Daily Kos and the progressive blogosphere got its start and how Crooked Media got its start. Back in 2002, we saw the country getting ready to march off to a completely pointless and terrible war in Iraq. And a lot of liberals at the time looked around, they saw members of the Democratic Party, leaders of the Democratic Party joining this march, and sort of felt like there was no outlet for our voices to really be heard in the media landscape at the time. And correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me like post-Trump there was a similar gap, certainly in terms of, shall we say, aural media — the world of TV broadcast, radio broadcasts — definitely still for the most part missing that kind of voice saying, “whoa, this is all messed up and this is all really wrong,” and it was into that void that Crooked Media really kind of filled an important gap.
Sara Garcia:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think especially in the wake of Trumpism and everything else, I think Crooked really wanted to stand apart as a place where you could go to hear things like it is, and not hear the punditry, not hear the really specific gloss that a lot of traditional news organizations tend to put on things, and when something is really fucked up, just be able to say that was a really fucked up thing that just happened. And not only that, but I think also pointing to what can someone do about it. Because I think that was another really, really big gap, is there was all this anger, all this fear, and no place to really put it and channel it and funnel it into action.
And so Crooked really wanted to be that place where people could go and hear about the really messed up things that were happening, but then also figure out, “oh, but I myself can actually do something to change this,” or make an impact, or change the course of history and protect democracy. And so that’s what Crooked wanted to stand to be, is a place where you could go and not only learn about what’s happening, but do something about it. So that’s what we’ve tried to endeavor to do since.
David Beard:
And one of the big things that, like David said, Daily Kos and Crooked Media share is this idea of being both a media company that seeks to inform, and a political organization that seeks to see good Democrats elected, and that can sometimes be a balance that you have to think about as you’re going forward. And specifically as Crooked Media expanded from just purely political podcasts as it sort of initially started into a whole range of media outside of that, how do you balance being a progressive company, being a political company, and also wanting to do media on mental healthcare and things like that?
Sara Garcia:
Yeah, it’s a great question and a really important point. I think Vote Save America is kind of what helps to bridge all of those pieces and connect all the dots there. And we work to connect the stories that we’re covering with that meaningful strategic action, and utilize our platform to connect people with those organizations, those campaigns, those candidates where our audience’s time, focus and dollars can really have an outsize impact. And so not only that, but connecting our podcasts and our producers with people who are doing things in place. So if they are talking about a story about mental health, that they’re talking directly with community organizers who are working on that issue within communities. If they’re talking about a labor issue, that they’re connecting with the unions or really connecting with pro-labor candidates who are running and can serve that mission well. And so educating and mobilizing voters and figuring out how we can also target fundraising efforts is a big part of how we marry our content and strategy with Crooked on the political team at Vote Save America.
Part of how we do that, I think in 2018, our primary goal was to be a voter education resource, and we’ve kind of continued to fill that mission through every election cycle with a content strategy to create engaging and informative content for voters across all 50 states. And so beyond just the podcast, we also do voter guides and donor guides, and we utilize our social media to spotlight down ballot candidates, as well as issue-based campaigns and other things. And so we’ve seen that when we invest in grassroots organizers and listen to people who are actually doing the work on the ground, especially those who have historically been marginalized or excluded, it can have a huge impact. And it’s really great to see how a platform like Crooked can help connect people to the resources that they need to just get active and be informed voters.
David Nir:
So I’m particularly curious to know how you came to Crooked Media and what your background was before you joined the organization.
Sara Garcia:
Yeah, I have a weird kind of zigzag way of getting to my time here at Crooked. My background is not explicitly in political work. I actually did a lot of work in higher education policy prior to my job here at Crooked. So I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, far and away from D.C., never really understood how to get into politics or break into that field, but was super inspired by the Obama era, and wanted to figure out how to make change. And so I came to D.C. through the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Shout out to them. It’s an amazing organization that helps connect people and get their foot in the door in different places in D.C. And so through that fellowship, worked as a higher ed fellow for Senator Patty Murray on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, and kind of fell in love with higher education policy.
And so did a few different jobs in D.C. focused solely on higher ed policy, and specifically issues of equity and access in higher education. And so right before coming to Crooked, I was a political appointee in the Biden administration in the Department of Education doing higher ed work there, which I loved. And higher education policy is my nerdy number one love. I will talk about that until I’m blue in the face. But in doing that work, I got to meet with and work with so many great organizers and activists across the country, as well as political leaders.
And I really, really love doing the policy work. I really love doing the nitty gritty figuring out of, okay, how can we create really strong equitable solutions for folks in this one specific area, but I recognized that the road to get to implementing good policy solutions is really made so much smoother and easier when you have great leaders in office and when you’re platforming and lifting up people, or have people at the table who are directly impacted or who are doing that work in their communities, and are representative of their communities, and have a real world understanding of the hurdles that folks have to overcome to access what should be basic human and fundamental rights.
And so I wanted to do a job where I could help ensure that that happens, and work towards that mission of getting good leaders in place, and advocating for really good meaningful solutions. And so in recognition of all that, I decided to make a bit of a career pivot and came to a place where I could just do all of that. And so that’s what Crooked Media has been for me and why I came to Vote Save America, was to kind of connect people with how they can get directly involved so we can get better leaders in office who can deliver better policy solutions that actually work for people.
David Beard:
And so tell us a little bit about your role as strategy and outreach manager? A lot of titles in D.C, some things are very clear, and some things can be a little vague. So tell us what you do in the day-to-day to support Crooked Media and the progressive movement in your job?
Sara Garcia:
Yeah. It’s a really good way to put it. D.C. job titles can be very, very strange and wide and mean very different things, but so I work with the politics team-
David Nir:
Yeah. Good luck trying to tell your grandma, right?
Sara Garcia:
Yeah, exactly. No, my family has no idea what I do. I’ve tried to explain it so many times. But the best way I can explain it, so I work on the political team, and at our core, we’re here to execute on Crooked Media’s chief mission, which is to mobilize people that we reach through our content into impactful action on legislation issues and elections through our Vote Save America initiative, as well as our other political and social initiatives. And so I get a really fun job, and I get to work all across the country with different state partners to find and seed those opportunities for our audience and for our community members. So figuring out which organizations are doing what, how can we be supportive of their efforts, whether it be through dollars or through volunteers, what elections are happening, and which candidates are really great, and how can we be supportive of them, and connecting all the dots, and really breaking down and trying to create a digestible platform that people can plug into to figure out how and where they can get involved and get engaged.
So I get to do a lot of that work, which I really, really like, or again, just connect people with ways that they can get active and get involved. And so this includes fundraising and volunteering, and I get to really kind of work with the organizations and groups and activists and candidates and campaigns that we plug people into. So that’s kind of the 20,000 foot view of what I do here at Crooked.
David Nir:
So Sara, I got to know you recently because the Pennsylvania State House Democratic Caucus put out a tweet thanking various partners for helping them in their overtime battles to ensure that their amazing victory, which we talked about at the top of the show in taking back the chamber, actually stood up. And I saw this tweet and I thought, anyone involved in this kind of effort really understands progressive politics, and understands how power is really created at the state level, and that’s someone that I want to know. And so I asked the Pennsylvania Dems to introduce us, and I’ve really enjoyed getting to work with you over the last few months, but I would love to hear more, and I’m sure our listeners would as well about any of your favorite projects that you’ve gotten to work on with other groups that they may be familiar with, or maybe not familiar with in the progressive ecosystem?
Sara Garcia:
Yeah. And I’m so glad you brought up Pennsylvania House Dems. I love them. That was one of my favorite partners to work with this cycle, and I think indicative of how important these down ballot races are. And I think it was just a really good example of where a few volunteers can just have such a high impact and make a massive difference, since the vote margins there are so small. And so organizations like that are ones that I look for all the time. Who is doing that really, really nitty-gritty work at the State House or State Senate level that people aren’t paying attention to that we can plug into that could really use our help. And so we’ve done that in a few places. Pennsylvania is one of them. In Michigan, we’ve worked a lot with the Michigan Dems of course, or Michigan People’s Campaign, which is doing a lot of great work there.
Northeast Native Dems is another group that we’ve done a lot of work with in Arizona to kind of do a lot of voter mobilization work in communities there. But a really good example of how we utilize organizations and try to support them is our Every Last Vote Fund, which is a fund that we put together to make sure that every voice can be heard in the face of unprecedented voter suppression efforts, and that means supporting groups that are mobilizing Black, brown, indigenous, and other marginalized communities. And so for the 2022 cycle, part of that fund, we worked with PowerPAC, which is a social justice organization that kind of strategically directs financial resources to local and state organizations that are working to deliver wins in areas where the underrepresentation of BIPOC communities has been particularly acute. So states like Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, just to name a few.
So they were a big partner as part of that fund, and we really enjoyed working with them and getting them some resources through Every Last Vote. And we really do mean every last vote. We’ve continued that fund. It’s going even now. So for anyone who thought that the election cycle was over, it really isn’t, because there’s a special election happening January 10th in Virginia. That is a big part of our Every Last Vote fund. So for folks who might not know, it’s a special election to fill a State Senate seat that was vacated by a Republican that was elected to Congress. And so we’re working with the New Virginia Majority to fundraise their efforts to organize voters for that 7th Senate District. So that’s another thing that’s going on right now that I’m really excited about and seems really small, but can actually have a really big impact in response to the Dobbs decision, and the repeal of Roe v. Wade.
We launched our Fuck Bans Action Plan, which was a huge endeavor where we did a bunch of fundraising and volunteering to support organizations that were doing either direct, immediate abortion access, or were doing long-term infrastructure building to do voter registration in states where they were repealing choice efforts. And we also used that to support the ballot initiatives that were going on around choice. So that was something that we had to launch and get off the ground very quickly, but brought a lot of really great support to a lot of really great, amazing organizations across the country. And so that was another big one that I was really happy that we launched in the past year. And it’s still going on, so folks can still donate to the Fuck Bans Action Plan, if they would like to.
David Nir:
I absolutely love the name of that program, because there is an authenticity to it that I think is something that we at Daily Kos really feel in ourselves. Because when Dobbs came down, our feeling wasn’t oh, that’s terrible. Oh, this is too bad. Oh, I’m so sad. It was fuck this shit, because that’s what it was. It was bullshit. And I think that it’s really important to be able to speak to what people are feeling, and you get these press releases, even from Democrats, that can be so anodyne, and just use language that really is not where people are at. And I think it’s a really important space in the political world to reach people and say, yeah, we get what you’re feeling, we’re feeling it too. And to harness that energy, because you want to tap into that anger. And that was successful in November, as we saw.
Sara Garcia:
No, I totally agree. And when we launched the Fuck Bans Action Plan, we saw our biggest spike in donations, our biggest spike in volunteer signups. People were looking for something to do. They were angry, and I think being able, again, to meet people where they’re at, to call a spade a spade to say, this is fucking terrible, fuck all of this. Sign up like, no, here’s how you can help, was really, really helpful. And we were able to launch that really quickly, and part of my job was to figure out, okay, who’s doing work where, who needs the support? Because a lot of times people want to get involved, but they just don’t know where to start.
There’s a whole country, there’s a lot of things happening, there’s a lot of organizations out there. People want to know where they can have impact. And so I think just really breaking things down for folks can just make such a huge difference because it can be overwhelming. Particularly when you’re angry and when you’re sad and things are happening, you might not have the resources or faculties to dig through everything. And so I think being a resource where you can just go and channel whatever you’re feeling in a way that’s simple and digestible is so critical, and makes a huge difference. Otherwise, you’re just shouting into a void, and that’s no fun.
David Nir:
I couldn’t agree more. And I may have to steal that idea and do a Fuck the GOP fund for 2024.
Sara Garcia:
I love it. Do it. Absolutely.
David Beard:
Now, I’m sure a ton of our listeners are also Pod Save America listeners, and other Crooked Media properties, and I’m sure you get this question a lot as an employee of Crooked Media. But out of all the podcasts, out of all the articles, do you have a particular favorite podcast or favorite episode that is your go-to when you’re recommending things to people?
Sara Garcia:
Oh man, this is tough. I love everything that we do. Of course-
David Nir:
Are we going to get you in trouble with your coworkers?
Sara Garcia:
No, no, I hope not. No, I love everything. But of course there are some things that I just, whenever I get asked this question, I have to plug. The one thing I continually plug, it’s one of my favorite podcasts and I listen to it daily. It’s our daily news podcast called What A Day. I highly recommend it. Again, it’s such a helpful rundown of the news of the day, important stories, things to be aware of, issues. They do a really great job of spotlighting things that are really local, like down ballot things as well. And it’s just a really great, and it’s super short, it’s a very quick 20 minute-ish podcast. So make it part of your daily routine, whether you’re getting things together in the morning, or commuting, or making dinner or whatever, highly recommended. It’s just a really great easy breakdown of what’s happening.
And again, just talks about things like the way that we experience and feel them, and doesn’t have a lot of that ridiculous gloss on things that can miss the mark. And so highly recommend that one. Another one that I have to plug just because of how relevant it is to what’s going on is our podcast Strict Scrutiny, which covers all things Supreme Court, and particularly in an era where you can wake up one day and the council of nine have stripped you of another fundamental right, it’s a great place to go to figure out what’s happening, why it happened, what cases mean, what their impacts are going to be. Particularly as someone who is not a lawyer, I find it really helpful, just because the Supreme Court is a very opaque thing, and it’s a black box. And so they do a really great job on that podcast of breaking things down. So highly recommend that one as well.
David Nir:
So are there any new projects or shows that we can look forward to from Crooked Media in the coming year?
Sara Garcia:
Yes, absolutely. The big thing, our very, very big thing that I’m really stoked to launch into this year is our No Off Years campaign, which ‘no off years’ is exactly how it sounds, but was born out of our belief that political and civic engagement doesn’t just come around every two years or during an election year. It’s an all the time practice, to ensure the strength of our democracy. In 2023, our No Off Years campaign is going to provide opportunities to engage around a lot of the odd year elections that are happening, and build year-round infrastructure, especially in key states that are going to be really important in 2024, and holds elected officials accountable, and advocate for a progressive agenda at every level, federal, state, local government. And so plugging into it, people will be able to engage around activities that include voter registration, voter education, some deep canvassing, which are those really important early conversations that people can have via phone or text, around the doors, to talk with those infrequent and swing voters about the issues that matter to them, that speak to them. That’s a really important thing.
And then a big part will also be fighting myth and disinformation, which is just a never ending thing. So that’s a really, really big initiative for us, and it starts now. And our virtual volunteer community is going to be the home of this program, and we’ll continue supporting all of this work as we lay the groundwork for 2024. So if folks want to get involved in that, they absolutely can, and I hope that they do. And you can just go to VoteSaveAmerica.com to figure out how to sign up and get involved and get engaged in that. That’s going to be a really, really big initiative for us this year and our way, again, to just keep people continually engaged in what’s happening. In terms of content, we recently just announced a new exciting international pod called Pod Save the UK, which is an extension of the Pod Save America franchise, but will be all about the UK. So if folks are interested in what’s happening there, that’ll be something that we’re launching this year, and it’ll be a new fun endeavor for the company.
David Beard:
It’s funny actually because we launched The Downballot last year in anticipation obviously of 2022, and the midterms, and we talked a lot about the midterms. And I actually got a couple of questions from some of my less politically engaged friends that were like, “Oh, what are you going to do with the podcast now? Are you guys going to pack it in? What are you going to do for 2023?” And I was like, “There are a ton of things for us to talk about In 2023.” The Virginia special election you brought up, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, all the mayor’s elections, all the November elections in those states that have them. There is a ton to do in 2023, so let’s not let people get disengaged.
David Nir:
You need to find better friends.
David Beard:
Oh yeah, I think that’s the problem.
Sara Garcia:
I know it’s hard, I get that people are really tired and exhausted. I totally get that. But it’s just these things never end, and you just have to… Democracy is literally on the line. It’s at stake all the time, every day. And so there’s always something going on, and always something that you can do to help ensure that things don’t eventually just fall apart. And maybe it’s an inevitability, but there are still small things we can do to protect what are very, very fragile democratic structures now. So I’m with you. There’s a lot that we got to gear up for this year.
David Nir:
We have been talking with Sara Garcia, the strategy and outreach manager of Crooked Media, the company best known for the podcast Pod Save America. Sara, you mentioned a whole number of programs and shows and products that your company puts out. What are the best and easiest places for our listeners to find all of the amazing stuff that you do?
Sara Garcia:
Yes, so highly recommend going to VoteSaveAmerica.com. That is just a great entry point to just figure out the fun initiatives that we have going on, ways to plug in, ways to get engaged. And you can also see some of our really great content on VoteSaveAmerica.com, but also Crooked Media, you can find all of our podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. So we have a lot of great content to, if you are curious about what’s going on in really any given area, just check out any and all of our amazing podcast slate that we have. But again, the great one-stop shop is VoteSaveAmerica.com.
David Nir:
Well, Sarah, it has been a pleasure having you on. Thank you so much for joining us.
Sara Garcia:
Thank you all so much for having me. It’s been such a pleasure speaking with y’all.
David Beard:
That’s all from us this week. Thanks to Sara Garcia for joining us. The Downballot comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts. You can reach out to us by emailing [email protected]. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Downballot on Apple Podcasts, and leave us a five star rating and review. Thanks to our producer Cara Zelaya, and editor, Trever Jones. We’ll be back next week with a new episode.
