Friends,
Over the past few days, as the coronavirus outbreak has rapidly spread across our nation, I’ve been especially grateful for all of the Emerge alums serving in elected office right now. Democratic women like London Breed, mayor of San Francisco, and Kim Schrier, congresswoman and physician from Washington, are delivering the steady hand of leadership our nation so desperately needs.
And we need more smart, effective leaders like them to run for office. This national crisis – and the Trump administration’s wildly disappointing response – has brought that into even sharper focus. But it has also demanded we go back to the drawing board with our training strategy – and dream up bold, innovative ways to reach the next generation of Democratic candidates in the face of uncertainty.
So here’s the deal: Emerge won’t be canceling any of our trainings because of COVID-19. We’ll bring them online – and double down to make sure that every single Democratic woman has the know-how she needs to run and WIN. There are 44 trainings on the books between now and the end of May. And we’re going to provide extra support to our alums and our 27 affiliates to meet our huge 2020 goal: putting 1,000 Democratic women on the ballot.
We’re also revamping our curriculum to help our candidates pivot their campaigns during the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve created innovative, specialized training covering:
And we’re making it available to any Democratic woman running for office – not just our alums – to help Democrats win as many victories as we can.
Our number one priority is always the health and safety of the Emerge sisterhood, so we’re doing everything we can to protect our community as the virus spreads. But this is absolutely not the time to take our foot off the gas. We’re going to have to fight twice as hard to flip seats blue and defeat GOP extremists down the ballot – and that mission is more important than ever.
Thank you for everything you do for this community. Stay healthy and stay safe,
A’shanti F. Gholar
President of Emerge