State Summit 2024: Celebrating Our Past and Preparing for the Fight to Come
By Daria Dawson, America Votes Executive Director
In March, America Votes hosted our 15th State Summit. Aside from being our largest State Summit ever, this year’s Summit was special for two reasons: First, the 2024 cycle marks America Votes’ 20th year of educating and engaging voters to build a stronger, more representative democracy. Second — and even more important — we currently face the greatest threat to our democracy in the history of our country, and this Summit brought together the groups that are going to be on the front lines of the fight to preserve our democratic institutions and safeguard our fundamental rights.
The overlap of this important milestone for America Votes with such a critical election for our country made this year’s State Summit a unique opportunity to not only reflect on the impact our coalition has had over the past 20 years, but also think strategically about how we can use the lessons learned from our past successes to win again this November.
The stakes could not be higher. We have seen what happens when MAGA extremists win: they roll back voting rights, criminalize abortion, ban books, and dismantle the infrastructure needed for fair elections. Most Americans do not want this, but unless we educate them about what is at stake and give them the tools and information they need to make their voices heard, we risk losing not only an election, but the soul of our country.
To meet this challenge, America Votes has set a goal of running our largest voter mobilization program ever in 2024. This won’t be easy, but the passion I saw at this year’s Summit made us confident that we will achieve our goals. This year’s Summit was our largest ever — bringing together nearly 2,000 partners from 47 states — and every one of these attendees was energized to do the hard work needed to win in November.
This year’s Summit was all about how we channel our coalition’s passion into effective, strategic action.
We heard from incredible leaders who are working day-in and day-out to protect our rights, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Congressman Maxwell Frost, White House Director of Political Strategy & Outreach Emmy Ruiz, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Vice President of the United States Erin Wilson, and AFL-CIO President Elizabeth Schuler.
We also convened panels of experts, including our partners at the League of Conservation Voters, the Working Families Party, Collective PAC, Future Forward, the NAACP, Working America, Community Change Action, and Catalist to analyze recent data and trends, explain which voters we need to mobilize to win, and share the tactics and messages that get these voters to the polls. In addition to national partners, we also heard from organizations on the ground in states including Living United for Change (LUCHA) and Workers Power from Arizona, Power to the Polls Wisconsin, Ohio Citizen Action, and the North Carolina A. Phillip Randolph Institute.
Our breakout sessions gave attendees the opportunity to drill down on the issues that matter most to them, from protecting abortion access and voting rights to defeating the gun lobby and climate deniers. Other breakouts taught attendees to craft messages about recent policy successes that cut through the noise, and we made time for thoughtful discussions of how to most effectively engage specific groups of voters, including young people, voters of color, and LGBTQ+ voters.
On the last day of the Summit, attendees separated into small groups by region to discuss ways to adapt the lessons they had learned over the past two days to the specific political landscape in their home states and work with partners to craft plans to implement these strategies when they return.
Of course, we also took time to celebrate our successes. From defying the widespread predictions of a “Red Wave” in 2022 to deliver victories up and down the ballot to flipping Wisconsin’s Supreme Court and enshrining abortion rights in the Ohio state constitution last year, we’ve won major victories since 2020, and we made sure to celebrate the partners who made those incredible wins possible.
We were especially proud to honor the Minnesota Blue Trifecta with our Cecile Richards Progressive Leader Award. In just a little over a year, Minnesota has enshrined protections for reproductive freedom, restored voting rights to formerly incarcerated felons, implemented a paid family and medical leave program, expanded gun control regulations, enacted protections for transgender individuals and gender-affirming care, strengthened labor unions, and passed dozens of other critical policies. This blitz of policy wins shows what is possible when we organize to elect leaders who are aligned with our ideals.
Over the past 20 years, America Votes has grown from a small coalition formed to work on a single presidential election into the organizing hub of the progressive movement, bringing together more than 400 partners to educate and engage voters in 24 states.
Protecting our democracy in November is not going to be easy, but we have a solid strategy to win and the passion to mobilize voters on a scale no one has ever seen before. Seeing the strength of our coalition on full display during this year’s Summit inspired me, and I hope it inspired all the other attendees who came together to celebrate what we’ve achieved over the past 20 years and prepare for what we have to do to win this fall. Working together, I know that we have what it takes to stand up to attacks on our democracy and set the stage for long-term success in the years to come.
