2017 Election Recap — Pantsuit Nation and Partners Saw Incredible Success
The 2017 elections gave Pantsuit Nation an opportunity to prove the effectiveness of our amplification of candidates and GOTV efforts in races up and down the ballot. Working with individual campaigns and coalition partners, Pantsuit Nation published candidate stories, mobilized volunteers, directed grassroots donors to campaigns that moved them, and successfully maintained the momentum of the resistance through months of careful content development and strategic messaging. This momentum carried our community of 3.8 million progressives through this year’s election and indicates the massive potential for our organization to be a leading partner in mobilizing a wave election in 2018.
Pantsuit Nation amplified the stories of 2017 candidates — and they won.
Over 25 candidates posted first-person testimonials about their decision to run for office between March and October 2017, usually in consultation with the Pantsuit Nation team on how to craft the most effective messages for our audience, and in a few cases in partnership with another grassroots organization. In total, these candidate’s posts were seen between 2 and 5 million times. Of those candidates, 17 were victorious in their races — a 65% election rate. And many who did not win, spoke movingly of their experience running and their desire to step up again. In the days leading up to the election, both our own team (in partnership with several organizations) and other highly engaged members within Pantsuit Nation shared videos, articles, profiles, and personal endorsements of some of these same candidates as well as several others. These posts and videos were seen at least 750,000 times in the two weeks before Election Day.
Finally, Pantsuit Nation was proud to celebrate many longtime active members who share their historic election victories in the days following the November 2017 elections. On Wednesday and Thursday they announced their victories in our community, energizing the 1.6 million members who were active in our group over those two days.
We’re looking ahead to 2018 and beyond.
The November 2017 elections were an opportunity for Pantsuit Nation to continue developing relationships with grassroots organizations like The Arena, Run for Something, MobilizeAmerica, and Flippable. Ahead of 2018 elections, Pantsuit Nation will continue to be a key partner within this growing coalition. With our active base of 2.2 million engaged members and our focus on personal connection with candidates and potential voters, we are setting our sights on flipping the House, turning state legislatures blue, and building the progressive bench. We have already begun working with extraordinary candidates who are coming directly to Pantsuit Nation to share their stories, find support, and inspire others to take action. Currently we have featured over 15 additional candidate stories with elections upcoming in 2018.
Pantsuit Nation began in late October 2016 as a way to harness widespread and underpublicized support for Secretary Clinton leading up to the election. One year later, the legacy of that initial premise has proven to be a strong and powerful one for women and men who connect online to find exciting candidates to support throughout the country. 2017 showed that our online community has already made a concrete electoral impact, and that Pantsuit Nation is poised for great success in 2018.
Please consider making a donation to Pantsuit Nation to suport our work in 2018 and beyond.
For more information about our organization, or to make a donation, please visit our website. Pantsuit Nation is proud to be a project of Civic Engagement Fund.
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