Results for the Working Families Party from this year's elections are still coming in, but it's already clear that our growth only continued in 2008, thanks to all our hard work together.
We thought we'd share with you a short memo recently sent to the WFP's leadership.
To: Executive Committee & Chapter Leaders
Fr: Dan Cantor, WFP Executive Director & Bill Lipton, Deputy Director
Re: 5 Quick Facts on WFP Performance in the 2008 Elections
This month's elections are still sinking in.
We know we'll have lots of work to do to hold the Democrats in Washington and Albany accountable. But it's worth a moment to step back and see how far we've come.
Full results for the WFP are still weeks away, but here are five quick standout "WFP facts."
Fact 1 - BARACK OBAMA: There are lots of votes still to be counted, but it's already clear that we'll easily surpass the 133,000 WFP/Row E votes we got for John Kerry in 2004. Current estimates put us north of 150,000, and maybe as high as 170,000.
With all of our energy going into key State Senate and Congressional races, and New York being a "blue" state, we (rightly) didn't spend too much of our resources getting votes for Obama. Seeing our numbers grow despite that shows just how far we've come.
The geographic distribution is also good: roughly 45% in NYC and 55% outside the city. (Full numbers on our website by mid-Dec).
Fact 2 - CONGRESS: (New York & Connecticut)
Number of Congressional candidates who ran Democrat-Working Families: 34
Number of Congressional candidates who ran D-WF and WON: 31 (26 in NY, 5 in CT)
Biggest WFP vote in a Congressional Race: 22,061 for Rosa DeLauro in CT-3 (a new WFP record!)
When we started out 10 years ago, there were 12 Congressional Republicans from New York and Connecticut. When the dust finally settles from Tuesday's election, there'll be just 3 (all in NY).
The WFP has played a big role in the Republican collapse, and that was true again this year:
Margin of Victory I: Rep. Randy Kuhl has yet to concede, but unofficial results show Eric Massa won this Western New York seat by about 5,700 votes. Massa got over 8,600 votes in the district on the WFP line (a 58% increase from our vote total in 2006).
(Fascinating sub-fact: The WFP is on pace to pick up less than half of that 8,600 number on its line for Obama in the same district. It's more evidence that Working Families voters are a diverse coalition - progressives, union members, independents, and even McCain supporters.)
Margin of Victory II (?): We may still be a few weeks away from knowing for sure, but our ballot line also appears to be the difference for Rep. Michael Arcuri (D, NY-24) in Central New York. Arcuri fought off a surprisingly tough, winning by about 8,400 votes - and the WFP is on track to break 9,000 votes in the race.
Maffei and McMahon Cruise to Victory: Also joining the ranks of the New York Congressional delegation will be newcomers Dan Maffei (NY-25, Central New York) and Mike McMahon (NY-13, Staten Island), both D-WF. Click here to see some of the highly targeted mail we sent to independents and union members in these districts.
Connecticut Soars: In the first year of "true fusion" in Connecticut, our brothers and sisters there appear to be on pace to collect an amazing 76,000 votes statewide for their 5 cross-endorsed Congressional nominees (probably just over of 5% of the total vote cast in Congressional races). It's a blistering rate of growth we're frankly a little jealous of:
Candidate WFP Votes Percent of Candidate's Total
Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) 22,061 9.67% Chris Murphy (CT-5) 16,930 9.60% John Larson (CT-1) 16,091 7.65% Joe Courtney (CT-2) 12,261 5.80% Jim Himes (CT-4) 8,764 5.50%
There's also a bit of non-Congressional good news out of the Nutmeg State - the WFP elected the first third party Registrar of Voters anywhere in Connecticut, Hartford's own Urania Petit.
Fact 3 - STATE SENATE: For the last three years, our main electoral goal has been to defeat the decades-old State Senate Republican majority. Last week we finally did it by helping D-WF candidates Brian Foley and Joe Addabbo take out Republican incumbents.
In the excitement about Obama's historic win, it's easy to forget just how big a deal this is. For years the State Senate was the place where commonsense reforms that working families need went to die. Putting Democrats in power won't be nearly enough - we'll still have to work to keep issues moving forward - but the end of the Republican era in Albany is a great milestone for New York's working families.
It wasn't all good news - we poured a lot of sweat and tears into Joe Mesi and Rick Dollinger's campaigns in Erie and Monroe counties, respectively. They both came close - but the Republicans ran no-holds- barred negative campaigns that proved too much to overcome.
In key Senate races across the state, we significantly increased our Working Families vote totals where WFP boots were on the ground. Once again we proved our favorite adage: "Work works."
Numbers are still coming in, but one we can already be proud of is in Suffolk County. In Brian Foley's victory, the WFP reached a big milestone: we were the top third party in the race with more than 5,000 votes, the first time we've ever edged out the well-entrenched Conservatives in Suffolk.
More good news for the WFP comes from beyond the tri-state area:
Fact 4 - 157,000 VOTES IN OREGON (!): We only needed 1% of the vote to remain qualified as a minor party in Oregon, but our candidate for Attorney General, Ashley Albies, pulled in about 10 times that. She finished with an unofficial 157,044 votes, 10.66% of the total vote, and more than double the Greens.
There's still no "fusion voting" in Oregon, but this keeps us alive to do issue work and more organizing.
Fact 5 - DELAWARE IS BORN: In our first year on the ballot, we fielded 5 candidates for State Legislature in Delaware who got about 1% of the vote. There's a lot of work to be done down there, and we can't wait to get started.
That's all for now. There'll be more good news to come. Check the website for complete returns in a couple of weeks.
Bertha Lewis, Bob Master, Sam Williams
WFP Co-Chairs
Dan Cantor WFP Executive Director
Help Working Families fight for the little guy: We can't count on Wall Street. We rely on contributions from ordinary people like you to keep the WFP going. If you'd like to support our work, visit:
http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/contribute.php