2022 - Worker Power Election Impact Report

ELECTION IMPACT REPORT 2022

We are so proud of Worker Power’s electoral work in 2022.

We recruited, trained, and mobilized hundreds of regular working people committed to fighting for democracy and better living standards for themselves and their families. Our 500+ team members were hospitality workers and students, union members and volunteers, experienced field canvassers, and total newcomers. Together they had hundreds of thousands of conversations with voters about quality jobs, affordable housing, access to legal abortion, and the need to protect fair and secure elections. As a result, we delivered victories up and down the ballot in Arizona and Georgia, victories that will impact working people across the United States. We are grateful to all of our team members who fought so hard for these victories and the people across the country who donated to our campaigns and traveled to Arizona and Georgia to volunteer with us.

We look forward to even greater victories in 2024.

Susan Minato

Worker Power Board Chair

Co-President, UNITE HERE Local 11

ABOUT US

Worker Power is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization.

We are a multiracial, multigenerational organization dedicated to preserving democracy and improving the lives of working families across the United States through voter engagement and strategic policy interventions.

We draw on the best traditions of union organizing and non-violent direct action to execute electoral and policy campaigns that have a decisive and national impact on issues affecting our lives.

Worker Power recruits and trains workers and young people as agents of political change in their communities. These leaders are building a movement that will elect and support public officials who fight for working people.

DELIVERING VICTORIES FOR WORKING FAMILIIES

In 2022, Worker Power (formerly CASE Action Fund) made good on our commitment to expand democracy and create a political, social, and economic environment that meets the interests of working people across the United States.

At the federal level, Worker Power’s independent expenditure efforts helped expand the Democrats’ advantage in the U.S. Senate by playing a pivotal role in the re-election of U.S. Senators Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock.

In Arizona, we delivered victories up and down the ballot. We protected two Arizona legislators, Senator Christine Marsh and Representative Judy Schweibert, both of whom we narrowly elected in swing districts in 2020. We also contributed to a Democratic sweep of the legislative seats in the newly created swing Legislative District 9 in the Phoenix suburbs. But the election of Governor Hobbs was especially critical. Just two years into her term, Hobbs holds the most-used veto pen in the country.

Conservatives in the narrowly-Republican Arizona legislature continue their assault on democracy, public school funding, and LGBTQ+ youth, but we finally have an ally in the Governor’s office willing and able to stand up to these attacks.

HOW WE DID IT IN ARIZONA

400

120,000

14,000 canvassers mobilized non-partisan GOTV calls in the last 4 days of voting

non-partisan GOTV phone conversations with voters

Worker Power’s massive 2022 field campaign in Arizona pushed our candidates over the top in key races

603,648 120,093

61,858 GOTV doors knocked conversations with voters at the doors

individual voters ID’d as supporters of Kelly & Hobbs

17,117 Governor Hobbs Margin of Victory

280 Attorney General Mayes Margin of Victory

OUR IMPACT IN ARIZONA

Worker Power generated thousands of additional

+16%

Increased performance among Kelly-Hobbs supporters

Worker Power’s 61,858 identified supporters of Kelly and Hobbs voted at 72.4% (44,792), compared to 56.4% participation of our overall target universe.

That 16% increase in participation amounts to a total of 8,062 votes for Kelly and Hobbs.

Increased votes from younger voters

18,559 (30%) of the Kelly-Hobbs voters identified at the doors by Worker Power canvassers were under 35 years old. Of these voters, 10,072 (54%) voted compared to 35% of young voters across Maricopa County.

This 19% increase represents an additional 2,026 votes from this group.

+19%

additional votes from key populations

Increased performance among African American and Latino voters

+25%

+20%

Black voters we identified as Kelly and Hobbs supporters were 20% more likely to vote than Black voters overall in our target universe. Latinos we identified as Kelly and Hobbs supporters were 25% more likely to vote than overall Latino voters in our universe.

That increase corresponds to 1,556 Black voters and 5,315 Latino voters.

Increased votes from lower propensity voters

36,651 of the voters we identified as Kelly and Hobbs supporters were low-to mid-propensity voters. These low-to midpropensity Kelly-Hobbs supporters voted at a rate of 55% compared to 37% participation among this group across Maricopa County.

That increase of 18% represents nearly 7,000 additional low to mid-propensity Kelly and Hobbs voters.

+18%

2022 U.S. SENATE RUNOFF IN GEORGIA

As we did in 2020, the Worker Power campaign team traveled to Georgia for the U.S. Senate Runoff Election just days after winning in Arizona.

Our team was stationed in Dekalb County, a majority-Black county encompassing part of Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs. In just four weeks, Worker Power knocked on nearly 300,000 doors and had almost 80,000 conversations with voters in neighborhoods with large numbers of infrequent and sporadic voters. More than 80% of those conversations resulted in a commitment to vote for Reverend Warnock.

The impact of that work was decisive. While just 24% of low to mid-propensity voters in DeKalb County participated in the runoff election, that same group of voters participated at 39% after committing to one of our canvassers to vote for Reverend Warnock.

In the end, while Warnock beat the right-wing challenger Herschel Walker by less than 1% in the first round in November, with our operation on the ground, he was able to win by almost 3% in the December runoff.

300+ canvassers mobilized

287,790 doors knocked

78,635 conversations with voters at the door

65,579 commitments to vote for Rev. Warnock

15% higher participation by infrequent voters

ID’d as Warnock supporters

WORKER POWER PEOPLE

Worker Power has been recruiting and training workers and young people as agents of political change in their communities for over a decade and a half. In 2022, Worker Power continued to draw on the best traditions of union organizing and non-violent direct action to build a multiracial and multigenerational movement of working people.

Worker Power hired, educated, and trained 500 canvassers, organizers, and campaign leaders to execute our electoral campaign.

In 2022, Worker Power hired, educated, and trained 391 canvassers and more than 100 leadership, data, administrative and support staff to execute our electoral campaign.

More than 120 were union members and organizers of the hospitality workers’ union, UNITE HERE, from locals across the country. The rest were community members, students, and volunteers from across the country.

Of the 391 canvassers we hired, 73% identified as BIPOC (41% Latino,19% Black, 10% Asian American, 2% Middle Eastern, and 1% Native American).

Our Lead Organizers were equally diverse: 41% were Black, 27% White, 22% Latino, and 10% Asian American. Additionally, more than one-third were under 25, and one-fifth were over 50. One percent of our canvass team identified as non-binary, 48% as men, and 51% as women.

The greatest strength of Worker Power is our ability to educate, mentor and train ordinary working people to affect positive socio-economic change on a local, state, and national level.

These workers become future community leaders who, in return, train their coworkers, neighbors, and friends how to strategize and execute our campaigns.

Our 2022 campaign was indeed a multicultural, multiracial, and multigenerational movement.

In 2023, Worker Power continues to lead the fight for economic justice and the preservation of democracy in the United States. Arizona’s importance on the electoral map of presidential hopefuls continues to increase as we get closer to the 2024 elections. Leading up to the 2024 elections, we will continue recruiting and training workers and young people as agents of political change in their communities to hire at least 500 of them as canvassers in crucial municipal, state, and federal-level races in 2024.

Worker Power’s increased capacity to run electoral programs has allowed us to have a decisive impact on the composition of government on a state and national level.