In the words of the very wise Michelle Obama: “Do something!” Here are some effective ways to get involved so that we can toast to a blue North Carolina on election night.
FLIP NC has always focused on filling gaps in voter outreach and information – including early canvassing to connect with voters outside the traditional Get Out The Vote (GOTV) period. With campaign and party GOTV efforts now in full swing, we encourage you to join one of the following efforts.
Election-denying, voting-rights-trampling GOP extremists appear up and down the ballot in North Carolina. We need representatives who will fight for equal rights, good jobs, affordable health care, clean air and water, and a strong public education system – who look out for everyday North Carolinians and put people before corporations.
Democrats are running an especially impressive slate of statewide candidates this year, and we’re thrilled to cast our ballots for them!
To learn more, download the The FLIP NC 2024 Voter Guide – and please spread the word!
Since 2012, Republicans in North Carolina have used extreme partisan gerrymandering to redraw election maps in ways that dilute the votes of Democratic voters for partisan gain. Our state courts once served as a backstop against the most extreme partisan gerrymandering, but following the far-right takeover last year, the Republican justices immediately recalled a case decided just 7 weeks before and ruled that Republicans could rig election districts however they want. To restore true democracy in North Carolina and get fair maps, we must take back our courts from far-right extremists.
An election – and a year – this critical calls for its own shirt!
Since FLIP NC's earliest days, Durham-based Humbly Made has printed our popular and high-quality t-shirts. Through July 24, they’ll ship you a special edition “2020” FLIP NC shirt and donate $10 from every shirt purchased to FLIP NC. This money will go directly to fund our crucial voter outreach efforts in the state's most competitive legislative districts. Hurry to take advantage of this limited-time event!
In the closest competitive districts across the state, there are more left-leaning than right-leaning voters, but right-leaning voters have historically turned out in greater numbers. To win in these critical districts, we need to get left-leaning voters to the polls (or absentee ballots) and make sure they vote the full ticket. Many voters don’t know that they live in a competitive district, and it doesn’t help that the district lines keep changing!
While these competitive districts are fairly even overall, some precincts are far more left-leaning than others. With this campaign, we will be targeting these precincts with yard sign messages letting voters know that early voting has begun and that they live in a super competitive district and encouraging them to vote the full ticket. The trio of signs will be posted together throughout each target precinct. We are also targeting key early voting sites with the “full ballot” sign and, where appropriate (i.e. the entire county is within the same competitive district) with the “super competitive” sign. We’ve ranked the precincts in competitive districts across the state and hope to raise enough funds to place signs across roughly 100 of them. Please donate to support this campaign!
$10 funds one sign
$30 funds three signs
$90 funds signs for one early voting site
$300 funds signs for a whole precinct
Note: At this time we are not selling these signs. Our first priority is to distribute them in competitive districts, but we may offer the “full ballot” and/or “early voting” signs to folks in other blue areas if there is significant interest.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed all of our plans but none of our goals. The 2020 elections will be the most consequential of our lives. We need to re-elect Governor Cooper, oust the tin pot dictator in the White House and his Senate lackey Thom Tillis, AND break the Republican majority in the NCGA – before it can redraw NC’s legislative and congressional maps to lock in their power for the next decade. At the same time, the pandemic means we can no longer safely run face-to-face voter outreach, and there are no signs that it will become safer to do so between now and election day. So we’re adapting …
The 2020 Democratic primary on March 3rd provides the latest snapshot of the trends in left-leaning turnout heading into the November general election. The county-by-county change in turnout compared with 2016 provides a clear picture: The Democratic suburban surge continues, while left-leaning turnout in the rest of the state lags behind.
In response to rapidly changing information regarding the COVID-19 crisis, FLIP NC is postponing our next phone bank, scheduled for this Tuesday, March 31. The evolving federal response and changing state-level conditions have implications for how we advocate for the policies we most urgently need to help North Carolinians weather this crisis. To that end, we’re postponing next week’s phone bank until we can fully assess and communicate the immediate actions we need from our legislators.
With COVID-19 spreading rapidly, the need to expand Medicaid in North Carolina is more urgent than ever. Medicaid expansion would provide healthcare for 500,000 low-income households and create tens of thousands of desperately needed jobs in the healthcare sector.
Please reach out to the Republican legislators listed here and urge them to expand Medicaid in North Carolina. Governor Cooper has been fighting for Medicaid expansion and has the power to call a special session; we just need enough legislators to agree to support it. Read on for more information about how you can help.
A clinical psychologist, Irene lives in Durham with her husband, two daughters, one dog, and 19 chickens.
She had incredibly inspiring high school teachers who first got her “politically activated.” “That activism has looked different at different points of my life,” she says. Right now, in addition to canvassing with FLIP NC, Irene volunteers with the PTA at her daughter’s elementary school. She is a board member of the Jewish Federation of Durham-Chapel Hill, chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council, and an advisory committee member for Jewish Family Services.
Check out this Q&A with Irene and then sign up to join her at an upcoming canvass in Alamance County or Wake County! Remember, knocking doors is the most important and effective action you can take in this critical election year.
FLIP NC’s 2020 launch party on Sunday – When We Knock, We Win – proved once again that there’s a growing coalition of North Carolinians who are ready to canvass door to door to break the GOP majority in the NC General Assembly, oust Sen. Thom Tillis, re-elect Gov. Cooper, and flip our state blue in the presidential election.
At the event, keynote speaker Shaniqua McClendon – political director for Crooked Media – recounted her experiences in the Obama White House and on Capitol Hill working for Sen. Kay Hagan and Rep. Alma Adams before discussing her company’s plans to convert more podcast listeners into activists during this pivotal election year. She also shared that Vote Save America, relaunching later this month, has selected North Carolina as one of the crucial battleground states it will focus on in 2020!
While our work on the 2020 elections is already well underway, we’ll officially kick off with our “When We Knock, We Win” 2020 Launch Party at Motorco on Sunday, Jan. 12. The launch party is free to attend, but registration is required, and we expect to reach capacity. RSVP here.
Our guest speaker that evening will join us from Crooked Media headquarters in LA. Shaniqua McClendon grew up in the Creedmoor area, graduated from UNC, and went on to work in the White House and on Capitol Hill before becoming political director for Crooked, a company that was founded by former Obama staffers and produces podcasts like “Pod Save America” and “Lovett or Leave It.”
Check out our conversation with Shaniqua to learn more about her thoughts on the NC General Assembly and Democrats’ chances to win in our state in 2020.
This past Sunday, we partnered with a coalition of grassroots groups across the state to knock doors and talk with voters about the issues that matter to them and the importance of voting – and voting the full ticket – in 2020.
Together, 160 grassroots volunteers knocked 2,200 doors and talked with 750 voters in 10 cities – an incredible feat for a cold December day nearly a year before the election!
Of the 10 canvasses, seven were held in competitive legislative districts, and three focused increasing turnout to support statewide elections.
We’re just getting started – 2020 starts NOW! Join us!
Llogan was involved with her Indivisible chapter in Columbus, Ohio when it was forming and had a positive experience. She wanted to stay engaged when she moved to North Carolina – so she became a FLIP NC volunteer!
She has now canvassed with us about six times and says that on the days she knocks doors, she literally sleeps better knowing she did her part to make a small difference.
Read on to learn more about Llogan and her thoughts on the upcoming election.
We asked many of our regular canvassers for their top tips when it comes to knocking doors, the most effective form of voter outreach. These folks certainly know what they’re talking about: They helped us knock 20,000 doors during the 2018 election cycle!
For more tips, go here. And please join us for our Dec. 8 super canvass at various locations across the state. Early canvassing is even more effective than traditional get-out-the-vote (GOTV) canvassing among the sporadic, left-leaning voters we need to turn out to win in 2020, so the time is now.
Democracy in North Carolina needs you!
Reid discovered FLIP NC when his friend (and now his fellow Alamance Leadership Team member) Marshall Botvinick posted glowingly about our organization on social media. Having worked with Marshall before through Environment NC and the Human Rights Campaign, Reid trusted Marshall’s recommendation.
A Durham resident, Reid works as a program coordinator at UNC Family Medicine and is also a musician. He and his partner, Maria Albani, have a houseful of cats and dogs, lovingly referred to as “the zoo.”
Reid has been interested in political and social concerns throughout his adult life. He focused on Africana Studies in college and became more aware of “the history of race in America and how politicians used racism to divide and undercut popular, important liberal policies.” Frustrated at how big money in politics teamed with misinformation in conservative media to divide the nation, he became active in politics.
Read on to learn more about Reid and what’s motivating him this election cycle. And click here to sign up for our Dec. 8 super canvass so you can join Reid in the fight to restore democracy to our state.
Some folks have asked why we're not doing voter registration. Here's why:
As a volunteer-run organization led by a small group of folks with full-time day jobs, we started FLIP NC knowing that we have limited time, and we wanted to focus on doing one thing well. That one thing? Getting out the vote among left-leaning, registered voters in flippable legislative districts.
In North Carolina, turnout among registered voters has topped out at just under 70%. That leaves nearly a third of already-registered voters who aren’t getting to the polls even when turnout is at an historic high.
And the pool of registered voters who don’t vote is far more left-leaning than the pool of registered voters that consistently gets to the polls. That means we have a huge opportunity to win big just by getting registered, left-leaning voters to the polls in 2020.
Herb and Jo Ann – a retired newspaper editor and retired English teacher living in Durham – got connected to FLIP NC through fellow grassroots group Neighbors on Call. Over two-plus years, they have been loyal to our door-knocking mission, canvassing about 15 times.
“During our working years, we did not have time to be engaged politically,” Herb says. “Now, thanks to retirement, we feel an obligation to get others involved and aware.”
In addition to volunteering for many political and voting rights groups, they spend a lot of time with friends, attending cultural activities, and traveling, including frequent trips to New York to visit their daughter and grandson.
Read on to learn more about why this couple is part of the army of volunteers working to break the GOP majority in the N.C. General Assembly in 2020. And click here to sign up for our Dec. 8 super canvass so you can join Herb and Jo Ann in the fight to restore democracy to our state.
It’s good news/bad news for NC’s maps in today’s state court rulings. A three-judge panel granted an injunction that blocks congressional candidate filing under NC’s current congressional map and wrote that “there is a substantial likelihood that Plaintiffs will prevail on the merits of this action by showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the 2016 congressional districts are extreme partisan gerrymanders in violation of the North Carolina Constitution…”
In a separate ruling, the same three-judge panel approved new legislative maps (NC House and NC Senate) submitted to the court by the GOP-led NCGA. While these maps are, unquestionably, an improvement over those they replace, they leave in place a handful of extreme partisan gerrymanders – and maintain a clear partisan advantage for Republicans.
Marshall discovered FLIP NC through Durham for Organizing Action meetings following the 2016 election. He’s canvassed with FLIP NC nearly 10 times and is heartened by how eager people are to talk about current political events. He offers this advice to his fellow canvassers: “Listen to what the other person is telling you and respond to them on a personal level.”
Marshall is part of FLIP NC’s new four-person Alamance Leadership Team. Click here to sign up for an upcoming Alamance canvass! House District 63 in this county is one of the most flippable districts in North Carolina. In 2018, Dems fell short of flipping this seat by about 300 votes, and it will become an even better target for Democrats in 2020.
Read on to learn more about why Marshall is fired up for the 2020 election.
When Democrats turn out – and vote the full ticket – we win. Our problem? Republicans are better at both. It’s why the GOP was able to take over our state legislature in 2010 and how we got the resulting gerrymandered maps that put us where we are today.
To restore the democratic institutions of our state and our country, we’re going to need to compete up and down the ballot. And the critical state legislative races we need to win in 2020 will be far down the ballot. Now is our opportunity to talk with left-leaning voters about why these races are so important – and what is at stake in 2020 – before top-of-the-ticket campaigns steal the show.
Importantly, we can’t rely on up-ballot candidates to win these races for us. Turnout for down-ballot races can help drive up-ballot voting, but it doesn’t always work in reverse.
FLIP NC was founded in January 2017, the week Trump was inaugurated, when a group of friends got together at a bar to drown our sorrows – and to figure out wtf we were going to do about it.
We’d attended our share of Moral Mondays, protesting the regressive, anti-democratic policies of our illegitimate, GOP-controlled state legislature over the past several years, but it took Trump’s ascension to the White House for us to do more than chant and wave signs.
So if Trump is what finally drove us to take action, why does the state legislature remain FLIP NC’s primary focus?
