Cville Dems

The Charlottesville Democratic Committee

2nd Annual Summer Bash Fundraiser is just Days Away!

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The 2023 Summer Bash, our annual fundraiser, will be an outdoor event with Lynlee Thorne, Political Director of Rural GroundGame, as our guest speaker. Last year we had a great time, and having the event right before the June 20 primary also gives us the perfect chance to chat with our City Council, House of Delegates, and State Senate candidates.

1-panel Cartoon showing a young white boy and young black boy standing behind a table labeled "Fundraiser". The black child is holding up a sign reading "HELP"

Date: Friday, June 2
Time: 6-8pm
Cost (includes dinner!): $25 per person (only $15 if this is your very first Bash!)
Location: on the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (JSAAHC) lawn, 233 4th St. NW
Food: fried chicken or vegetarian dinner options.
Event sponsorships by our members are our main source of funding for everything we do: supporting campaigns, writing to newly registered voters, providing scholarships, and generally encouraging people to exercise their rights as citizens.
There’s still time to be a sponsor, at a level of your choice:
  • $100 or $250 (both include 2 dinner tickets)
  • $500 (includes 4 dinner tickets)
You can also buy two tickets and bring a friend…or bring your whole precinct! And you can always donate purchased tickets so some newcomers can afford to come (e.g. if you’ll be out of town or just want to treat it as a donation).
Our speaker, Lynlee Thorne, lives in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley on a small farm with her 2 young children and a menagerie of livestock. She has served as Chair of her local Democratic Committee and as campaign staff for multiple local and statewide campaigns over the past 5 years, including multiple statewide coordinated campaigns and local races. Both farming and being a rural Democrat require a long-term commitment to hard work, perseverance, and cultivation of resilient communities, which Lynlee brings to her work with Rural GroundGame.

Images of two pieces of fried chickenGraphic showing the word VEGEGARIAN surrounded by a dozen or so colorful vegetables

Meet the Candidates running in the June 20, 2023 Democratic Primary

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Round graphic saying "Virginia is for Voters" put out by Virginia Department of Elections

Here are the candidates running in all three Democratic Primary races (see a sample ballot here):

House of Delegates District 54 (vote for only 1)

Charlottesville City Council (3 seats, vote for not more than 3)

State Senate District 11 (vote for only 1)

Note: as a matter of policy, the Cville Dems don’t take sides in primaries, but we’ll continue to share information about these races through June in an even-handed way.
We’re tracking these races on our website and giving candidates some access to our social media… and we’re offering each candidate some space towards the bottom of each newsletter for campaign information/graphics.

REPORT: Full Committee Meeting (5/22/23)

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Six cartoonish (faceless) people sitting around a meeting table

The Full Committee met at the Forest Hills Park’s picnic shelter. The highlights:
1) A number of candidates came early to meet and chat with members pre-meeting: Dave Norris, Bellamy Brown, Katrina Callsen (House of Delegates candidates), Michael Payne, Lloyd Snook (City Council candidates), and Amanda Burns (School Board candidate).
2) We had a quorum and were able to approve two bylaws changes necessitated by the City’s changed precinct lines (see last issue for explanation). Thanks to Dave Chapman and Erin Monaghan for crafting the approved amendments.
3) Jason’s Treasurer’s Report focused on our June 2 Summer Bash Fundraiser (more above!). Lynlee Thorne, Rural GroundGame’s Political Director, will be the guest speaker. So far, we’ve received or have pledges for $12,000, getting close to our current $13,000 goal. To purchase tickets, donate, or get more event info, please go to https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2023summerbash .
4) The voter registration team continues to do registrations and rights restorations at IX Park (Saturday mornings) and other locations (see below).
5)Jim Nix reported that the City Registrar’s data shows early voting turnout is good: 670 votes already cast and over 1,500 mail ballots sent out.
6) Date and location of our Charlottesville City Council Candidates Forum (held last night at Buford) was announced. We noted the 6/4 Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Assoc. candidates forum (see calendar above).
7) For our Monday June 26 picnic with the Albemarle County Dems we just have to organize a few games (see below).
8) The 5th District Dems hosted a summit for all committee chairs on April 29, focusing on committees that are operating in a “sea of red”. The 5th District’s Fall Extravaganza is scheduled for September 30 at the University of Lynchburg.
9) The Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA) will hold its annual fundraiser on Friday 6/23 in Richmond. Rep. Bennie Thompson (of January 6 Commission fame!) and Paul Begala are announced speakers. For info and tickets go to bluecommonwealthgala.com .
10) DPVA has determined that the party will use conventions to select delegates for the 2024 Democratic National Convention, so we can look forward to local committee caucuses next year!

Helping Dems Outside Our District: Rural Ground Game

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Logo of Rural GroundGame showing a stylized stalk of grain with the words "Est. 2019" underneathIf your stomach churns when you only see red campaign signs in the surrounding counties, there’s something you can do about it!
Rural GroundGame (RGG) provides services and support to brave candidates in conservative rural areas who are usually minimally funded and swimming upstream in every way. RGG is currently talking with almost 30 campaigns that need assistance and intend to expand that number over the summer. In 2019, rural campaigns across the Commonwealth saw a 3-point increase in votes on average, but the campaigns that RGG helped (in its first year of operation!) saw an increase of 11 points!
And note:
  • Even when rural candidates don’t win, their presence in a race boosts Democratic turnout, and that can make a big difference in statewide races.
  • As Dems start competing meaningfully everywhere, Republicans have to divert some money from more competitive races.
RGG’s political director, Lynlee Thorne, will be our guest speaker at the June 2 Summer Bash; come out and hear from her directly about why this work is so important!
Let your friends in the Northern Virginia area know that Sen. Tim Kaine will be headlining a special RGG “Evening to Support Rural Democrats” tomorrow (Friday) evening; info and tickets are here.

Cville Dems’ Charlottesville City Council Candidates Forum (5/24 Report)

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The event went very well, with approximately 75 people attending in-person or via Zoom. The five candidates (Michael Payne, Lloyd Snook, Dashad Cooper, Natalie Oschrin, and Bob Fenwick) made opening statement and then addressed questions and shared their thoughts on a wide variety of topics, e.g. top priority if elected, fuel efficiency and carbon emissions reduction, affordable housing, transportation, housing development in the Rivanna River floodplain, gun violence, and more.

The recording of the forum is available here (welcoming remarks end at 3:30).

Thanks to the candidates for showing up for another forum, to Lewis Combs for nicely moderating, to John McLaren for organizing, to Suzanne Michels and Nancy Damon and Erin Monaghan for assistance at the event (probably others!?), and to Buford Middle School for hosting!

Note: last night’s forum was the last one we’re sponsoring before the June 20 primary. We held a House of Delegates Forum on April 26 (recording is online here) at the Jefferson School, co-sponsored by the Albemarle Dems, and the Executive Committee decided in April that a Cville Dems State Senate forum wasn’t needed since quite a few others were already scheduled.

Voter Registration Time = VR Team Time!

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Graphic showing 5 fingers, index finger pointing at the viewer, with 4 blocks of rectangles reading "We" "need" (both white letters on blue background) "You" (white letters on red background) "To Register Voters" (black letters on white background)

Our wonderful voter registration team, led by Suzanne Michels and Barbara Shenefield, will table at events at least once every weekend between now and Election Day: registering new voters (including those who’ve recently moved to or within our area), helping voters figure out where they can vote, and helping folks who need to have their voting rights restored file the necessary paperwork.
There are few things more satisfying than signing up a new voter! You can visit this online signup form to see what dates we need people. We’d love to have more folks pitch in, and if you’re even a little bit of an extrovert, you’ll enjoy it! Or email suzemichels@gmail.com if you might be interested.
We’re looking for some extra volunteers for the June 20 primary so we can staff a table at each polling location (and the two discontinued ones, Tonsler and Alumni Hall), to thank voters for coming out and hand out information about upcoming events, newsletter, volunteer opportunities, etc.