Want to Save Democracy? Start with Your School Board

The GOP Took Over Local Politics. We Can Take It Back.

Guest post from Amanda Litman:

For all the Democratic Party’s talk about organizing a united front against right-wing authoritarianism, there has been a troubling gap between the electoral infrastructure of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

While Democrats have spent their time, money, and energy on big-ticket races, from the presidential to U.S. Senate campaigns, Republicans spent decades quietly and meticulously investing in — and winning — local elections. The impact has been devastating.

If progressives want to defend democracy from this full-bore assault — to restore the soul of our nation, if you will — we have to reclaim that same ground and relentlessly work to win local races. The organization I co-founded, Run For Something, has spent the past eight years working to fill this gap, and we’ve had some incredible success. We’ve built a candidate pipeline of over 200,000 people (the largest there is!) and have helped elect 1,500 to critical positions around the country. And since November, over 60,000 people have signed up to join our program. Regardless, there’s still an Everest-sized mountain to climb.

Radical groups like the Family Policy Alliance, the Heritage Foundation, and Moms for Liberty have propped up an entire ecosystem to support regressive candidates running for state legislature, school boards, boards of elections, sheriff’s departments, city and county commissions, and more. Even in states like Maryland, they’ve made rapid and sustained gains — in fact, Moms for Liberty is disproportionately active in blue and purple areas, especially the suburbs. They've created a pipeline that turns Libs of TikTok-addicted parents into extremist school board members and election-denying conspiracy theorists into election administrators.

The good news? There's a surprisingly simple solution: more progressive candidates running for more offices in more places — people like you. It sounds, and often is, scary, but taking the first step is the hardest part. So, what are you waiting for?

I know what you're thinking. "I don't have time to run for office. I've got a dog, a job, my home is a complete mess. I don't know anything about politics. I've never even been to a city council meeting." And those concerns are real and valid! But most successful local candidates started exactly where you are. Mallory McMorrow, for example, went from writing postcards to former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to running for the Michigan State Senate; now, she’s a frontrunner to be Michigan’s next U.S. Senator.

The beautiful truth about local politics is that you don’t have to be a cookie-cutter, perfect politician — you just need to talk about the issues that people face in a genuine, authentic way, show that you’ll fight for them, and give them a reason to be excited.

Here’s why it matters: local offices wield real power that impacts your daily life immensely. Local offices are where decisions are made about the roads you drive on, the schools your kids go to, and the homes you live in. While Congress debates and falters, your city council governs. 

Last cycle, uncontested races were at an all-time high — a whopping 70% of races were uncontested in the general election. That’s 91% of regional, 82% of county, and 74% of local elections. Staggering, I know. But it bears repeating: most of the time, at the local level, Democrats aren’t even trying to win. 

Not running candidates also has ramifications for the top of the ticket. Run For Something’s research shows that simply having a Democratic candidate on the ballot increased turnout for the top of the ticket by anywhere from 0.4 percent to 2.3 percent, compared to a district where the Republican candidate ran unopposed. In an age where our biggest elections are decided by the slimmest margins, that small boost can mean everything.

So if you're waiting for someone to come and save the day, let me be very clear: nobody can save us but us. The generation that got us into this mess won’t be the ones who get us out of it. Now's the time to step up. And you don’t have to go at it alone.

Here's how to start: Check out RunForWhat.net to see what offices are up for election in your area. Talk to your neighbors about what matters to them, and think about what matters to you. You don't need to decide today, tomorrow, or next week whether to actually run — you just need to take the first step.

The right figured out long ago that the real fight is in school board meetings and city council chambers. We’re fighting back, and we’re going to win.

Amanda Litman is the co-founder and President of Run for Something, an organization that helps recruit and support young, diverse progressives running for state and local offices. She is also the author of When We're in Charge: The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership, a guidebook for millennials and Gen Z on how to be effective leaders.

Paid for by Fair Fight, www.fairfight.com, not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.