Climate Group Reaches Over 4 Million Voters to Elect Harris Then 'Organize Like Hell'
"Young people know what's at stake in this election," said one Sunrise Movement leader.
After setting out to reach 1.5 million young voters between late August and Election Day, the youth-led Sunrise Movement announced Tuesday that it made over 4 million voter contacts with a campaign targeting seven battleground states.
"Sunrise's program focused on presidential swing states where young, climate-minded voters were poised to decide the election: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Georgia," explains the group's new report. "Our voter contact universe was made up of people under the age of 35 who were very likely to be concerned about climate change."
The report lays out how Sunrise—sometimes partnering with other progressive groups—reached voters via digital advertising, phone calls, text messages, and door-knocking.
"We have six years left to stop catastrophic climate change. The next president will shape the planet for generations to come."
"I'm blown away by how many people stepped up to help us reach a record number of young voters this fall," said Sunrise communications director Stevie O'Hanlon in a statement. "We set a goal of reaching 1.5 million voters, and we blew past that goal, surpassing even our 2020 reach."
The report notes that this past spring, polls showed some young voters backing former Republican President Donald Trump over Democratic President Joe Biden—who dropped out and passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris this summer—but Sunrise "employed a four-part strategy to turn these numbers around."
The strategy was:
- One of the largest youth voter programs nationwide;
- Use direct action and social media to spotlight the GOP's deeply unpopular climate policies;
- Pressure Democrats to back and emphasize policies that would motivate young voters; and
- Make the case to young progressives and disillusioned voters to vote for Harris.
Trump made clear that he would drive up emissions with plans to "drill, baby, drill" and pledged to roll back the Biden-Harris climate policies if fossil fuel executives poured just $1 billion into his campaign. While Harris is widely endorsed by green groups, she has worried some with her embrace of hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—and promotion of "the largest increase in domestic oil production in history."
Still, many organizers for climate action and other key issues—including Israel's U.S.-backed genocidal war on the Gaza Strip—have emphasized during this cycle that Harris is the best choice and the only candidate capable of denying Trump another term.
Sunrise's report acknowledges that "from the war in Gaza to the economy, frustration and disillusionment among young people is at historic levels. This has led many young voters to consider voting for third parties or sitting out altogether."
"We held 'Beyond the Ballot' trainings to dig into our four-year plan to win bold climate action if Harris wins," the publication says. "In those sessions, we dug into how much harder these plans would be under a Trump presidency."
"Through phone and text conversations, Sunrise directly persuaded thousands of voters in this position to vote for Harris," the report continues. "Sunrise also put out social media and press content making this case. These posts reached over 1.5 million people on Instagram alone."
Sunrise campaign director Kidus Girma declared Tuesday that "young people know what's at stake in this election."
"We have six years left to stop catastrophic climate change. The next president will shape the planet for generations to come," Girma added. "No matter who wins, our movement is stronger than before and prepared to take bold action to force the next president and Congress to act."
The report followed a Monday video in which Sunrise executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay said that "one of the hardest things about this election cycle has been watching the left absolutely rip ourselves apart. If you vote for Harris, you're accused of supporting genocide, and if you vote third party or don't vote, you're accused of supporting fascism—and I wish we would just be a little bit more compassionate to ourselves because the truth is we're in a really shitty situation."
"This system was not built for everyday people to have power; it was not built for the left to be able to build power," Shiney-Ajay stressed, detailing the group's rise—from early climate strikes to Biden launching the American Climate Corps and signing the Inflation Reduction Act—and Sunrise's plans for the future.
"First we elect Kamala Harris, because frankly the terrain that we're going to be organizing under Harris is going to be a lot easier for the next few years," she said. "Then, we organize like hell, especially around school strikes and campus takeovers, and we actually use the student power that we have to be able to go on indefinite school strikes and bring society to the realization that we need dramatic change fast. We pair that with escalations in city hubs."
"All of that builds up to 2028," the movement leader continued, highlighting the United Auto Workers' call for a general strike. That nationwide action, she argued, is an opportunity to call for "big climate legislation, structural reform to our democracy, and labor protections."
Shiney-Ajay added that "we can use that organizing power that we build to call for... a Democratic primary in 2028 to actually make sure that the next candidate that we get running for president is actually going to stand up for the values and the world that we know we deserve."
