Update: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on the evening of Friday, September 18, 2020–which also happened to be the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.
Many turned their grief into rage-donating. Before Ginsburg’s passing, the Get Mitch or Die Trying fund had raised about $3.5 million.
As of the following morning, the fund had swelled to $13 million and raised its goal to $15 million. Nice going, all!
Donate to Get Mitch or Die Trying, a dedicated effort by Crooked Media to unseat GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Donald Trump is a plague upon democracy, but his damage is being abetted and compounded by GOP Senator Mitch McConnell, who became the chamber’s majority leader in 2015.
He revels in stopping sensible Democratic-written House legislation from advancing. He stole a SCOTUS seat from President Obama. He has been cramming through lousy far-right judges since Trump got into office.
His crimes against democracy are legion, and could be as bad as Trump’s. Christopher Browning, a Holocaust historian, straight-up called him “the gravedigger of democracy” in an article in The New York Review of Books (which, unfortunately, is paywalled, so here’s a Vox article that’s free to access that discusses him and his statement).
The team at Crooked Media launched the Get Mitch or Die Trying fund to unseat the noxious Kentucky Senator, but it doesn’t exclusively aim at him.
There are in fact two ways of dumping McConnell, who is running for reelection in 2020.
The first is to unseat him directly by defeating him at the ballot box. (His leading Dem opponent is Amy McGrath, who we wrote about when she ran for a House seat from Kentucky.)
The second is indirect. If we can’t unseat him, we can demote him to Senate Minority Leader by electing more Democrats to the chamber in 2020.
The latter is the more likely of the two to occur. The 2020 group of Senators up for re-election is heavier on Republicans than Democrats, and several of those Republicans are vulnerable.
As of 2020, the Senate contains 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and two Independents (Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, who both caucus with the Democrats).
To gain control of the chamber, Democrats need to protect all their incumbents and elect at least three new Democrats. They’d need to elect four new Dems to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from having to swoop in and break 50-50 ties. (If we lose Doug Jones’s seat in Alabama, we’ll need to win at least four to control and five to ward off Pence.)
Get Mitch or Die Trying spreads incoming funds among ten Democrats. Nine are challengers, and the tenth is defending incumbent Doug Jones.
Crooked Media has arranged the ten into tiers, like so:
Don’t Fuck it Up (Tier One) – These are the most winnable seats for Democrats in 2020.
Arizona (Mark Kelly is running against Martha McSally)
Colorado (John Hickenlooper is running against Cory Gardner)
Maine (Sara Gideon is running against Susan Collins)
Come Back Kids (Tier Two) – Democrats lost these seats in 2014, but we have a shot at getting them back in 2020.
Iowa (Theresa Greenfield is challenging Joni Ernst)
North Carolina (Cal Cunningham is running against Thom Tillis)
So…Close… (Tier Three) – Stacey Abrams and Beto O’Rourke showed us that these states are about ready to go blue.
Georgia (TWO seats are open in this red state. Jon Ossoff is running against David Perdue. Incumbent Johnny Isakson resigned in 2019, and Kelly Loeffler was appointed to serve out his term. Democrat Raphael Warnock hopes to win that seat in a special election.
Texas (M.J. Hegar is challenging John Cornyn.)
Long Shots (Tier Four) – Crazier things have happened, and if Democrats have an amazing year, these seats could also be in play.
Alaska (Republican incumbent is Dan Sullivan; Dr. Al Gross is running against him.)
Kentucky (Amy McGrath is challenging Mitch McConnell.)
South Carolina (Jaime Harrison is running against Lindsey Graham.)
Don’t forget about Doug – We also need to protect our man in Alabama, Senator Doug Jones.
Crooked Media might tweak or change this lineup as we get closer to the 2020 election.
Donate to Crooked Media’s Get Mitch or Die Trying fund:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/getmitch
See Crooked Media’s YouTube video announcing the fund:
Crooked Media sells a Get Mitch or Die Trying t-shirt in its shop:
Also see the Crooked Media Donate page, which lists all its projects that could use your dollars:
(And if you’re wondering why an upturned tortoise shell is the logo for Get Mitch or Die Trying… Mitch McConnell kind of looks like a turtle.)
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