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The Politics Chicks is a progressive politics podcast and politics news show hosted by Christy Branham and Monica Healy.
Every week, we sit down with candidates, elected officials, journalists, historians, policy experts, advocates, and everyday Americans shaping the future of our democracy. We go beyond the headlines with thoughtful interviews, fact-based analysis, and candid conversations about the issues that affect our lives—from elections and public policy to healthcare, education, civil rights, and the economy.
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[Nathaniel Markowitz] Prop 50 in California, if your listeners don't know, the redistricting wars that my home state of Texas set off by trying to perhaps dummy mander their state.
[Christy Branham] Oh, my God. I love that. Hold on. Dummy mander.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Yes. Yeah.
[Monica Healy] I think that's a real possibility.
[Christy Branham] That's part of my lexicon now.
[Monica Healy] Hello. Welcome to the Politics Chicks podcast. I'm Monica He aly.
[Christy Branham] And I'm Christy Branham.
[Monica Healy] If you are paying attention to the news and it's overwhelming, and let's be real, if you're paying attention, it's overwhelming. You might put down your phone at the end of the day and think, oh, I have to do something. But what? And how do you know it will matter? Today, we're talking with two people whose work starts with these questions. Activate America connects volunteers with voter outreach to help elect Democrats to the House and the Senate.
[Christy Branham] Joining us today are Nathaniel Markowitz, Activate America's executive director and founder Doug Linney. Nathaniel brings experience in campaigns and political fundraising. Doug comes from decades of environmental advocacy and coalition building.
[Monica Healy] We'll talk about what their organization does, what they've learned about reaching voters, and where a person with a little time and a lot of concern can begin. Nathaniel and Doug, welcome to the Politics Chicks.
[Doug Linney] Hey, glad to be here.
[Christy Branham] Thanks for being on the show. We really appreciate you coming on today.
[Monica Healy] Doug, I'm going to pick on you first, and we'll do a little ping pong back and forth between the two of you. But, Doug, can you just give us a bird's eye view of what your organization is and what it does?
[Doug Linney] Yeah, Activate America is a volunteer-based organization. Our goal is to flip Congress from red to blue and to keep it that way in the years that we do have a majority. And we channel volunteer energy, people who are frustrated with what they're seeing and want to do something about it and give them concrete tasks, usually postcarding, phone banking, texting, that they can do to help in areas that are not necessarily even where they live and be able to do that.
[Monica Healy] Nathaniel, maybe you can take us through some of the iterations of your organization because it has evolved over time. And it started around the time of the Women's March in 2017, correct? That was sort of the impetus for this?
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Yeah. So Doug went out on the Women's March in 2017, and I think I'll speak for you here, Doug, was sort of awed by all of the grassroots energy that he saw springing up around him, but also sort of recognized that there was a danger of not harnessing that energy. And so he, along with some early volunteers, launched Flip the 14. We were targeting the 14 Republican-held congressional districts in California at the time. The conventional wisdom was that maybe we could flip two or three of those seats, ended up helping Flip seven. So Doug kind of looked around and said, hey, maybe there's something to this whole organizing thing, and decided to carry it forward. So that was the 2018 cycle. We moved into the 2020 cycle and decided to work on some races outside of California. A lot of Western states, a lot of Senate focus. So there was Alaska, Arizona, Kansas. That was actually my first crossing of paths with what was then called Flip the West. I was deputy campaign manager for Al Gross up in Alaska. And one of our supporters came in and said, I got this handwritten postcard. And there was drawings on it, and it was a very warm message. And I was like, oh, that's really cool. But where in the world did that come from? And so that was, and so that was, you know, the 2020 cycle. And then enter the runoffs in Georgia. Now, our then executive director, Ronnie Cohen, was from New York. So as a New Yorker, she felt comfortable calling Iowa or Kansas or whatever, the West. But when we decided to move into Georgia, even for her, that was a bridge too far. So if you've ever taken any marketing or advertising classes in college or university, you know, of course, it's great for an organization to rebrand itself three times, which is what we did. But heading into that runoff, we decided we needed a more inclusive name. We've been Activate America. You know, our first full cycle is Activate was in 2022. So we've been on this, this brand iteration for three cycles now. with no immediate plans to reb rand again. Well, what I love
[Christy Branham] about what I'm seeing about this organization is it is giving people an opportunity to do something. And I know Monica and I, when we're talking to people in our lives or we go to events, the thing that we hear from voters is at times they feel helpless. And, you know, the action is the antidote to fear and anxiety because when you're doing something, it kind of flips your switch, the switch in your brain a little bit. And this sounds like your organization is accessible and gives people the opportunity to become involved. So Nathaniel, for someone meeting Activate America for the first time, what do you actually do between the voters saying, hey, I want to volunteer and a voter hearing from the people who have become involved in Activate America?
[Nathaniel Markowitz] I want to answer that. It's just, it's funny that you should frame it that way because whenever I speak to a group that wants to learn more about Activate, I always lead off by saying that, you know, the way that I see it, Activate America is the answer to the question, what can I do? So I really appreciate the framing that you led into this question with. I think the first thing that we do when we have volunteers come in or when we have groups of volunteers come in is really try to get an understanding of like, what do you care about? What are your interests? What kind of work do you want to do? And so that we can make sure that we're kind of connecting them up with opportunities that make the most sense for them. And then I think a really, really important second step in that is that we're really focused on training our volunteers and making sure that they are as prepared as possible, whether it's getting on the phones or writing postcards. We've had a number of volunteers over the years that come to us and say, you know, I volunteer with Activate, I volunteer with all of these other groups as well. But we really keep coming back because your volunteer experience is really the best that they have experienced. And I think one of the reasons for that is really just trying to make sure that they 're as well prepared to handle any questions, issues, problems, and then also having a staff that's like very responsive when issues do arise.
[Monica Healy] Well, since you brought that up, let's dig into that a little bit about what you are having people do. These people that are feeling helpless and you are activating them, hence the name of your organization. So what is it that you were doing? What kind of training are you providing for them? Because I know a lot of people that if they are faced with phone banking, they are just going to freeze like deer in the headlights.
[Christy Branham] Yeah. Doug, why don't you take this one?
[Doug Linney] Yeah. So we, phone banking is an interesting example because, you know, the postcarding is more, more passive. The two biggest things we do is phone banking and postcarding. I want to start though with saying that, that what, one of our core values is the person to person communication with voters. And our particular specialty is get out the vote or motivating people, facilitating their ability to vote. You know, do you vote by mail? Do you, you know, where do I get my, how do I return my ballots? And all that saying, and encouraging them to do that. And so, you know, and so, you know, we provide templates and obviously scripts for people to write and how to get those, to do those postcards and get your friends to join in doing those. And the phone banking, because a lot of the phone banking is remote, all of the phone banking is remote. All of the phone banking is remote. We do it via Zoom. There's a training for it. They 're able to do the calling remotely and read off of a script. And usually once, once you do two or three calls, you know, you've kind of got it down. You're calling people who, you know, are picking up a phone, don't know who's at the other end. You're in control because you've got, you know, what you're going to say and what you're going to talk to people with. And so by, we do a training at the beginning, a Zoom call, but you're able to stay on the Zoom if you have questions or things. And then just the sense of being, working with other people and being part of a group in, in doing the calling is a reassuring thing and a motivation thing as well.
[Monica Healy] I have a couple of questions about your Zoom. First, like how many people are you doing this training on via Zoom at any given time?
[Doug Linney] As many as many as that sign up. Nathaniel, do you have a sense of what we have these days in terms of?
[Nathaniel Markowitz] You know, our group size ranges from four or five people to 20 to 30 people. We also get a lot of repeat people coming back.
[Monica Healy] Kind of a retraining refresh.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Yeah. Yeah. They don't need that full training. And our campaign coordinator, LaDawn I brahim, who runs all of our phone banking, she's got kind of an on-call availability. We work with a lot of groups, right? So as opposed to simply the sort of the retail volunteer recruitment, which we do, we also do what we like to refer to as wholesale volunteer recruitment. So an Indivisible or a Swing Left or an activist group like the one that Gary has, they might send one or two of their group leaders to get this training. And then that group leader then goes and kind of helps their members out. And we also have, we always have either a staffer or a highly trained super volunteer that is on all of these Zooms that can address any issues that arise while, while they're making their calls.
[Christy Branham] I love that. And I love that you guys are emphasizing the people connection, person to person, because we're living in a time when that is so rare, right? I mean, we, we text each other instead of calling each other. We email each other instead of sending handwritten notes or letters. And I just think it is so much more impactful when you can connect a human voice or just a human hand in that writing. I always appreciate getting thank you notes. And I write thank you notes because I think it just, it's just, you know, it makes you feel good. And you can feel that other person when you receive that piece of mail. So Nathaniel, you started in foreign policy advocacy and moved into electoral politics and went from PAC director to executive director in 2025. What convinced you that elections were where you could do the most good? And what have you changed since taking the helm?
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Well, when I first got started in my career, I wanted to go into foreign policy. I had this naive concept that foreign policy was sort of dictated by like, rationality and facts and evidence and that we would get to a smart, sane foreign policy if we just studied the issues enough.
[Monica Healy] I love that pie in the sky
[Nathaniel Markowitz] dream. I was very quickly disab used of that notion and quickly came to understand that while policy was the ultimate end goal of why we do this politics thing, that it is the politics that shapes what is possible on the policy front. And so I kind of realized that I needed to shift into the electoral space to kind of help elect people that could realize the agenda that I cared about and was hoping to advance. You know, in terms of since I 've taken over the helm, I feel like what I have done and what we've done since I've taken over hasn't been sort of large scale changing changes in terms of our core programming. But we've really definitely scaled up the work that we're doing. This is the largest map that we have ever operated off of. As our data director likes to remind us as we're pulling list after list and, you know, the requests are piling up, we 've think we're at twice the amount of data that we've requested, you know, over the previous midterms. So we're just doing it on a much larger scale. I did bring on, I did reorganize the staff a little bit. We have what we call our A team, which is our sort of our group of activist groups. I had mentioned that we kind of do wholesale and retail volunteer recruitment and deployment. And that's because we have all these activist groups across the country that comprise tens of thousands of volunteers that have been with us cycle after cycle. I hired a person to be dedicated specifically to that program as opposed to that program being part of somebody else's responsibilities. But mostly I really feel like what I've, what I've been doing is scaling up the good work that we have done cycle after cycle.
[Monica Healy] Okay, Doug, your turn to tell us what you bring to the table, because we all know that every organization is all about the people that are in the organization. And you've spent much of your career building environmental coalitions, which lends itself well to work like this, I would imagine. What did that teach you about getting people with different priorities to work together? Good question. So first of all,
[Doug Linney] there's strength in numbers and coalitions bring numbers, you know, and really is, I always encourage people to get their friends to join them, whether it's on a phone bank or post carding or whatever. Find a group, find a local chapter of an indivisible or something else to have a group that you can work with. And coalition building is much the same thing. The groups of groups that are working together and everybody has their areas of strengths, their strengths in numbers, their strengths in diversity. And that could be diversity in their knowledge of certain tactics, in their geography or racial and cultural backgrounds, or even just their experience. And so I like to say, you know, we all share one road to victory, but travel in different lanes and having and getting people to continue to focus on what's our goal here. It's to flip Congress. You know, this group is great at talking and working with African- American voters. This other group is working with seniors and things like that. And some groups maybe are doing digital advertising. We're doing volunteer work. And by sharing our strengths with others and seeing how those puzzle pieces fit together, we become a strong coalition. And that's really one of our underlying principles of the organization is always to work with others and other groups.
[Christy Branham] I love that. And I don't know if you guys have heard Peggy Fl anagan's campaign slogan, but it 's the many over the money is what she has been using. And that just really, what you said just resonated with me because, first of all, Monica and I are huge supporters of Peggy Flanagan. We love her. We both have met her. We've interviewed her, but we both have met her personally. And she's not only cute as a button, it's what you see is what you get. She's so authentic. And I just love that. And Nathaniel, how are you deciding where to put volunteer time in 2026? Like walk us through the current priorities and why you chose it over another race that also needs help? Because you guys have to be tri aging right now.
[Monica Healy] And you mentioned that this is the biggest map you've been working with. So talk about that a little bit, too.
[Christy Branham] Yeah.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Yeah, I think the most important consideration for us is we want to make sure that we focus on races that are within what sort of campaign professionals refer to as the margin of effort, which is basically what is the difference between, you know, putting people power into a race and how much can you move the needle for those races? Typically, the conventional wisdom says that that's about a five point gap. The margin of effort kind of, you know, can can move a race about five points. We there there is really it's really important to campaign in in in areas where it's much harder for Democrats to win, because that's the only way that we win down the road. But for us and for our volunteers, it's really important for them who are doing all of this work to feel like their contribution can can make a difference in terms of the outcome. So our starting every cycle is a little different. Is it a take back the House cycle? Is it a hold the Senate cycle? So for us, it's it started off as a take back the House cycle, I think, was the narrative at the beginning in early 2025 that has emerged into. Oh, could we also take back the Senate as well? And we and and we are caut iously optimistic that the numbers and the data and the indicators are all increasingly optimistic. Of course, as we like to say, polls are not predictions. It is groups like Activate and our volunteers doing the work that make those make the blue wave actually happen. But our starting point this cycle was Cook Political Report. You know, there's so many races that need attention. And so we needed something to help kind of pare that down. So we started with all of the toss ups and the lean Republican seats in Cook Political. As Cook has evolved their ratings, we have also sort of evolved our targeting. And then, of course, there are some exceptions. We knew that Texas was the Texas Senate race was going to be a live one if Ken Paxton were to win his runoff. So even so on the night that Pa xton was declared the winner, we launched our first postcarding campaign, even though the ratings agencies hadn't caught up yet to the fact that that was going to be competitive. Likewise, we're still focused on Maine's second congressional district, even though that is rated as a likely Republican seat that's currently being held by a Democrat. We thought that it was important to really fight as hard as we could to hold on to hold on to that seat. So, you know, that has kind of informed our our the map that we have sort of developed. There are other races that I think are right on the bubble. You can look at Nebraska Senate, Kansas Senate that, you know, I think we definitely think could use some help. But we as an organization trying to maintain, you know, our our discipline in terms of, you know, our theory of the case have not moved into those races quite yet. Although if we see continued ratings changes to those states could very well move into them later on down the road.
[Monica Healy] You mentioned Nebraska. So I'm curious, are you working at all with any of the independent candidates like Os borne in Nebraska and Achilles in Utah? Brian Bangs in South Dakota, Achilles is in Idaho, Achilles
[Christy Branham] is in Idaho. What did I say?
[Monica Healy] Utah. Oh, yeah, Idaho. Yeah, we
[Christy Branham] 've interviewed all three of them. And the frustration that all three of them said to express to us was that Democrats had written off those races as unw innable in those states.
[Monica Healy] But the Democrats have have bow ed out in some of those states, too. Yeah.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] So I think, you know, for each of those races represents a very different dynamic to your general question. We will support independent candidates that are values aligned, especially if they've got the support of local Democrats. So you don't necessarily have to have a D after your name for us to get for us to get behind. I would say, you know, for states like Nebraska, you know, they're right outside the cusp of where we think our volunteers could make that determinative effort. So it's not that we're giving up on them because there's not a D after their name. We're just kind of waiting to see indicators that if we did shift our resources from other races into those races, that it could that it could be, you know, outcome determinative.
[Christy Branham] And that makes sense. You have you have a finite amount of resources and it does make sense for you to put them into races that are, quote unquote, gettable.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Right. At my background, you know, so I was deputy campaign manager for Al Gross. He was an independent. He ran as an independent. At the time, the Democratic Party allowed independents to run in their primary. So he ran in the Democratic primary. But he had an eye after his name, not a D. And Flip the West at the time was supporting him. So that's not the determining factor for for our support.
[Monica Healy] Well, Doug, maybe you can dovet ail into some of this because Nathaniel mentioned the effort that is required for some of these seats. How do you determine if your effort has paid off? And you have said that you've made your organization reports more than 15 million voter contacts in 2024, which is impressive and a lot of work. And like retroactively, how do you know that that effort has paid off?
[Doug Linney] There's a number of ways, but I 'll say I have one of the things about Activate America that I think makes us different than a lot of organizations is that we have a team of experienced political consultants. So I do my work with Activate America, but I also have a consulting firm that does campaigns and have had it for this is our 30th year for doing that. So I'm first a campaign consultant and then an organizer. And we have several other on our staff who are also independent campaign consultants and bring a lot of that knowledge. And so we're always putting it through the prism or the filter of what would be the most effective way if you had these resources with volunteers and you're trying to reach communications with with voters. What's the best way to do that? And that's how we've developed the programs. Again, you know, we do mail and campaigns, but this is personal mail. This is not just printed mail. Voters don't get much personal contact. So, again, phone banks do that. And the texting is another thing. We get a lot of texts now. It probably has some dimin ishing returns, but people still read them. They come in and, you know, before you delete them, they read them. And so these are all, you know, the tactics that are used for, you know, that personal contact that we think is the lane that we're in, the gap that we fill that other campaigns don't have. And I would say, you know, one of our other principles is that we're always here to fill the gap. And we take a look at what are the things that are going on, what are the strengths that a candidate's campaign has, and what are the things that we have. One of those things is that we can get started earlier in reaching voters. Candidate campaigns generally, you know, are fundraising and making speeches, but the actual voter, personal voter contact doesn't happen until the last two, maybe three months of the campaign. We're able to start earlier and do that. And in general, because we do this year-round all the time, our scripts are better, our outreach is generally better than a lot of the campaign quality that you'll see. And so it's really our number one job is that personal contact, and we know that it makes a difference. Now, does it make the difference in campaigns? We generally tend to say that a campaign has to be close to have the field make a difference, because obviously the candidate and what they say and how they say it and all that makes a huge difference in the campaign. But when it comes to, if we can increase turnout by 2%, 3%, or something like that in a close race, that makes all the difference.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Specifically, our focus are inf requent voters, infrequent Democrats and infrequent Democratic-leaning independent voters. It's impossible for any single organization to claim, I turned that person out. It's a collective effort of campaigns and candidates and organizations all working to communicate with the voters that we need to turn out. But as Doug mentioned, we're communicating with these voters year in, year out, odd year, even year. For example, in 2025, there were three Pennsylvania Supreme Court races that were on the ballot for that year. And we knew that we'd be targeting into Pennsylvania's first, seventh, eighth, and tenth district. So we were communicating with Pennsylvania voters in 2025, infrequent voters in 2025, to try to turn them out on the Supreme Court race. With the theory of the case being, if we can turn them out for that race, then it makes it much more likely that they're going to show up for the midter ms. So we feel like, even though, again, you can't claim definitive credit for turning out a given voter, we feel like if we see an uptick in infre quent voters voting in these mid term elections, that that is kind of a validation of our theory of the case.
[Christy Branham] So let's talk about that a little bit more, because you, in the beginning, said that originally you guys had started off trying to flip the House, and now the Senate appears to be in play. And it is insane in the real time how we're seeing races just kind of get turned on their heads, right? Just yesterday with what broke with Susan Collins in Maine. Right. I mean, that could be career ending for her. So let's talk about the pivot, because you guys must be able to, I am, Monica will tell you, I am the worst person when it comes to pivoting, like having to just completely rethink how I'm attacking things. So when a race changes quickly, how do you redirect volunteers without wasting the work that was already underway?
[Doug Linney] So one of the benefits of our group, so I tend to, I talk to a lot of donors, and they say, you know, who should I contribute to? And it's, you know, it's changing all the time. They always want that. And I say, well, we're the mutual fund of investing your money. Oh, I love that. We're checking those, you know, all the time, which are the candidates that need the help the most that we think we can change, and we can pivot really quickly. We can get a new list and say, hey, we now think that this race needs more of our help than this other race. And it's a lot harder for donors to do that, who are, you know, the stock pickers. You know, I'm going to pick this candidate. I'm going to pick that candidate. And it turns out that candidate has a lot of money, or that candidate is fading and things like that. But we're able to stay on top of that a lot easier. And our pivot is very easy. And so, you know, a donation that comes in two months ago and is still in our bank account, we can now move that into a candidate that we think, you know, has gained some momentum and is now a more viable candidate than it was before and invest that well.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] I think that's it. Oh, good. I just want to gently push back on the notion of that effort would be wasted if we pivot away from one race to another. Because if we're working in a district or a state, and, you know, when we started working in that district or state and it felt highly competitive and it starts to shift toward feeling like it's sort of getting out of reach of the Republicans, that is not definitely not a wasted effort. We feel like that's a job well done. But to Doug's point, we are, once we see things shift, the map shift, the ratings shift, our volunteers have a lot of trust in us because a lot of them have been with us for a very long time. So they know that if we say, okay, guys, it's time to kind of mount up and head over to this race, they really kind of trust us. We were one of the first direct voter contact organizations to get involved in the Georgia run offs. We were one of the first direct voter contacts to get involved in the Ohio ballot initiative where they were trying to ban abortion, you know, or try to make it harder to amend their constitution to legalize abortion. We, like I said, we were, we had to have been one of the first direct voter contact organizations to get involved in this Texas Senate race. We launched, you know, the night that Paxton was declared the winner. And so it's one of the real assets that I think that we bring in as an organization that we're very, we're able to quickly pivot and deploy meaningful resources to races when we see these. Prop 50 in California, if your listeners don't know, the redistricting wars that my home state of Texas set off by trying to perhaps dummymander their state.
[Christy Branham] Oh my God, I love that. Hold on. Dummymander.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Yes.
[Unlabeled] Yeah.
[Monica Healy] All right. I think that's a real possibility that that can happen.
[Christy Branham] That's part of my lexicon now.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] But so, you know, it's a great term and hopefully they do some more of it. But in, in California, you know, they announced this, this ballot initiative in August to redraw their maps. And in the space of just five or six short weeks, we were able to deliver a million voter contacts to try to make sure that yes on 50 got across the finish line. And it's just sort of built into the DNA of Activate America and what we do.
[Monica Healy] I really think what, go ahead,
[Christy Branham] Monica.
[Monica Healy] I think what both of you just said is like the best advertisement for your organization because the finger on the pulse of not just candidates, but competitiveness and, and, and issues too, all across the board. And where that focus is, is most needed is one of the biggest benefits of supporting an organization like yours. So let's say somebody wants to donate to Activate America and pay whatever. How do you judge whether that money is used well?
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Well, one of the data points about our organization that I'm most proud of is that cycle after cycle after cycle, our average cost per voter contact has hovered right around 10 cents. We are a relatively small organization by staff, by budget. We certainly don't get the six and seven figure checks that a lot of the major super PACs in our space are, are, are, are, are, are, are getting and spending on TV and paid media and stuff like that. So I think that, um, we are able to stretch a dollar incredibly far in terms of the number of voters that we're able to reach. Again, it's because of the tens of thousands of volunteers that really have built up a strong level of trust in us and the work that we do. And, and as responsible stewards of, of their resources, whether time or money.
[Christy Branham] And you guys have researched this and clearly it's working for you. So Doug, someone is drawn to hand, doing handwritten post cards as part of their volunteer with your organization, organization. What can a postcard accomplish that a conversation can't? And would you encourage that volunteer to try something else as well or to stay in their lane? Just let's talk about that for a second.
[Doug Linney] Well, I like to say, you know, you know, don't, don't look for the perfect. Don't look for your ability to change the election single-hand edly. It's a, it's a group effort. And whether it's, you know, a group being activate America versus another group trying to claim credit, it's a collective effort. And I, and so, you know, finding the right organization that you want to, you know, give to or work with, there is no perfect. It's what fits you. What, what feels good? Does it feel good to write a postcard? Does it feel good to, to, to the phone bank? One of the, one of the most frequent questions we get is to these, you know, postcards make a difference. And I can confidently answer, hell yeah, they do make a difference. Are you going to make the difference by the postcard you make? Collectively, we're going to make a difference. And maybe in a certain race, in a certain time, the postcard you wrote did make a difference. But that shouldn't be what's motivating you. It's, it's the ability to feel like you're connected, that you 're working with others. And we're, we're defending democracy. And democracy is, requires participation. It's a participatory sport. Maybe not a sport, but an activity. And, and so find the thing that you like to do and that you'll do more of, you know, if you're not, if you say phone banks are the most important thing, but I hate doing phone banks and you never do them, then, you know, that's terrible. But if you say, Hey, I like doing phone, uh, postcards, I can do it while I'm watching TV. I can do it. Other things I can write more of them, uh, then that's a good thing. And so, uh, and the same with the organization. I like the people who are part of it. I feel confident in, in what they're doing. Uh, and I feel like they make me, uh, they make me feel a part of something bigger than I am. And, and those are the things that should be the defining thing and not what's the absolute most important donation I can make. That's going to change this election. It's, it's getting involved in doing things.
[Christy Branham] I love that. I love that. And you put, you can't tell right now, but I am disabled. So I need a wheelchair to get around. And for someone like me, I've had to be like a keyboard warrior this whole time. Um, and I find that when I talk to people with disabilities, regardless of what it is, if it, if it's a physical disability, if it's, you know, it has to do with vision or hearing. And there aren't, people feel less equipped to be able to volunteer. And what you're offering is something for everyone. Because if they can't make phone calls, they can write. If they don't want to write, they can make phone calls. There's so many different ways that people can get involved and they don't need to allow personal limitations to get in the way of that. So I applaud you guys for that.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] And I think to that point, I think the art of really empowering and activating volunteers to their fullest potential is just figuring out how to slot them in, in the way that makes the most sense to them. Some of our volunteers are like, I write postcards. I only write postcards. I don't want to do anything else. And we're saying, that's great. Some of our volunteers start with postcards and we say, Hey, would you like to try phone banking as well? And they kind of work their way up that ladder. I think, you know, one of the things that's important to remember about the efficacy of these tactics is that, you know, the higher up the efficacy of the tactic, the more resources it tends to require. Right. So the research shows that, you know, door-to-door canvassing is probably the most effective way to persuade voters. But that is incredibly labor intensive. And Christy, for someone like you, door-to-door canvassing, maybe that doesn't make the most sense. Not the best option. How you're going to get involved. And so I think, I like to say that the best way to volunteer is the way that makes the most sense for you. And to Doug's point, it's not an either or, it's a yes and. We need candidates and campaigns and parties and outside organizations all doing this work. And then the collective, the sum total of the collective of everything that we do is what ends up determining the outcome.
[Monica Healy] I want to point out the fact that Christy and I often advocate for voting down the ballot and learning about the local races. But it's all important. And your organization points that out, too. And I have personally, I have a weird life. I am from Minnesota, but I am living temporarily in California. I can't vote in California, but I did door-knocking, canvassing for Prop 50 last year to try and advocate for those boundary changes in those congressional districts. I have personally written post cards to voters in Texas and Georgia. I don't have any connections to either of those states. But it all is impactful because across the board, we're all just advocating for the future of our democracy, preserving our rights. And so thank you for what you are doing.
[Doug Linney] I got my start in politics when I was 15 or 16 years old, if you can believe it. Whoa. And I couldn't vote. In fact, at that time, I think the voting age was 21. So it was a far-off time. But early, I could go door-to- door. I had a lot of time to be able to get involved in politics. And so more than one vote, I had 1,000 votes, depending on how many doors I could knock on and people I could talk to. And it's just a way to feel powerful. And I suppose that's why I still do this work.
[Monica Healy] I hope our listeners have gotten that same feeling of empowerment from what they've heard today, that everyone can do something. And your organization is one that is going to help them find their lane and to do something.
[Unlabeled] Well, Doug, one final question
[Christy Branham] before we maybe step into something a little bit more lighthearted, because, you know, this is all heavy things that we're talking about. Give us a concrete starting point for someone who has an hour this week. And then, Nathaniel, where should that person go to find the work you need most done right now?
[Doug Linney] You know, if you have an hour, it's not a lot of time. And, you know, the easiest thing to do to spend an hour is to sign up for a phone bank and do an hour of calling. If you have an hour for post carding, you need to buy some supplies, you need to do some other things, you probably can 't get started in that first hour. But if you want to get started right away, phone banking is really an easy way to get going. That's my short answer on that.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] And in terms of where to go, you can go to our website, activateamerica.vote, and just click on programs. You'll see an opportunity to get involved with our postcard ing. You'll see an opportunity also to get involved with our phone banking. So that's where I would send you.
[Christy Branham] That's great. And I will make sure to put links to everything in the show notes so that people can just click on it and go straight there. Because I know that a lot of people, after they listen to this podcast, are going to be feeling empowered.
[Monica Healy] I hope our listeners are getting some hope in what they are hearing and what you have learned and in adding the Senate into the play, that we could flip that as well. Love that. And we ask this of everybody, what's giving you hope right now?
[Nathaniel Markowitz] Doug, do you want to go first?
[Doug Linney] What's giving me hope is, I think, the feeling that every day we have more people who are interested in helping. And we have a gift to give them of doing something to keep that hope going. And in the bigger picture, there's an advertisement on just about every corner of the country. And it's called the gas station and the prices that they put up there. And it's a reminder every day that things are wrong in our country. And one of the first polling questions are always asked, are things going in the right direction or the wrong direction? And when people think things are going in the wrong direction, they want to throw the bums out. And so that's where we are. And our job is to find those voters who say, yeah, I want to throw the bums out, but don't generally vote and make sure that they get to the polls and get their voices heard that way.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] You know, what gives me hope is really the energy of our supporters and our volunteers and our donors. You know, it seems like a long time ago, but, you know, immediately after the 2024 election, I certainly felt devastated. It felt like there was this vibe shift that Trump and MAGA had won the culture and corporate leaders were bending the knee and Doge comes on the scene with a literal chainsaw. And it felt like there was this unstoppable juggernaut that was tearing down all of the institutions of our democracy. But our supporters were like, well, when are you going to get the next campaign up? When can we get our next list? Here's a donation. When are you going to get phone banks up for so are you know, our supporters have really been a source of hope and an inspiration and optimism for me because they didn't give in and they didn't give up. And so that kind of helped helped keep me buoyed.
[Monica Healy] The power of the people is greater than the people in power.
[Christy Branham] Absolutely. Yeah. And Monica and I started this whole whatever this is that we do for that very reason that we needed to feel empowered. And like we were doing something and this is just the route that we chose. This is not the route for everyone because it's it is it 's not easy to do what we do. But being full time work with
[Monica Healy] no pay.
[Christy Branham] Yeah. That's not easy. Being mired in social media 24 seven is not exactly the best thing for your mental health. But you guys have just you've clearly created an organization where people like me who have a disability or people with limited amount of time can actually take that stuff to do something. And just that feeling of empowerment is so important right now. And I think that's what's playing into everybody's hope to that. We're we're not feeling like we 're powerless anymore. And I love that your organization does that for people.
[Nathaniel Markowitz] And, you know, specifically to that point of empowerment, Doug kind of alluded to it earlier, but 75 percent, approximately 75 percent of our volunteers live in safely blue or safely red districts. So they don't live in a place where in their immediate vicinity they feel like they can get meaningfully involved in their politics. And so by giving them a chance to kind of apply their energy remotely to a like you said, you're canvassing in California, even though you're from Minnesota and you postcard into Georgia, we have these people that, you know, up until they started working with us, have not really felt like there was much that they could do because they're in a deep blue or a deep deep red district. But it really kind of gives them a sense of agency that they that they can do something to shift the direction that their country is going, you know, going in, even if it's a little ways away from where they live.
[Christy Branham] Well, thank you for that. And I just want to thank you both for coming on the show today. I think that this was a great conversation and I hope that this has struck a chord with our listeners and our viewers. And I'll be sure to I'm going to mention Activate America tomorrow when I speak at an event and have some information with me for people to get involved. And I'll make sure to share that again, the share the links to everything in the show notes so that people can go to your website, see what you're all about and hopefully start volunteering because we've got less than 40 days until the election. So let's fucking go.
[Unlabeled] Let's go.
[Unlabeled] Amen.
[Unlabeled] That's great. Thank you.
[Doug Linney] And it's activateamerica.vote. We're unique that way. So come visit us.
[Christy Branham] For sure.
[Unlabeled] To our listeners, if you are
[Monica Healy] finding meaning in the stories we're sharing, if something moves you, challenges you, or makes you see the world a little differently, please like, comment, and share. It helps more than you know.
[Christy Branham] And follow us everywhere at The Politics Chicks on Substack, Th reads, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
[Monica Healy] Thanks for being a part of our community, folks. Keep shining your light so we can find each other in the dark.
[Christy Branham] And remember, we are stronger together. Nathaniel and Doug, thanks for coming on today. And let's do this.