Rick Weiland, with the people he's fighting for.
Just a few moments ago,
supporter #10,000 gave to the NDN Election Efforts PAC, the GOTV operation focused on American Indian reservations in the now-pivotal state of South Dakota. The $124,691 raised is slightly above my initial goal of $50,000 (which I considered overly optimistic at the time), and puts us well within reach of the PAC's
entire 2014 GOTV budget of $200,000.
South Dakota Rep. Kevin Killer, head of the PAC, sends me an update on what the fresh funds are allowing them to do.
I hope this email finds you well and I do apologize for the delay in updates. I’ve been on the ground setting up and we are ready to go for these last 2 weeks. Before I begin the updates I just can’t say thank you enough for believing in all of us and our communities are forever grateful!
This past week in Pine Ridge, which is the largest of all the reservations, people are upbeat about voting. All of the tribes have been working against the Keystone XL pipeline since 2010 and its coming to a head this election because Rounds is running ads constantly in favor of it. Pressler, to my knowledge, isn’t in favor of it either but supports building more pipeline to transfer Balkan crude from ND. Most of the people we talked to so far know Weiland is against it and mention this when voting.
We’ve had close to 400 people vote early so far in Pine Ridge since the fundraising campaign started. Close to 100 are first time voters or purged off the list after having not voted in 4 consecutive elections. We registered over 100 people today and will be on it tomorrow and Monday 10/20, the last day to register for South Dakota.
With resources we have been able to recruit experienced organizers in Cheyenne River (NW South Dakota), Rapid City (Urban Natives are 13 percent of the total population), Pine Ridge, Rosebud (South Central SD), Crow Creek (Central SD), Sisseton (Dustina’s homelands/Eastern South Dakota) and Sioux Falls (Eastern SD) all working on getting Native populations out to vote. All of the organizers on the ground managing these places have worked previous elections with the average experience being 3 cycles.
We will have early voting sites set up on all reservations except for Crow Creek and will be pushing hard to find first time voters on Monday. After the deadline, we will hire people to go door to door to set up rides to the polls for early voting, election day, and providing voters with sample ballots/lit. We have great down ballot Native candidates running in Rosebud, Pine Ridge, Crow Creek and Rapid City. Most of the Tribes own their own radio stations so they can run GOTV ads up until Election Day.
Let me know if you have any ideas or questions and thank you again for your wonderful support.
Pretty amazing stuff—both the organizers on the ground making this happen, and the Daily Kos community for helping fund it. You are all incredible! What's more, in the combined fundraising page for both Democrat Rick Weiland and the NDN PAC, you guys (and me too!) have now broken $300,000. And that's in what, ten days?
Republicans are certainly noticing.
National money now is pouring into the state for team Rounds to counter the millions that Democrats and Democratic-leaning PACs are spending for Weiland. The big infusion of money is most obvious for both candidates in advertising. An observant person might notice that KELO’s newscasts seem a bit shorter as the station tries to cram in more political ads [...]
The National Rifle Association, the American Hospital Association and others also are trying to match the Democratic PACs supporting Weiland. They have put in money for print and radio ads.
Behind the scenes, national money is assembling a get-out-the-vote operation. Previously, the Rounds campaign had been relying largely on volunteers and parade appearances to build its GOTV operation. Now, with national money behind the effort, the campaign can hire professionals. Last week, Republican loyalists were getting phone calls offering them up to $15 an hour to knock on doors and make phone calls to help build a GOTV network for Election Day.
It's all-hands-on-deck time. Conservatives have decided that they won't sit on the sidelines and lose this race.
About 10,000 of us have decided the same thing on our side. But there are more of us who have yet to engage.
Now's about as good a time as any. It's either that, or you cede the floor to the NRA.