As I shared with you last week in “Are We Stuck in a House of Cards America?”, winning an election doesn’t matter for the sake of winning an election. When our preferred candidate wins an election, the real winning is what happens when those good elected leaders work tirelessly to pass strong prolife, pro-family, pro-religious freedom laws that build a nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished. Now that is what we call winning.
That’s also why I want to share with you the story of what you helped bring about in primary elections across the country.
But first—what is a primary election anyway, and why does it matter?
Too often, many of us—myself included—have voted only in the general election in November, and maybe only then if it’s a big presidential election year. But the truth is, sometimes the biggest difference can be made in the primary election, especially at the state level.
This is because primary elections are where the members of the major political parties, Democrats and Republicans, select a candidate who best represents their values for that district. The winner will go on to the general election in November. Primary elections are why many in the Democratic party, for example, are seeing more and more of their candidates with socialistic ideas—because those candidates are being selected at the primary level in districts that tend to lean Democratic. On the other hand, many Republicans are seeing candidates called “RINOs,” or Republicans In Name Only. These candidates claim membership in the Republican party but reject some of the platform’s key components, such as being prolife.
In other words, if we want to see more conservative, prolife, pro-family leaders represent us, then we need to vote for the more conservative, prolife, pro-family candidate in whichever party we belong to in the primary election. Primary elections are why it’s also helpful to belong to a party—so that you can vote in the primary election and send the more conservative candidate onto the November election. In many states, you must declare a political party in order to vote in that party’s primary election.
Now onto the great results you helped achieve in the 2018 primary elections, which just concluded this week!
Your partnership with Family Policy Alliance helped 39 stronger pro-family candidates win critical primary elections in 8 different states.
To influence these 39 races, we communicated with voters nearly 850,000 times through knocking on doors, phone calls, email, targeted digital ads, and good old snail mail!
I can’t thank you enough for making the country, state-by-state, more conservative and family-centered by voting for the more conservative pro-family candidate in these key races!
I now want to share with you two examples of how your involvement in the primary election is writing a new story in two different states.
9 votes. We often hear “well my one vote doesn’t matter anyway.” And, it’s easy to think that when you consider the large number of voters in your state, and certainly in the country. But a race in Kansas was won by only 9 votes!
Our ally in Kansas, Family Policy Alliance of Kansas, identified five key primary races there. In these five races, the incumbent Republican legislators had voted against one of the biggest wins for religious freedom from this year—a simple law that ensures that faith-based adoption agencies can continue to run their ministries in a way that aligns with their faith. The law is necessary because groups like the ACLU are trying to shut down Christian and other adoption agencies that believe children do best when placed with a married mom and dad—leaving birth moms and children with less opportunities and choices
Family Policy Alliance of Kansas, with the help of pro-family Kansans, helped the pro-religious freedom candidate win in 4/5 of those races! Candidate Paul Waggoner was one of those winners—he’s the candidate who won by 9 votes. That means that because nine people showed up to vote in the primary election, Kansans in that district will now have the chance to elect someone in November who will stand strong for them on religious freedom.
And in Georgia, our ally Family Policy Alliance of Georgia supported three primary candidates who were attacked by business associations in the state for supporting religious freedom and other pro-family legislation. Business associations spent big money to try to defeat these good legislators, and no other pro-family groups in Georgia stood up to support these four candidates.
Despite well-funded opposition, all four won their primary elections! Two of these legislators attended our sister Foundation’s Statesmen Academy training program for Christian legislators, and we know that all four will go on to lead the way with pro-family policies in Georgia.
So thank you for supporting pro-family candidates in the primary elections!
And congratulations to all those who now head to the November 6th general election!
We ask now that you prepare for November 6th. We saw many good candidates achieve victory in the primaries. Now we need these pro-family candidates to carry that momentum into November 6th, winning their elections, so that we can go on to see the real winning—where these leaders will pass policies that restore an America where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive and life is cherished.
Make sure you know who your candidates are and where your polling place is.
If you’d like to help pro-family candidates win on November 6th in 60 different critical races, state and federal, across the country please consider giving to rally pro-family voters—and right now your gift will be DOUBLED up to $130,000!
For winning what really matters,
Autumn Leva,
Vice President of Strategy
