We’ll get into the contest in a second; I just want to make sure that you know that the Virginia legislative elections are this year, 2023, not next year like most elections. We’re trying to flip the House of Delegates blue and expand the narrow Democratic lead in the state Senate. Blue America has identified 5 crucial progressive races for this contest, 2 for Senate seats and 3 for House seats.
So here’s how the contest works— if you contribute to a candidate through this ActBlue page or any combination of candidates, your e-mail address is entered in a random drawing and one contributor— regardless of amount you give— will win the RIAA-certified Nimrod double platinum award, which was originally given to Howie Klein, then president of Green Day’s record company, now treasurer of Blue America. It’s a beautiful, custom award and would look gorgeous on any wall, but especially on the wall of any Green Day fan you might know.
The contest will run from Sunday, May 7 until midnight on Saturday night May 13 at midnight (technically May 14). And if you really want the Green Day award but can't afford to make a contribution, send us a postcard today to
Blue America PAC
PO Box 27201
Los Angeles, CA 90027
and let us know, and you'll be in the drawing too!
If you’d rather enter by sending a check, you can send it to that PO box too. Please consider digging a little deeper this week and helping out in Virginia, whether you live there or anywhere else in the U.S.
If you click on this image, you can contribute to any of the candidates:
Just one entry per e-mail address and if you’re a supporter of any of these candidates and/or Representative Democracy, there’s a special built into the contest.
The candidate who brings in the most contributions (not the most dollars, the most people- one entry per email), will get a $1,000 check from Blue America. In these legislative races, $1,000 can make all the difference in the world. And these state legislative races can too.
Both the leaders of Congress, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries got their starts in their respective state legislatures. And many of the most effective members of Congress did as well— like Ted Lieu (CA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Ruben Gallego (AZ), Cori Bush (MO), Jerry Nadler (NY), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ), Barbara Lee (CA), Morgan McGarvey (KY), Adam Schiff (CA), Steve Cohen (TN), Ilhan Omar (MN), Nikema Williams (GA), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Jeff Merkley (OR), Summer Lee (PA) and Pramila Jayapal (WA).
In fact, we first met Pramila when she was in the Washington state legislature. She’s very enthusiastic about this contest.
“State legislatures across our country,” she told me, “write laws that change the lives of millions across each state, and create blueprints for federal legislation. These can be incredibly positive measures that do things like raise the wage or fight climate change. But as we’ve seen recently they can also be incredibly damaging like bans on abortion access and legislation targeting trans kids. Legislative races couldn’t be a more important tool in fighting back against extremism across our country.”
And just to remind you about what a great band Green Day is… and what a great album Nimrod is…
Thanks for always doing what you can to help make this a better world,
The entire Blue America team
