Protect the Right to Vote: Be a Poll Worker on Election Day Sign Up Today
From left to right, top to bottom: Donald Trump (president; photo by Gage Skidmore), Kari Lake (AZ-Sen), Tim Sheehy (MT-Sen), Sam Brown (NV-Sen), Bernie Moreno (OH-Sen), Dave McCormick (PA-Sen), Eric Hovde (WI-Sen), Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06), Ken Calvert (CA-41), Michelle Steel (CA-45), Yvette Herrell (NM-02), Anthony D’Esposito (NY-04)
Each month this fall, LCV Victory Fund and affiliated entities will be sharing top stories about the impact of our elections-focused work. This month, we’re highlighting the 2024 Dirty Dozen, our plans for engaging young voters in swing states and for flipping the House, and the ways we’ve made climate action a winning political issue for candidates.
For more than 25 years, our Dirty Dozen program has helped defeat federal candidates who consistently side against the environment and are running in races in which LCV Victory Fund has a serious chance to affect the outcome. Highlighting candidates in this way serves multiple purposes: most importantly, informing voters about candidates’ harmful positions and elevating climate action and environmental protection as electoral issues.
Each election cycle, we choose Dirty Dozen candidates based on their climate, environment, and democracy positions and regardless of their political party affiliation. The 2024 federal Dirty Dozen candidates were announced earlier this month, and their anti-environment and anti-democracy records are highlighted below:
The federal Dirty Dozen program has proven so successful that we also publish a Dirty Dozen in the States list to shine a light on candidates running in state and local races prioritized by our state affiliates, and whose positions threaten the air we breathe, the water we drink, and our climate and democracy future. In 2022, both the federal Dirty Dozen and Dirty Dozen in the States programs helped defeat 10 of 12 of the worst anti-environment candidates — a success rate of more than 83%.
In close elections, a well-executed field program can mean the difference between winning and losing. LCV Victory Fund’s best-in-class field program — which includes a mix of persuasion and turnout canvassing and focuses on mobilizing young people and people of color — has helped deliver decisive margins in close races for more than a decade.
This year, LCV Victory Fund is running robust canvass programs in presidential, Senate, and House races in 11 states, including Arizona, California, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. As of late September, canvassers have knocked on more than 1 million doors, over 25,000 voters have committed to remind three friends to vote, and 71% of contacted voters have committed to support the Harris-Walz ticket.
The field program supports LCV Victory Fund’s four key goals for this election:
To meet these goals LCV Victory Fund has set up 27 field offices employing more than 1,900 paid canvassers, who are working across 11 states to focus on the following:
Each conversation our canvassers have with voters builds interest and enthusiasm in the election and increases the likelihood of those they engage turning out to vote. Recent examples include:
In addition to canvassing, LCV Victory Fund’s field program also includes paid relational organizing. This innovative approach harnesses what we know about motivating young voters.
Nationally the presidential race remains very tight, and young voters — 12% of whom could still swing to either Harris or Trump — could be decisive on Election Day. According to Harvard research, when asked which turnout tactics are the most helpful, 64% of young voters under 30 who were uncertain about voting said that conversations with friends and family would be the most helpful to them.
LCV Victory Fund capitalizes on this by recruiting paid mobilizers to engage friends and family about voting for our candidates. In this way, we aim to reach more than 100,000 voters — including infrequent voters, voters living in less easily canvassable areas, and eligible voters who are not registered.
After the 2018 election cycle, independent researchers verified that LCV Victory Fund’s field persuasion programs increased the margin of support for our endorsed candidates by a statistically significant 7% on Election Day.
In 2022, independent researchers found that LCV Victory Fund’s mobilization canvass programs in Michigan and Pennsylvania had an effect of increasing turnout by 4-5% among the voters we targeted, compared with demographically similar voters in neighboring precincts.
LCV Victory Fund is running a $55 million paid advertising campaign in key swing states with partners EDF Action Votes, Climate Power Action, and Future Forward PAC. The campaign is designed to support Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid with a specific focus on reaching Black, Latino, and young voters.
This advertising campaign and its messages are built on a bedrock of research that consistently finds that:
In this extremely tight race for the presidency, young voters — 12% of whom could still swing to either Harris or Trump — could be decisive. Public opinion research and polling from climate groups consistently show that climate change is a key issue for younger voters and also holds high personal importance for them.
Nearly 7 in 10 young voters support Harris’ approach to ensure that we all have access to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment over Trump’s stated intention to aggressively expand drilling while dismissing the threat posed by climate change.
— LCV Victory Fund Senior Vice President for Campaigns Pete Maysmith
The advertisements — which feature clean energy jobs, cracking down on Big Oil profits, and the threats posed by climate change — are running in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as the 2nd Congressional District in Nebraska, which awards its electoral college votes by district.
The campaign includes a major investment in digital platforms like YouTube, streaming services, and far-reaching broadcast and cable advertising. By leveraging data, the ads will reach key viewers, including Black, Latino and young voters, over the course of the campaign.
Watch Other Ads in this Campaign: Future Worth Fighting For | Our Side | Vulnerable | Defining Goal
If our movement gains just four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives this fall, climate and democracy champions will win control of the chamber. This is a critical opportunity to either blunt the aims of a disastrous second Trump presidency or support the climate action, clean energy, and pro-democracy goals of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Winning the House is among LCV Victory Fund’s top priorities for this election, just after winning the White House. To this end, LCV Victory Fund recently launched a massive mail, digital, and television advertising campaign to help educate and mobilize voters in more than 20 of the most competitive districts.
The ads are part of a larger $14 million campaign running across more than 20 House districts in 11 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Ohio, and Virginia.
Tackling the climate crisis, ensuring access to clean air and water, and supporting clean energy initiatives are both good policy and good politics. For more than a decade, LCV Victory Fund has played a key role in elevating the need for environmental protections and climate action for voters while also making them winning issues for candidates.
Our success was on full display during last month’s Democratic National Convention (DNC), when Vice President Harris and other climate champions took the stage to address the climate crisis and chart a path forward that includes clean energy, economic opportunity, and environmental justice. Speaker after speaker addressed the climate crisis — the most attention climate and clean energy have ever received at any major party political convention.
Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (FL-10) is 27 years old and the first member of Generation Z to serve in Congress. Watch as he explains how fighting the climate crisis is patriotic:
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland made history when she became the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. Watch as she reminds us to tap into our courage to protect the planet:
We have begun seeing the benefits of shifting to a clean energy economy, including decreases in utility costs, hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs, and cleaner air and water. Recent polling shows that people care about clean energy — with 63% of registered voters saying that developing sources of clean energy should be a priority. LCV Victory Fund will continue to elevate these issues for voters and candidates as we move toward November 5.
Paid for by LCV Victory Fund, www.lcvvictoryfund.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
©2024 League of Conservation Voters