Friends, we are still numb. But also, we know we have each other. We hope you will join us for soup and community this Saturday if you feel up for it. We promise friendly faces, delicious food, and hugs if you need them. Hope to see you there, it’s an open house, so drop by for as long as you like. No pressure if you don’t feel up to a big gathering yet, we understand. Watch this space, more to come. For now, we are off to make a big pot of soup… 

Sign up to join us: https://www.mobilize.us/nj11thforchange/event/742317/

NJ 11th for Change’s Post Election Get Together- Sat, Nov. 9th, 2024 

Clearly this is not the outcome we worked for. We don’t know what comes next but we know it comes next here and with this community. 

Run through the tape. TWO FREAKING DAYS. Seriously, the best thing we can do is keep doing what we’ve been doing! We don’t mean doom scrolling. We mean CANVASSING! PHONE BANKING! TEXT BANKING! Checking on your friends and family and neighbors and making sure they have solid voting plans!

Gotta say, GOTV vote chasing is our favorite kind of canvassing! Knock on doors and your message is just, hey, we know you are a good voter, what is your plan to get to the polls? Do you know where to go? Can you bring a few friends and family members with you? The folks we talked to were grateful that we were there to help!

FOUR DAYS to Election Day. 

Looking for ways to manage your stress and anxiety? Our friend Gail has restarted Haiku Fridays on our Facebook member page and gotta say, taking a little break to read and write poetry is quite soothing and energizing. Here are some of our favorites:

Six more days. SIX MORE DAYS. Time to make your plans. Make your plan to vote if you haven’t yet! Are you a vote by mail voter? Find that VBM ballot and BRING IT TO A DROP BOX. Prefer to vote in person? Early voting continues through this Sunday, find a location here! And check on your friends, neighbors and family, make sure they have solid voting plans as well!

We are all Election Therapists now.

Twelve more days until Election Day. TWELVE FREAKING DAYS. Sorry for yelling, everyone we know is on edge. But also, we see so much positive news! For all the anxiety calls, texts, emails, or smoke signals, every call or group chat or random meetup with old college friends ends with “so I signed up to knock doors in PA,”  “so I sent 5000 texts,”  “so I did a phone bank and it was actually fun!” 

Fourteen days to Election Day. FOURTEEN DAYS. We get it. Our anxiety is through the roof too. But 14 days means there is no more time for agonizing over polls and pundits. We are now officially in Get Out The Vote season. GOTV means we need to find every last vote, talk to every last voter, make sure every single person we contact has a plan to vote! 

We need to make every one of them count! Postcard and letter writing is wrapping up, time to look for what else we can do! This weekend is the warmup to GOTV, and then starting 10/26 it’s all GOTV all the time. Our Events section has something for everyone ready to DO SOMETHING. We know that’s all of you, we’ve done so much together already! Buses to PA? We have those! Note, they fill up fast, so sign up right away! Phone banks! Texting! Poll worker training! And canvassing, lots and lots of canvassing. Grab a friend and go knock some doors!

We asked our friend Laura for some inspiration to get us going:

Postcard Party this Wednesday, October 16th from 7:30-9:30 pm!

We have 1000 postcards to send to women in CD 7! Come hang out with some of your favorite NJ 11th for Change folks and help get them in the mail! 

Sign up here

Will there be snacks? Of course! Dance breaks? Very likely! We are obsessed with the DNC 50 state Roll Call at the moment.

Electober. Knocktober. Voteober. Whatever you call it, October is Election Month and we are celebrating! 

We celebrated by writing postcards for Sue Altman in CD-7! Join us for our next postcard party on Wednesday, Oct. 16. Or sign up for your own pack here if you want to host your own party and we’ll make it happen! Donate to help us cover the cost of stamps here!

Planning your canvassing and phone banking week? LOTS to choose from in the EVENTS section at the end of the newsletter! As your Do Something! concierges, may we recommend the Sunday, Oct. 13th CD 7 canvass in Somerville, the Sunday, Oct. 13th CD 11 canvass in Montclair, and the NJ Young Dems South Asian Caucus phone bank on Wednesday, Oct 16? No PA buses this weekend, but they are back next week!

It’s October! You know what that means? Post-season Baseball? Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Leaf peeping? Halloween? We love a good PSL, but around here, October is Election Month! Election *day*? So last decade. We can start voting NOW. Vote by Mail ballots are out! Over here at the Election Therapist household, we celebrated the start of October is Election Month by watching the Mets win and then filling out our ballots and walking over to our neighborhood ballot box! It was a day filled with joy! 

It’s fall, we can feel the energy shift! All gas no brakes from here on out. 

Anytime someone tells us they have read something upsetting on Twitter or Facebook, or seen something worrying on cable news, we repeat Leah Greenberg’s mantra, and go sign up for another canvassing or phone banking shift!