FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Flippable is a political organization dedicated to flipping state governments from red to blue—and providing impactful ways for everyday people to get involved in state politics. We’re part of Swing Left, a grassroots organization that mobilizes donors and volunteers to help Democrats win the most important elections across the country.

In recent years, Republican-led state legislatures have passed restrictive voting laws that disenfranchise likely progressive voters, and they have gerrymandered district boundaries so that state and federal congressional seats do not fairly reflect the will of the people. By electing progressive leaders to state government and building good government through the states, we are supporting an honest democracy that represents its people.

And we hope you join us! First, you can visit our website and learn more about state governments and the important role they play in our democracy. Second, you can learn more about the candidates that Flippable is supporting, after analyzing thousands of races and identifying the strategic districts and candidates that will help win blue majorities in state legislatures.

Lastly, you can support these races by volunteering or donating to the Flippable Fund, which pools contributions as small as $5 and sends money directly to the candidates. By supporting these strategic races, you are also building the bench of progressive candidates for future national elections, and making the most of your time and dollars in strategic state campaigns that cost 10-100 times less than national elections. Since November 2016, we’ve raised over $2M for progressive candidates and helped elect 81 Democrats to state office.

The resistance is fighting regressive policies on many fronts, and Flippable has a unique role in this landscape. First, we focus on electing Democrats to state government because the laws that govern our elections are written at the state level.

Second, Flippable has invested in a data-driven model that identifies the most strategically important state legislative seats. We spotlight progressive candidates in those districts and enable everyday people to take action. Through the Flippable Fund, you can support all of our candidates, directly, with just one click, at whatever level you prefer.

The fight for justice, equality, and opportunity for all Americans will only be successful if we’re working together. In May 2019, we joined the Swing Left family to multiply our impact by working together to strategically elect Democrats up and down the ballot.

Additionally, our work with Emily’s List and Run for Something helps identify winning candidates to run for the seats that will tip the balance in state governments. And we worked with MobilizeAmerica to connect our volunteers to canvassing, phone banking, and text banking opportunities with our campaigns.

We’ve also worked with the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), Let America Vote, Indivisible, Sister District, and Emerge America. We’re Friends of the Pod in our work with Crooked Media to raise awareness and mobilize the resistance to win where it’s needed most.

For 2019, it means we’ll continue to work toward flipping the entire Virginia General Assembly blue. We’re endorsing candidates in the House of Delegates and State Senate, and we’re raising money for our candidates’ campaigns through the Flippable Fund. In addition, we’ll work with Swing Left to provide volunteer opportunities with these campaigns in the months ahead.

For 2020, we’ll use our targeting expertise to help Swing Left identify critical legislative races in its “Super States,” which are 11 states where the key battles for fair redistricting, the Senate, and White House will be fought—and won.

The fight for fair democracy and progressive values is one that doesn’t end with any single election, law signing, or court ruling. Our challenge as an organization and a community is to ensure that this movement sustains well beyond the present moment.

The 2018 midterms gave us a great opportunity to win state legislative seats across the country, but our work continues through the 2019 and 2020 election cycles. The party that controls state governments in 2021 will draw the new state legislative and US congressional district lines after the next census, so it is especially crucial that Democrats have a seat at the table.

While we pay close attention and are in consistent communication with the Democratic Party’s official leadership at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), we are not affiliated with them. Flippable is an independent, innovative addition to the progressive landscape.

In the 2018 elections, Flippable supported 130 candidates in 14 state chambers in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and North Carolina. In these states, we helped flip four chambers, break three Republican supermajorities, and lay essential groundwork of Democratic gains before the 2020 elections and 2021 redistricting process.

We don’t just pick the state races that Democrats are most likely to win. We focus on the legislative chambers where Democrats must win a majority or make gains to bring progressive viewpoints to the table for policy and redistricting decisions that affect millions of Americans.

Within these chambers, we pick the districts where additional attention, dollars, and door knocks can make the difference between victory and defeat. We use historical election data and demographic information to identify the districts that are winnable, but not sure things—where extra help will tip the balance.

To demonstrate our focus on finding races that are truly close: in the 2018 elections, we allocated over 90% of our community’s investments to races within 10 points, 60% to races within 5 points, and 30% to races within 2.5 points.

Before we make an endorsement in a particular district, we ask all Democratic candidates to fill out a survey to ensure their values align with our core principles—that they are committed to expanding access to voting, drawing fair district lines, and fighting for the rights of all Americans.

After candidates are elected, we track their legislative actions and share when they follow through—like when Washington State Senator Manka Dhingra cast deciding legislative votes to expand voting rights in her state. We want our community to see when their contributions are paying off!

It is our core belief that American democracy can only flourish if all Americans have access to the ballot box and district lines allow for voters to be represented fairly. Today, candidates from only one of our two major parties support these values: Democrats.

While Democrats are responsible for a handful of gerrymandered districts, Republicans have been far more ruthless in the use of sophisticated mapping software to extinguish the voting power of progressives. Republicans also favor excessive voting restrictions that make it harder for young Americans and citizens of color to cast ballots.

For example, it is estimated that as many as 22 of Republicans’ former 24-seat majority in the US House of Representatives were directly attributable to gerrymandering; as many as 300,000 citizens in Wisconsin were affected by the state’s voter ID law in 2016, when Trump won the state’s presidential vote by 22,000 votes; and nearly 1.7 million citizens in Florida were prevented from voting in 2016 by the state’s recently-overturned felon disenfranchisement laws (Trump won the state by about 113,000 votes).

Until candidates from both parties demonstrate a central commitment in their platforms to uphold American democracy, Flippable will only support the candidates and party that upholds fair and free elections for all Americans.

Every district is important! To truly turn the tide on the erosion of our democracy, Democrats need to run—and win—in every state.

But in order to maximize the impact of Flippable’s resources and expertise, we have to selectively choose the seats and legislative chambers that are most crucial to restore progressive values and fair elections. Specifically, we are directing our funds and volunteers where we can win majorities or break supermajorities by 2020.

If your home district isn’t on our list, that doesn’t mean it’s not winnable and important! We encourage you to get in touch with your candidate to see how you can help. If your home district is safe or out of reach this cycle, Flippable helps direct your dollars and energy where it will have the biggest payoff for the resistance.

In any given election, voters can cast ballots for candidates running for seats ranging from school boards, state-level secretaries of state, to US Senate—and we urge you to support pro-democracy candidates in all of these races! Our focus is on state legislatures, because those lawmakers draw district lines and draft voting laws. On our social media and blog, we also feature news about decisions and elections at all levels of government.

We think Democratic voters in local districts are best prepared to choose the candidate they wish to represent their party and their interests in general elections, so we do not support candidates before the primary. We can’t know which Democrat in the Pittsburgh suburbs or in Boulder will best speak for her constituents. But we are sure that whichever Democrat is nominated is more likely than her Republican opponent to fight for fair elections and good government once she gets to Harrisburg or Denver. If it’s a seat we’re supporting, we’ll have resources ready for that candidate so she can hit the ground running and flip the district in the general election.

Our partner, Swing Left, provides opportunities to volunteer in the most critical geographies to register voters and win elections up and down the ballot."

We created Flippable to inform and inspire progressives in every corner of the country. We are focused on providing easy-to-understand information about the role of state governments in maintaining a fair democracy in a format that is relevant and accessible for everyone, no matter where they live. This enables us to pool resources from all 50 states—even those where state legislatures are safely Democratic—and support the most strategic districts, wherever they may be. With so many great local groups out there already, we don’t want to reinvent the wheel—instead we hope that Flippable’s tools and information are helpful resources to these groups and individual activists around the country.

Though we prefer donors use our donation platform if possible, we understand that some community member may only be able to contribute via check. If you would like to send a check to Flippable, you can send it to the following address.

Flippable c/o Bee Compliance
611 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, #192
Washington, DC 20003

In order for us to process your contribution in compliance with FEC regulations, please enclose a letter with the following information:

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