11-25-2024 10:59pm

With Many Hands Action: A Lesson in Democracy and Organizing

Chris Edwards Editor

With Many Hands Action is the new kid on the block that demonstrated organizing matters. In Alamogordo many volunteers have participated in the community gardens initiative of With Many Hands Public Lands for Food Program. This is a 501C3 program not political and created to improve neighborhoods and enhance food security.

Another initiative that has been active in Alamogordo this last year is a political organization that operates as a 501C4 called With Many Hands Action. The members of Many Hands Action include a large number of low-propensity voters, who saw an opportunity to bring new voters into the race. They organized a Food and Housing Summit, which drew 200 people at the Tays Center in Alamogordo. With Many Hands Action invited Vasquez and his opponent, former Congresswoman, Yvette Herrell, as well as down ballot candidates. While Herrell did not attend, Vasquez did, and agreed to fight for more funding for SNAP and HUD, to champion an increase in SNAP benefits and the build hundreds of new affordable housing units in each county. He posted moments from the summit on his campaign’s social media feeds. The summit was featured in local media.

Many Hands Action moved to endorse Vasquez and two down ballot candidates. Their endorsement of Vasquez made the front page of the Roswell Daily Record. The program was anchored by three organizers who recruited and trained 15 organizing fellows.

That grassroots effort paid off as their endorsed candidate, Democrat Gabe Vasquez won his highly contested bid for re-election by 11,000 votes, despite a red wave across the nation and in congressional races. With Many Hands Action focused on 4 rural counties to include Otero, (with an average pop of 67k each) in Southeast New Mexico since 2022. These four counties were won by Trump in 2020 by an average of 71%, when there was very little community and electoral infrastructure in place.

With Many Hands Action built organizing campaigns around issues that the local community decided were of the highest priority, including food security, affordable housing, as well as land use and zoning (which are a throughline across both).

After two years of issue organizing the campaign leadership determined they needed to get involved in politics, to educate political leaders on options for thr the government to collaborate more effectively for working people at the local and state levels.

The leaders of Many Hands Action decided to endorse candidates in contested races across the 4 counties. This included New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, a race which helped determine the control of Congress. And two state legislative races, HD 51 and HD 53. The organization won one of those lower racea and increased democratic turnout in the other, despite a loss 2 out 3 ain’t bad for a newly formed organization.

Democrat Gabe Vasquez won the seat by 10,000 votes in a red wave, a significant increase from his original 1350 in 2022.

Many Hands Action fellows and volunteers personally recruited 938 working class voters to commit to voting for Vasquez, and made clear to voters in their communities his willingness to work with and be accountable to working class people in their neighborhoods.

The volunteers knocked on 2500 doors, made 4000 calls, had over 1000 conversations and persuaded 800 unlikely working-class voters to commit to voting for Vasquez.

Each of the organizing fellows then organized through their social networks, especially low propensity voters, urging people to vote for Vasquez. When they got a commitment to vote, the fellows equipped the voters with all they needed to vote early, by mail, or on election day. In total, the social network model led to 1000 attempts, 205 conversations, and 139 commit to votes.

One unique aspect of this canvass operation was the use of existing voter laws that allow people to register AND vote at the same time! Termed Same Day Voter Registration. At the doors, canvassers offered to drive them to the closest early voting site right then and there.

A Digital Strategy played a role in outreach. The two years of grassroots organizing that led up to this electoral strategy gave Many Hands Action the ability to purchase their supporters list of nearly 1300 people throughout the region. This base has been treated with a series of 7 text messages over the month of October, encouraging people to early vote and vote by mail with links to resources on the organizations website, compiled by the organizers.

The organization also partnered with Movement Labs to send a mass text to a universe of over 80,000 voters in their 4 target counties, persuading them to vote for Vasquez, and when they responded positively, sending them a link to voter resources tailored to their county. This garnered 1140 responses and 518 affirmative responses.

Along with the papers of record in Otero and Chaves county, With Many Hands Action received coverage from several local, independent, and even conservative leaning news outlets.

This piece about their organizing effort in New Mexico is an illustration of how quickly organizations can build electoral capacity if they start where people are, and choose the issues and direction in which they want to move. Organizing even in counties, with a deeply entrenched political machines can have an impact.

To learn more check out Many Hands Action & With Many Hands which are projects of Addition & Addition Action.