Simultaneous mobilizations efforts announced for 32 state capitols, Washington D.C., to kick off campaign
Submitted by Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival
BOSTON – Refusing to accept poverty as the fourth leading cause of death in America and declaring their votes are demands for living wages, voting rights and other policies to save lives and democracy itself, the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign announced recently the details of its major effort to mobilize millions of poor and low-wage voters statewide ahead of November’s election.
Pledging to wake the great, untapped power of the “sleeping giant” of poor and low-wage people, organizers said on February 20th during a press conference on the Massachusetts State House steps that teams of 30 state campaign leaders from various counties across Massachusetts will be trained locally to engage voters and drive them to the polls.
Campaign Tri-Chairs across the country also participated in simultaneous press conferences, where leaders explained that the reason poor and low-wage voters participate in elections at lower rates is not because they have no interest in politics, but because politics is not interested in them.
“I lost my home. While I am housed now, I still feel the effects of what happened. My sister, Doreen, had cancer and died because she lost her home while battling it. If she had not lost her home, she would still be alive. Housing security is public health. Her death was the result of policy choices. We again and again are not heard and people elsewhere decide our fate. We are here today to say that ends – our votes are demands, and we will be heard,” said Lady Lawrence, a person impacted by losing her home and racism.
“We declare today that poor and low-wage voters are coming together with religious leaders and moral advocates to say, ‘our votes are demands.’ We are not voting for personality; our votes are for policy. If a candidate wants our votes, then they must talk to the very voters they have been leaving behind,” The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and co-chair of the 2024 mobilization, recently stated: “The Poor People’s Campaign is waking up the sleeping giant of low-wage voters who have been ignored for far too long.”
Local Poor People’s Campaign leaders joined impacted voters in announcing plans for simultaneous actions March 2 at state capitols to further the campaign and highlight the policies being promulgated in state houses across the country that are hurting the poor, or distracting from addressing the real issues facing poor and low-wage people, which in Massachusetts is 2.4 million people or 34% of the population. In Massachusetts, the 2024 voter mobilization plans include Waking the Sleeping Giant of voters in the state, home of 1.3 million poor and low-income eligible voters who make up 23% of the electorate. Massachusetts leaders plan to Mobilize, Organize, Register, Empower and Educate voters.
The voter mobilization and March 2 actions will take place in Alabama, Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
Organizers Tuesday declared they will not accept poverty as the fourth leading cause of death in the country when it is preventable and laid out in vivid detail data that shows poor and low-wage people have the power to fundamentally shift elections and demand that critical issues like voting rights, living wages, health care for all, women’s rights, environmental justice and more are addressed.
“Organizing low-wage voters holds great – and largely unrecognized – potential to shift electoral outcomes,” the Rev. Dr. Barber said, citing Poor People’s Campaign election data. “Low-income voters accounted for at least 20% of the voting electorate in 45 states – and that share grew to near or above 40% in battleground states, including in states that flipped in 2020 or that retained very small margins of victory. “This goes squarely against the commonly held belief that poor and low-wage people are either apathetic about politics or marginal to election outcomes,” he added.
Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin were all states with very tight presidential races in 2020. In all but Texas, the margin of victory was near or under 3%, making possible a victory for either of the two contending political parties. In Texas, the margin of victory was just over 5%.
In states where the margins of victory were less than 3%, low-wage voters accounted for at least one-third and in some cases over two-fifths of the total voter population. Given the small margins of victory in these states, it is possible that the broader population of eligible low-wage voters could decide the election in 2024. In Massachusetts, there are 1,357,674 poor and low-income eligible voters, including 1,083,681 white voters, 116,937 Latino voters, 26,679 Asian voters, 71,484 Black voters and 140 Indigenous voters. Together, they account for 23.31% of the electorate.
In 1965 at the end of the Selma to Montgomery March, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said the greatest fear of the southern aristocracy was for masses of people to come together across races and form a voting block that can fundamentally shift the economic architecture of this country. On February 20th, organizers with the Poor People’s Campaign vowed to be that bloc, and carry out the nation’s unfinished business.
“We are taking back the mic, putting forward our demands, and calling our legislators to the task of building a third reconstruction,” said Tri-Chair Savina Martin.
**For additional information, please email massachusetts@poorpeoplescampaign.org ** ■
