Happy Friday Rulers! It’s been a week of wins for women at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which we love to see! Now let’s get to it. Win with Black Women, a collective of Black women leaders across all industries, had a scheduled meeting the night of July 21. Then, just a few hours before the meeting, President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race — and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. “We knew we had to shift the conversation,” Jotaka Eaddy, the collective’s founder, tells Women Rule. That meeting turned into a Zoom call of 44,000 Black women rallying support for Harris and raised $1.6 million. Demand was so high — originally only 1,000 women could log on at a time — it took some callers hours to log on. The call inspired other identity groups to do the same. Black men organized a call the following day with over 50,000 participants. White, Latina and AAPI women all held calls last week, as well as the “Out for Kamala Harris LGBTQ+ Unity” call. Monday night a call titled “White Dudes for Harris,” with appearances from actors Jeff Bridges, Mark Hamill, Mark Ruffalo and Bradley Whitford saw 190,000 people in attendance. “I think it speaks volumes to not only the excitement around Vice President Kamala Harris but also the commitment of Americans to mobilize to ensure that she’s elected president,” Eaddy says. “It also speaks to a sense of collective unity that this country so desperately wants as it thinks about the alternative.” Harris, a woman of Black and South Asian descent, and the first female Vice President, would claim yet another historical first if elected president: She’d be the first woman president — and the first president of Asian descent. With her name on the top of the ticket, organizers seem energized to get the work done needed to secure her seat in the Oval Office. Angela Ferrell-Zabala is the executive director of Moms Demand Action, a grassroots movement advocating for policy to prevent gun violence. Harris’ ascendence to the top of the ticket means a lot, Ferrell-Zabala tells Women Rule, particularly for Black women. “The ways that we have been loyal, especially to the Democratic Party, and showing up and frankly saving this country on our back sometimes even when that love is not returned or reciprocated when we get folks elected,” Ferrell-Zabala says. “So this is an example of us being able to see ourselves in someone.” Black voters remain a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, with 92 percent casting a vote for Biden in 2020. But the country’s largest voting bloc, white women, have historically favored Republican nominees. White women have only favored Democrats twice out of the 17 presidential elections that have taken place since 1952. They favored former President Donald Trump in both the 2020 and 2016 elections. But Democrats are hopeful that Harris will turn the tide. Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, kickstarted the idea of a call for white women who support Harris. On July 25, “White Women: Answer the Call! Show up for Kamala Harris,” crashed Zoom several times and more than 164,000 women joined. “It was this idea of: ‘How do we honor and emulate what Black men and women have done to bring our political and economic power to bear on one call?’” Watts tells Women Rule. For Watts, white women voting for Republicans is something that she is hoping to “flip the script on.” “A lot of the conversation centered around why white women so often vote for the candidate that will uphold white supremacy and patriarchy. And that’s because we often think it will benefit us,” Watt says. “And the reality is, it won’t.” Democrats seem hopeful that this will be the election where white women throw their support behind the Democratic nominee. “I certainly believe we are going to see some shifts,” Eaddy says, referencing issues of reproductive freedom and health care for women. Harris has vowed to restore Roe v. Wade if elected, a position she has held during her tenure as vice president. New polling from The Economist/YouGov released on Wednesday found increased support from registered voters who are Black, up 11 points to 74 percent, and women, up 7 points to 50 percent. But in order for Democrats to win over white women, more work needs to be done, the White Women for Harris organizers say. While speaking on the Zoom call, Watts detailed the work white women need to be doing, such as donating, having conversations with each other and using their privilege for good. “We are too often perfectly happy to just sit on the sidelines and to expect others to do what I call the unglamorous heavy lifting of grassroots activism,” Watts tells Women Rule. “And that’s not going to be acceptable in this election cycle. We have to use our privilege and our platforms to help Kamala Harris win.” The enthusiasm that Democrats have been seeing since Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket has made Democratic voters more hopeful, and Eaddy doesn’t see it fading anytime soon. “That momentum only grows and it is going to turn into, I believe, massive voter engagement and massive voter turnout,” Eaddy says. Speaking to an audience of roughly 10,000 at a rally in Atlanta, featuring a performance by Megan Thee Stallion, Harris set the tone for her campaign and was met with a mix of excitement and uncertainty from voters. In order for the excitement surrounding Harris’ campaign to continue, Eaddy says, there must be a strong commitment to the ground game. “That’s where we win elections. Talking to voters, mobilizing voters and making sure that voters have all the information they need and the ability to cast that vote,” Eaddy says. “I think that is going to be the driver and what will make the difference for her in this election.”
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