The election is nearly upon us. Over the past 18 months, the party leadership has been working towards this day. We’ve worked on fundraising, organization, candidate recruitment, advertising, etc. in order to assist our candidates to be competitive on this day.

I can tell you that what we’ve accomplished has far exceeded my expectations. I was hopeful that we could have three or four viable candidates competing this year in select districts. We have far more than that. The quality of the candidates and the effort they’ve put forward is amazing. They’ve been walking their districts, placed thousands of signs, recruited hundreds of supporters, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. I estimate that the next candidate financial report will show that our candidates collectively have raised $250,000. Some of them will have outspent their incumbent opponents. You can see the results of that money in the yard signs, large signs, and billboards that are all over the county. Some areas of Utah County almost look like a swing state in a presidential election!

And this effort by the candidates is bearing fruit. We’ve been conducting internal polls over the last couple of months. We found that, among those who have decided who they will vote for, two of our candidates are ahead of their opponents, three others are even with the Republicans, and three others are within ten points or so of the incumbent. Yes, you heard right. With enough help, our candidates have a decent chance to pull this off!

The problem in all cases is the high number of undecided voters. An undecided voter is usually one who hasn’t paid much attention to the campaign and likely will go into the voting booth and vote Republican. That’s why the candidates are working so hard to make personal contact (either directly themselves or through volunteers) to reach all those undecided voters. An undecided voter who gets information about one of our candidates, particularly if they meet them personally, is likely to become a supporter of that candidate.

And that’s why your help is so desperately needed. By helping distribute literature for the candidate, volunteering to make phone calls, or just talking to your neighbors, you can increase the amount of information that undecided voter has about our candidate.

On another matter: We’ve run a vigorous and respectful campaign. We’ve challenged the incumbents on their bad policy choices, extremist views, and lack of leadership on critical issues. But it is important that we not go below that. One of our candidates reported she saw several of her opponent’s signs vandalized, including a large one that was ripped up. Even though some on the opposition side do this, we cannot do this. Please help others, particularly young people, to learn to disagree without resorting to underhanded tactics. We need to be better than that.

To all of you have devoted time and energy for the party or individual candidates, I thank you. You’ve done a wonderful thing to help revitalize the Democratic party in Utah County and give these candidates a fighting chance on election day.

See you at our victory party on November 4!