BLUF: Start Early, Exploit Networks, Target Efforts, Engage Allies, Finish Strong
INTENT: In 2025, enable Virginian Veterans, Active-duty Service Members, and Veteran Supporters to VOTE and SUPPORT AVV endorsed candidates through expanded membership and coordinated statewide action.
GOAL: EVERY VETERAN, EVERY VOTE!
The After-Action Review for 2024 is complete! Thanks to the broad AVV team that assembled to provide honest feedback and creative solutions, we are now building our campaign plan for 2025. It’s a year to capture and build the momentum of a powerful national victory for President Trump behind Virginia’s State and House of Delegate candidates. Thankfully, it’s also a year to exploit our AVV strengths as we build new capabilities, increasing the scope of our activities, and achieving record Veteran voting through statewide GOTV.
Key activities ahead:
Expand our AVV network to Win at the Ballot Box
It is crucial that we build a strong network of energized Veteran voters across Virginia to win both local and statewide races. Your support will help us broaden grassroots efforts, conduct voter education campaigns, and execute Veteran supported activities within and between Virginia regions. Where we are strong, we can dominate. Where we are not, we can reinforce. We must leverage the power of our networked organization.
Expand our Vets2Vote activities
We’ve refined our data, our key races, and our communication tools. We’ve built our strategic calendar and identified our event plans. And we’ve got a new model matching Vets to Polls for voter outreach.
Expand our Membership
American Veterans Vote, Inc. thrives on the dedication and passion of our members and supporters. By expanding our membership base, we can amplify our collective voice and exert greater influence on the issues that matter most to us. Your contribution will enable us to reach more people, engage them in our cause, and build a dynamic force of Veteran and their supporters committed to positive change.
Expand our Messaging
Our planning and execution rely on an informed membership across all five of our state regional teams. Collective action is key to our networked strength. We must win locally and statewide. We are adopting a new website provider with a broad range of simple tools designed for member engagement and support. We’ve got a new SM coach and director! Communication within teams, across teams, and across the state will be greatly improved.
In this fifth year ahead for AVV, I strongly believe we’re on the cusp of powerful growth as an organization at an important time in our nation’s history. As we see a difficult but dynamic return to normalcy in many areas of public life, we know in Virginia there is nothing sure about enduring changes without wins at the ballot box in 2025.
There is potential good news in our data as we prepare to support 100 House Delegate (HD) races. Election year 2025 is much different than election year 2023, the last election year for HD seats. In fact, 2025 mirrors election year 2021 in the structure of races. Both these years saw a strong set of candidates at the state level drawing attention to down HD ticket races. Here’s what our data shows:
*RSW indicates Republican Swing voter/Independents who lean Republican
A 90K boost in Veteran turn out because of strong ticket at the top! Yet, there are still 24% of Vets (100% – 76%) on the sidelines.
There’s more. See below – particularly the lower right corner…
Bottom line – In the majority of Congressional Districts, Democrat Vets beat the Republican Vet turn out. And where we have the greatest number of Republican Veterans in CD’s 1,5,6,and 9, Democratic turnout percentage beats Republican in all cases. It’s not just that too many Republican Vets don’t vote. For statewide races, Republican Veteran complacency in “solid Red” districts is crippling. That’s exactly where the Statewide ticket can win with Vet votes to advance and protect the changes we want.
These insights, along with other data insights, drove our AAR and resulting campaign plan to seek voter gains in the right places with new practices and new tools. We can grow our membership, but we must target our actions for maximum effect. We will still work to add votes at the margin of HD races where winning is likely. But we also need to turnout Veteran votes broadly, statewide, where the most Veterans reside – CD’s 1,2,5,6, and 9.
VETERANS FORWARD!
Bob Wood, LTG (R), US Army
CEO, American Veterans Vote
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