BLUF: Start Early, Exploit Networks, Target Efforts, Engage Allies, Finish Strong.
INTENT: In 2025, enable Virginia Veterans, Active-duty Service Members, and Veteran Supporters to VOTE and SUPPORT AVV endorsed candidates through expanded membership and coordinated 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. Check this out, 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.
It’s early February and we’re primed for action!!
Bob Wood, LTG (R) US ARMY
CEO, American Veterans Vote
VETERANS FORWARD!
EVERY VETERAN, EVERY VOTEr
by
Michael B. “Yama” Hoyes
COL (R), USAF
The first words Pete Hegseth spoke after being sworn in as Secretary of Defense were “All praise and glory to God.” Hegseth is now responsible for approximately 2.9 million active duty, National Guard and Reserve members and civilian employees, with an annual budget in the neighborhood of $900B! Simply, the Department of Defense is responsible for protecting the United States from external and internal threats…it seeks order out of chaos.
Hegseth’s statement and those facts should give us as Veterans, and those who support Veterans pause. Perhaps they remind us of the initial words of our Declaration… “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…”
In the very first book of the Bible, we read it was the same Creator who produced order where there was chaos by creating the heavens and the earth, and that same Creator endowed us with those inalienable rights. Out of formlessness He created light and He separated light from darkness. Out of a population that could tear itself apart, He created a nation that understood its positioning regarding the Creator.
And we are the ones who chose to defend this nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Whether active duty, retired or separated, we NEVER forfeited that oath. We have an enduring commitment to defend our nation. Voting is really the easiest thing we can do to help bring order to chaos…so, bring a friend!
by
Frank Wickersham, USMC (RET)
For much of the past century, the US military and its Veterans were considered by the public to be more homogenous and more patriotic than the general citizenry. And most citizens believed this population represented the US public in general. Are these two views truly accurate today? Likely not. How can today’s military and Veterans be super patriots on the one hand and still represent our modern, fractionated society? This confusion in public perspectives on the military and its Veterans is only made worse by the so called “generational dissonance” of the American public.
The cause of “generational dissonance” within our society is often traced to the various and conflicting experiences across generations running from Silent to Millennials to Zed. If these generational divisions are so consequential, how can we believe that there is actual continuity within the military and its cohorts of Veterans? But we as a Nation may be missing a larger point! If the military and Veterans are our benchmark for patriotism and homogeneity, our society more broadly should also be marked by such patriotism and homogeneity!
Since 2001 and the Attacks of 911, this has not been the case. Our American society has been severely bifurcated by competing political philosophies from both inside and outside of the Country. Think about the impacts of communism, socialism, liberalism, patriotism and any of the more than 234 “isms” that have impacted human thought! Did any of these” isms’ impact our US generational dissonance?
Let us consider just two cases of patriotism that have greatly impacted the US society, military and our Veterans.
On 11 September 2001, the US population was 281 million when Islamist terrorists killed 2,977 people and injured upwards of 6000 persons. In the following year 181,510 individuals joined the active-duty military, and 72,908 individuals enlisted in the reserves. From 2001-2024 the US military lost 7,000 killed and 53,000 wounded.
By comparison, on 7 December 1941, the US population was 133 million when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Sixteen million men and women served in WW2 between 1940-1945, with 10 million of these being males who were drafted. The US military lost 400,000 killed and 671,000 wounded.
Patriots all, but with harshly different experiences for the military and Veterans of 1945-2001 as compared to those of 2001 to present. The “generational dissonance” being experienced within our modern-day military and Veterans is caused NOT by sameness of experiences compared to earlier generations. They are differentiated by the shift to post-911 liberalism.
The generations from 1945 to 2001, believed themselves cut from the same basic cloth of patriotism and resilience. Their Christian beliefs and codes of responsibility were strong. Politically, they voted for values and policies rather than parties and personalities. After 911 our military and Veterans looked for strong leaders such as their Country had produced in years of crisis before. The search for patriotic leaders faltered. America was on its way into post-911 partisan politics. The “age of diversity and division” changed the metrics by which the US military and its Veterans were measured. The institutionalization of DEI, CRT, Spectrum Clubs, political correctness, and rabid partisan behaviors began to override the homogeneity and patriotism of the military and its Veterans. Sides had to be chosen.
With the emergence of the Millennials and Zeds into military leadership and Veteran organizations the “die was cast.” Liberal social agendas were in vogue, diversity was overtly emphasized, principles and standards were mutated, political correctness triumphed, combat effectiveness was diminished, and commanders were dismissed so that others more partisan could oversee liberal change.
Given the new Presidential Administration and Congress, it appears that many of the debilitating liberal policies are rapidly changing. Will the military and Veterans and the American society sense this change and become more patriotic and more homogeneous? Will the military and Veteran population once again reflect the US public at large?
I believe a return to such a balance between the beliefs of a nation and those held by its military and Veterans will be both healthy and powerful. Unity in belief regarding a strong national defense, patriotism, fiscal conservatism, defense of the Constitution as written, and limited government will mitigate “generational dissonance” for the better!
Read, study and vote wisely.
American Veterans Vote, Inc. (AVV) is a volunteer team of Veterans and Veteran supporters. We are a 527 Political Action Committee with a nationally-focused mission to promote the political power of Veterans and Veteran supporters in support of our three strategic goals:
AVV’s goal is to help Veterans maximize their political voice by supporting Veterans’ ability to Vote, Volunteer and Lead.
“Every Veteran, Every Vote.”
We don’t speak FOR Veterans… we speak AS Veterans.
PAID FOR BY AMERICAN VETERANS VOTE
Join AVV. Get Involved. Plus, you get access to all Member Content as well as a Subscription to our Newsletter! To do both at the same time, CLICK HERE.
