Earlier this week, I sent a note to my campaign team, the folks who’ve poured 18 months of their lives into this. I want to share some of it with you, because you’ve been part of this team too, whether you knocked doors, made calls, or chipped in $10.
But first, I need to tell you this: Most Michiganders are only now tuning in to this race. What we put in front of them in the next four days may be the first and last thing they see of our campaign.
Can you donate $10 so that we can reach as many of them as possible before polls close?
Jason, in just a few days, we will be waking up to an Election Day for which we’ve been working for months, some of us more than a year and a half.
I wanted to take stock of the moment and to express my gratitude to every one of you for all you’ve poured into this.
Millions of people are counting on us — Michiganders we have met, and Michiganders we have yet to meet. They are counting on us to be their voice for a fairer and kinder America.
They’re counting on us to fight for their healthcare, to take on the corporations who’ve taken advantage of them, to fight the corruption that’s picking their pockets. We do this for them.
God willing, we are on the cusp of changing the face of American politics. The veneer of change — the “firsts” of this — is less what I’m talking about than the foundations.
In America, we are supposed to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Yet we’ve watched as oligarchs, special interests, and corporations have corrupted that ideal into something that looks very different than what it was intended to be.
The framers intended a democracy in which we openly debate our ideas — what we’ve got now feels more like corporations and special interests funding both sides of an endless cycle of attack ads.
We’re challenging that system. We’re going everywhere; we’re speaking with everyone.
It’s odd that our campaign feels new to folks when it was built on the oldest foundations of what democracy was supposed to be in the first place. Changing the face of American politics is simply an exercise in civic exfoliation, clearing the gunk to take us again to the ideals of what this was always supposed to be.
But the cusp of something is not itself accomplishing that thing.
We have a couple of days left. The vast majority of Michiganders are only now tuning into this campaign. What feels like the end of an 18-month journey is, for most Michiganders, the middle of an annoying month of election season.
What we do in the next few days may be the first and last thing someone sees of our campaign.
As exhausted, as tired, as spent as you (and I) might feel, we need to sprint through the tape. We rest next Tuesday at 8 PM.
This work is fundamentally about other people. You cannot do politics alone. It’s about the conversations we have together about who we are and who we want to be.
This team is building something special. And that’s because for 18 months, we’ve invested in, relied upon, and believed in one another. As the pressure mounts, we need each other now more than ever.
There are no consolation prizes in politics. We win, or we don’t. That’s it.
I’m promising you I’m going to do all I can to win. And there is no one I’d rather be doing this with.
I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful for all you’ve poured into this. I’m grateful for the time, the energy, the hope, the effort.
Michigan deserves our very best, now and forever.
I’ve put everything I have into this, and I know so many of you have too. Will you chip in $10 or any amount so that every Michigander just tuning in hears from us before they vote?
Yours in the work,
Abdul
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