Dear Democrats,
After a long night of watching election results, I want to thank each and every one of you who walked neighborhoods, distributed door hangers, phone banked, texted, donated, and supported our endorsed candidates.
While we need to be patient to get the final results from our work, I am particularly proud of all the work Contra Costa Democrats and Chartered Clubs did to help elect great candidates across the county. We walked neighborhoods and distributed over 100,000 door hangers, we mailed 80,000 slate cards, we sent over 270,000 texts to voters, and phone banked for hours. I am also happy to share that our newly designed website received over 48,000 unique user visits focusing on our 2022 election pages.
We may be exhausted, but I think we all have a right to feel very proud of our work. So far, with preliminary results in, we have helped elect 44 of our 68 endorsed candidates, a win ratio of 65 percent. I also hope we will add more to this list as the rest of the votes are counted. Importantly, our key candidate for the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, Ken Carlson, won his race with over 54 percent of the vote.
On the national level, we can breathe a sigh of relief that Democrats beat the historical odds and kept some balance in Washington, D.C. Instead of the poll and pundit predictions of a huge Republican wave, we delivered a strong Democratic response to push back against extreme Republican issues and candidates. The vote counting is incomplete, and a few key races have yet to be called, but it looks like nearly a 50/50 split in Congress. We may retain control of the Senate and have a stronger-than-predicted situation in the House of Representatives.
California races saw Democratic wins up and down the ticket. We retained our full Democratic statewide officer team. Plus, John Garamendi, Josh Harder, Mark DeSaulnier, Lori Wilson, Buffy Wicks, Tim Grayson, and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan won their Congressional and State Legislative races.
Join me in congratulating the DPCCC Endorsed candidates who won their election. You can find the results in Contra Costa County at https://www.contracostavote.gov/elections/november-8-2022-election-results/.
Finally, please plan to celebrate all of our efforts on Friday, December 16, when our DPCCC Holiday Party will be held at the UA Local 342 Plumbers & Pipefitters location at 935 Detroit Avenue, Concord starting at 6 pm. More details about the Holiday Party will follow soon!
With tremendous pride and appreciation,
Katie Ricklefs, Chair – Democratic Party of Contra Costa County