[music]

Nancy Solomon: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Solomon from the WNYC newsroom and host of the podcast Dead End filling in for Brian today. Immediately following the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, suburban women began organizing against him. There was the Women's March in Washington the day after Trump's inauguration, and if they hadn't started one already, many of the women who marched then returned home and formed local organizations. They began protesting at local Republican offices and started gearing up for the 2018 midterm elections.

It's been five years, and now, some of the Democratic congresspeople who benefited from that blue wave are in danger of losing their seats. I covered that social movement in 2017 and 2018, and I've been wondering how it's going in this post-Trump world and what it means for the upcoming midterm elections this November. Listeners, did you get involved with politics either for the first time or after a long absence in response to the election of Donald Trump? What got you involved, and what was your experience like? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692, or you can tweet at us @BrianLehrer.

We're joined now by two of those activists from New Jersey. Patricia Campos-Medina is the executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial Labor Relations at Cornell University. That's her day job. She's also the president of Latina Civic, which supports Latinas to run for office, and a long list of other organizations that are engaged in the political process across New Jersey. Thanks for joining us, Patricia.

Patricia Campos-Medina: Thank you for having me, Nancy.

Nancy Solomon: We're also joined by Mara Novak. She's the executive director of NJ 11th for Change, which helped defeat the most powerful New Jersey Republican in Congress in 2018, that's Rodney Frelinghuysen. The 11th congressional district is now represented by Democrat Mikie Sherrill. Welcome back to the show, Mara.

Mara Novak: Thanks so much for having me, Nancy.

Nancy Solomon: Mara, NJ 11th for Change has such a great origin story. People were upset over the election results in November 2016, and somebody said, "Hey, let's just get together to talk." Over the course of a couple of months, this informal get-together turned into an organization that had, what, something like 1,000 members in very short order. Tell me about those beginnings and your story about how you got involved.

Mara Novak: Sure. I wasn't there right at the beginning. I was actually a member of another group, Blue Wave New Jersey, at the time, but after the election, we were all trying to figure out what to do. NJ 11th for Change, a lot of my friends were members of it and were part of the founding group, got together in a coffee shop in New Jersey and decided they were inspired by something that Indivisible had suggested, which is to go and have town halls and also just start reaching out to their representatives. We started trying to reach out to Rodney Frelinghuysen, and he would not talk to anyone.

After a few weeks, we started having hundreds of people coming for Fridays with Frelinghuysen, where we would have several hundred people standing in front of his office in Morristown and going up one or two at a time and giving him notes, sending him messages, saying that we wanted him to be responsive, that we wanted him to listen to us, that we wanted him to meet with us. We have now, in our Facebook group and on our newsletter, something between 6,000 and 7,000 members. We started with zero.

Nancy Solomon: It's, I guess, important to note a little bit about Rodney Frelinghuysen because many New Yorkers won't be aware of the fact that he had served in Congress for a long time, Republican, his father had served in Congress, and he was a descendant of a blue-blood family that had political involvement going back to the Revolution, and he had been a backbencher for years and years and years and had just become chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which is one of the most powerful positions in Congress, right before Donald Trump is elected. He was a particularly interesting character that your organization went after. What did you want from Frelinghuysen?

Mara Novak: Well, one of the things we wanted was for him to recognize that the district was a lot more progressive than Donald Trump's politics, for example. The fact that he had now taken over this incredibly powerful [unintelligible 00:05:56] meant that he was going to have a lot of influence. He had a reputation and had voted. Pretty moderately all along, he had contributed to Planned Parenthood. He was pretty available to his constituents, but he wasn't meeting with anyone. He didn't have town halls and things like that, so we were trying to get him to have town halls because we wanted to talk about our concerns.

Our concerns, we focused on health care, on the ACA at the time. We could not get him to respond, but we were putting a lot of pressure on him to say we wanted to support the ACA. We had a bus trip where we did wind up finally getting him to agree to meet us in Washington. When I was in the room with him where we were talking about health care, I particularly asked him about abortion rights. I'll never forget what he did because he said, "Listen, my personal feelings about abortion is not important. You are not going to like how I'm going to vote because I have to vote with my caucus." That was a really critical moment for me in terms of understanding electoral politics.

Nancy Solomon: It's so relevant to the current race going on in the 7th congressional district, which we'll talk about a little bit later, but the fight between the Democratic incumbent Tom Malinowski and the Republican challenger Tom Kean, and that's precisely what Malinowski is talking about, that Kean will not stand up to Republican leadership on abortion issues. We'll get to that in a moment. Let's turn the conversation to Patricia Campos-Medina. You bring a state-wide perspective to this conversation. What were you up to in 2016 at the time of the election, and how did the election of Donald Trump affect your work?

Patricia Campos-Medina: Back in 2016, we were focused and committed to figuring out how to help Hillary Clinton win the election because, I would say, for Latinas and for women of color in general, we knew what it will look like if Donald Trump won. We knew that his rhetoric of hate and attacking immigrants and the way he was talking about some of the progressive issues that we were talking about, we knew that that was not going to change. We were totally focused on trying to figure out how to get Hillary Clinton elected by doing the canvassing, the calling, the energizing people. We actually were pretty devastated when she lost.

I remember, the day after the election, going to drop my kids off to school, I live in Hunterdon County, it's a very conservative area, and there were four suburban women and a Latina, and there was an African American neighbor. The moment we saw each other at the bus stop, we just hugged each other and cried because we knew what was coming for our communities because our communities have been in crisis for a long time. We felt devastated.

I had an organizer. I come from the labor movement. I'm also an immigrant woman, so we've been taught, and I will say this is true also for African American women, that we don't give up. We're organizers. We just organize. We got back to trying to figure out what is our take now. Remember, I tell people this was not about because Hillary was a great candidate, but it was because Trump was going to be worse. The next four years taught us that he was worse for our communities.

Nancy Solomon: Something that sometimes goes unnoticed is the role that women of color play that is just for years been crucial to Democratic victories. The whole idea of this segment is we're talking about the rise of the suburban political activism that happened in response to Trump, but I want to be mindful of the fact that really there were Latina women and Black women very, very engaged in politics before Trump's election.

Patricia Campos-Medina: Exactly. That is the healing weapon of Democrats that Latina women and Democratic women did stay committed to the Democratic Party in 2016 and to Hillary Clinton. We supported the Democratic Party in great numbers because we knew what the difference it will be. That's why after 2016 there was this resurgence of Latina and women of color, Black women, who are the key of the Democratic victory in the South or driving the popular vote turnout for Democrats. They just started saying, "We are going to run for office now."

One of the biggest accomplishments I would say if there was anything to celebrate after 2016 was that more Latinas and more Black women decided that they were going to run for office and they took on that challenge. We saw that in 2018. There was a great increase of women of color that ran for office and got elected. That trend continues today because we shifted from just helping Democrats win elections to actually saying, "I can run and win elections."

That's an exciting part for me in my heart as president of Latina Civic, that we are demanding that more women of color actually get on the ticket to run for office because our people, our voters get excited when they see people like them running for office. This movement is not just about suburban women. We think about suburban women mostly as white women living in the white picket fence homes. I live in one like that, but I'm focused more on working-class women, Black and Latino, and even working-class whites who actually want more of a say on the politics after 2016.

Nancy Solomon: Listeners, would you like to tell us about your experience getting involved in politics after the election of Donald Trump or maybe you've just recently got involved in your local congressional race for the upcoming midterms? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692, or you can tweet us @BrianLehrer. We have Mallory on the line from South Orange. Mallory, hi.

Valerie: Hi there. Actually, it's Valerie, but-

Nancy Solomon: Oh, I'm sorry.

Valerie: -thank you for taking my call. No worries. Thank you, Nancy, for taking my call. I am one of those women who got involved after the 2016 elections. We have a local organizing group called SOMA Action. We've actually collaborated with NJ 11th for Change. We started by protesting and trying to contain the damage of Trump after 2016's election, but then we evolved into a group that was quite organized in the 2018 midterms. We were specifically supporting Mikie Sherrill, Andy Kim, and Tom Malinowski in the three congressional districts that actually flipped every one of them from Republican to Democrat in those 2018 midterms.

That was incredibly emboldening to be sure our group is both men and women, but I think women probably play an outsized role. As we look at the upcoming midterms, we are back at it again with almost 250 people who are specifically signed up to work on these midterms. We're focused on all three of those same elections, but we're really focused on Tom Malinowski. You mentioned him earlier. His district has been impacted by the redistricting effort in New Jersey, so he is really at risk even though he is an incredibly wise and effective legislator.

We are doing everything we can. I guess the one thing I want to point out, I think women are particularly good at making social connections, and this boils down to talking to people whether you're at a farmer's market or you're door-to-door canvassing or you're on the phone. It's not daunting, and I want to pull a plug-in for anybody out there who's concerned about the midterms, you can do it. Sign up if you're interested in working with us. Go to SOMA Action, S-O-M-A action.org, and sign up to join us. You've got 40 days. You can make some phone calls, knock on doors. It's doable, and we've proven it is effective because we flipped three seats.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks, Valerie. Mara, what are you seeing right now on the ground in terms of the midterms? Do you have the level of activism and enthusiasm for NJ 11th for Change that you were seeing in 2018?

Mara Novak: I think it's very different. I'm also just going to say hi to Valerie because we do a lot of work with SOMA Action, and now they are in the 11th district because of redistricting which I know we're going to talk about later. They're an incredible group. I think that things have changed. We had a very defined adversary in 2018 and in 2016 because we were working specifically against Trump. We were working specifically to unseat Rodney Frelinghuysen and we succeeded.

In 2018, one of the best things that ever happened to me was being in the room on election night at Mikie Sherrill's victory party. It was extremely exciting because we had just put everything on the ground. We had hundreds of canvassers. There were canvassers coming from New York, from every part of New Jersey, from out of district like SOMA Action's canvassers. The energy was incredible, and it was a very focused energy. Then we won, and we don't have that adversarial relationship with our congresswoman anymore. Getting people to say we have to go out and canvas, that we have to push, it has been difficult.

I think that now what happened after the Dobbs decision is we have, again, defined a lot of energy. People don't even understand the term midterms, but I think they're understanding-- I don't think that it is quite that they don't really understand exactly what's happening. I think that people are understanding that we have to try to keep the House and we have to try to keep the Senate. People are focusing on that. We're looking at the most vulnerable districts in our state and obviously that Malinowski is the one that's the most at risk. We are continuing to canvas and support Mikie in lots of ways.

We're also making sure that we get out the vote in New Jersey, so we're pushing vote by mail. We're pushing education just to make sure that we turn out every Democrat, but we have now endorsed in other races that we're endorsing not just Mikie Sherrill but also Andy Kim and Tom Malinowski. That's something that we've expanded our focus outside of the 11th.

Nancy Solomon: Patricia, what are you seeing?

Patricia Campos-Medina: I agree with Mara that the difference in going towards the 2018 midterms was that we had a clear target to rally people about. The threats were so real. I remember it was the children in cages for my community. It was the throwing of the paper towels to the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. It was that real anger that people had that they felt like they needed to mobilize and make a statement in 2018. That level of energy got us through 2018 and got us through getting Biden elected in 2020. What we don't have right now is that clarity of the target.

The enthusiasm that we had because we had an adversary that we needed to say is not there, but there are real issues that working-class women care about after the pandemic. After the decision on the Supreme Court on women's right to choose, I think that that has fueled a more nuanced need to mobilize voters. I think that when we talk about Malinowski in CD-7, we have to use those issues as a way to energize voters in a more nuanced way. My concern is that when we talk about more licensed suburban women to vote in the Malinowski race, we are just single handling just talking about the issue of right to choose as it is a real issue.

As a Latina woman, it matters to us, but there is a nuance or how we talk to that with women of color and specifically with Latina women because the main driver of concern for working-class women of color is actually the economic concerns and the impact that the pandemic had on their economic survival. We have to have a message that addresses their economic concerns, specifically around childcare access. I was reading recently that childcare cost in New Jersey is about $12,000 a year, and in New York, sometimes it's higher than the cost of rent.

In order to have an energized working-class women of color in CD-7, and we are talking about communities like [unintelligible 00:21:21], and working-class communities in Union County, you really have to have more than just this suburban white women's message of the right to choose. You really have to have an economic message and an economic hook to get these voters energized. I had this observation last year for the gubernatorial election just saying, we don't have Trump and we need to continue voting because we don't want Trump back in the House, we don't want Republicans back in the House. It's not enough to give women of color a reason to get engaged. I urge the Malinowski campaign and urge the Democratic body to actually get more nuance when it comes to talking to women of color in CD-7.

Nancy Solomon: That's a really interesting point, Patricia. We have a caller who's volunteering on the Malinowski campaign. We have Susanna in Westfield, New Jersey. Susanna, thanks for calling.

Susanna: Hi.

Nancy Solomon: Hi.

Susanna: It's very exciting to me to hear these interviews. In my town after Trump was elected, I would say that up until that point, I thought that Westfield was a largely Republican town. Even though I'm a lifelong Democrat, I felt that I had to keep a low profile, but after Trump's election, there was this ground swell of, frankly, outrage and fear. All of a sudden some key women in our town started to organize Democrats to mobilize, not just against Trump, but to overthrow Leonard Lance, who had been our Republican congressman for 10 years in a seat that had been in Republican hands for 34 years, I think.

We were part of the contingent that mobilized for Tom Malinowski and helped get him to victory. What's interesting is that not only did we do that, but we also started to mobilize in our own town government. Our town government had, I believe, eight Republican town council members and a Republican mayor. In the next election, we replaced the mayor with a Democratic mayor and we replaced all four of the town council seats that were up for re-election with Democrats. Then two years later, we replaced three of the remaining four town council seats.

The Democratic sleeping giant in our town has been awakened, and it has mobilized, not just middle-class or an upper-class white woman, it has mobilized our husbands and it has mobilized our kids. There are a lot of teenagers who are volunteering for the Tom Malinowski campaign. In fact, I think they have something like 40 interns. It's crazy. I realize that there isn't the same threat of Trump at the top, but I do think that there is a base of mobilization in this town at least that is not going away. We are still canvassing, we are still writing postcards, and we are still putting up our lawn signs. I think it's fundamentally changed a significant portion of our town and the whole perception of who we are politically.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks so much.

Susanna: I think it's fantastic.

Nancy Solomon: Thank you, Susanna. Let's stay with the 7th congressional district in the Malinowski-Kean fight because I wanted to just squeeze in before we go a little bit of information about redistricting. It's probably the biggest thing affecting the midterms that most people don't understand or pay attention to. All the congressional district maps in the country were redrawn in 2021 as happens every 10 years. In New Jersey, the biggest significant change really is to Malinowski's district. He ended up with 30,000 extra registered Republicans. Let me back up a little bit. Patricia, you fought to get Latina representation at the table for, I believe, both the congressional redistricting and the state reapportionment committee. We don't have much time but tell us a little bit about that battle.

Patricia Campos-Medina: New Jersey has seen an increase in population. Latinos are about 21% of the population, and our legislative representatives in New Jersey of Latino descent are about 9%. Those numbers get even lower when it comes to local races which are less than 3%, 4%, I would think, in terms of the number of mayors and council people that we have elected. We were very laser-focused on Latina Civic and making the point that we needed to increase the opportunity for Latinos to run for office, which gets determined in how the districts get formed.

That was a very difficult battle because in New Jersey, there is this tradition of protecting incumbents during the [unintelligible 00:26:38]. In conjunction with the Latino [unintelligible 00:26:44] a lot of different groups, we wanted to see a focus on making districts more representative of diversity. I think we got there. We got a little bit of diversity in some of the legislative races. We have yet to see how those turn out, but at the congressional level, I think we have an opportunity in the next 5, 10 years to perhaps send a Latina to Congress. We never had a Latina from New Jersey go to Congress.

We are organizing a laser focus that in the next 10 years we'll create the opportunity for a Latina to send to Congress because representation matters. The 20% of Latinos in New Jersey need to see people like them running and legislating on their behalf. I will say that we moved the needle forward in the legislative map, but we have not really moved the needle forward on the congressional map. There's a lot of work to do. That's why we have launched a program that's called Latinas Building the Bench, which is going county by county and identifying Latinas who want to run for office and mentoring them at the local level so that we can build the bench for the next 10 years.

I think we have a long-term plan to make changes. This registering session was not as successful in increasing representation for Latinos in general, but we will continue at the local level in building opportunities and supporting opportunities because local candidates are essential for raising local issues but also for advancing progressive issues, economic issues that matter to people locally that gets them to vote. At the end of the day, people need to be energized to vote at the local level, and that's where organizations like me and Mara's and people who are [unintelligible 00:28:47] because it is local.

When politics matter at the local level, then it turns into impact at the federal level for the Malinowski race. One of my concerns is that at the congressional level, we always focus on voters that always vote. Congressional campaigns just focus on who always votes. If we only do outreach to people who always vote, we're always going to get the same voters. We at Latina Civic are focused on, how do we create new voters? How do we energize new people to participate so that we can create a new bench of voters that can change the dynamics of the politics at the federal level?

Nancy Solomon: Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there. My guests have been Patricia Campos-Medina. In her day job, she's the executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial Labor Relations at Cornell University, and she's also the president of Latina Civic, which supports Latinas to run for office. Mara Novak is the executive director of NJ 11th for Change. Patricia, Mara, thanks so much to both of you for coming on.

Patricia Campos-Medina: Thank you so much, Nancy.

Mara Novak: Thanks so much for having me.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.