Across the country, in counties big and small, democracy is quietly disappearing at the local level. In 2025, there were roughly 100,000 municipal elections — school boards, county commissions, mayors, water boards — and in more than half, no Democrat appeared on the ballot.
Not because Democrats can’t compete. Not because communities won’t elect Democrats. But because in overlooked communities, the Democratic infrastructure is fractured and fails to ask the right people to run.
The 2025 elections showed what happens when we do the work.
In state after state — Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mississippi —Democrats won big because the party invested in down-ballot races: flipping county seats, winning school boards, and contesting places long written off. These victories prove that when someone with Democratic values steps up, shares a forward-looking vision, and meets neighbors where they are, voters respond.
Yet today, thousands of races across the map still go uncontested. That’s the crisis Contest Every Race is built to solve.
Teachers, parents, nurses, veterans, students, retirees. These are the people who should be shaping their communities. But too often they don’t know how to step up. And local parties don’t always know where to find them.
That’s where Contest Every Race comes in.
We support county parties and organizers across the country to identify and recruit “tough-to-reach” potential candidates and ask them to take the leap. When someone says yes, we learn who they are and what they care about, then connect them to county leaders, training organizations, and resources that help them run strong campaigns.
These individuals are the difference between another missed opportunity and a real chance to build the future their community deserves. In 2025, Contest Every Race will help recruit thousands of new candidates and build the unstoppable down-ballot momentum Democrats need in order to win where we so often stay on the sidelines.
Recruitment is only half the work. Contest Every Race drives wins by supporting county parties in every corner of the country. Over years of relationship-building, we’ve become the most deeply connected national organization supporting local Democratic infrastructure.
One of our most powerful tools? Our grants program. In 2021, we began with just a handful of grant recipients. Today, we support more than 390 local Democratic parties in 41 states, the majority in rural, small-town, and historically ignored communities.
And the results are real. In 2024 alone, the CER county party grant program:
Sent 13 million texts
Knocked on 1.4 million doors
Distributed over $1.2 million in grassroots grants
In 2025, these county teams rebuilt dormant party operations, recruited new candidates, expanded turnout efforts, and helped fuel surprise victories, including Democratic wins in places where we hadn’t won in decades.
Contest Every Race isn’t waiting until filing deadlines to build the bench. The work for 2026 and beyond is already underway.
We are expanding our recruitment infrastructure, launching new “Ready to Run” calls, and increasing one-to-one candidate support. These efforts will help prospective leaders understand what it takes to run and give them the confidence to say yes.
Because if 2025 proved anything, it’s this: When Democrats compete everywhere, we win more than we lose. And when we don’t show up, we hand the other side victory before the race even starts.
If we want a Democratic Party ready for the future, we must build year-round candidate infrastructure. We must recruit, support, and contest every race, in every county, every single year.
And that’s why we need you with us. Subscribe, share, and join the movement. If each of us brings one more person into this work, we’ll build the strongest down-ballot pipeline our democracy has ever seen.
Let’s contest every race and let’s win!
— Zoe Stein
Executive Director, Contest Every Race
Local Democratic organizations everywhere are facing the same core challenges: declining turnout, limited structure, and the need to rebuild trust with voters. The South Mountain Democrats — which covers Arizona’s 11th legislative district — has worked through those same issues.
Through the CER Grants Program, they’ve gained tools, training, and support that helped them reconnect with their community and strengthen their organizing. South Mountain Democrats Chair Chester Bokich shared how CER has shaped the work on the ground.
What challenges were you facing before joining the Contest Every Race grants program?
“Because we’re in a blue district, [training and organization have] just been taken for granted. We outnumber registered Republicans 3 to 1, but turnout gets lower every year because we were just not doing the work.“
How did Contest Every Race help you face those challenges?
“You guys have given me a roadmap: recruiting, outreach, Democrats Work. Those things really kind of gave me an idea of what I wanted to do and how to do it. As chair, building trust, building coalition networking, and just getting out and demonstrating that [Democrats] are here and we care is huge.“
What impact did CER’s texting program have on your outreach?
“The texting campaigns have been amazing. [For a listening tour with Maricopa County Democrats], they booked a venue that seats 150 people. I texted, and 170 people signed up. MCDP told me that they had never seen an event fill up that fast.”
“Texting 60,000 people would cost us $1,200, and Contest Every Race has a program that does it for us. That’s incredible, because $1,200 is a quarter of our budget.”
Beyond texting, what CER resources were most useful?
“The [quarterly grants] aside, all of the resources that you provided, the trainings, and the packed for Democrats Work, all of it has given me, like I said, a road map, and given me ideas on what we can do to support the community. And by supporting the community, we are inherently supporting our candidates. We are raising awareness of Democrats, our goals, and our priorities.”
How are the South Mountain Democrats showing up in their community?
“There’s a district beautification project. Someone suggested an intersection near them, and we just went, and we cleaned up trash. There’s also a city dump in our district, and trash does not stay put. Trash moves all over, and there are plenty of stretches of surface streets that are just covered in trash. And so we want to go clean up once a month. And if we put up signs or have t-shirts that say who we are and go out and clean, people driving by will say, ‘Hey, look, Democrats are out leading. That’s awesome.’”
Would you recommend the CER Grants Program to other local parties?
“Absolutely, 100% [...] Being a chair gives me purpose. It feeds my soul. I was starved for meaning, but no longer.”
The 25 Elections to Watch This December — Bolts
On the heels of their sweeping wins in November, Democrats have opportunities to gain further ground in December runoffs and special elections. They’re hoping for upsets in conservative territory, from a congressional race in Tennessee to a legislative race in Georgia, plus trying to flip mayoral seats in Miami and several Atlanta suburbs.
Nearly 40% of state legislative elections in 2024 had only one candidate — BallotReady
Overall in Georgia, 123 state legislative elections went uncontested. In Massachusetts, 75% of all open state house elections went unchallenged by one of the major parties. That means plenty of Americans didn’t get a say who represents them in their respective state legislatures.
Democrats Think This Year’s School Board Elections Could Be Good News for the Midterms — NOTUS
Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania was once considered the epicenter of the classroom culture wars. In recent years, it banned books, prohibited pride flags in classrooms and implemented a gender identification process that required teachers to only use names and pronouns listed in official school databases, even if a student requested otherwise.
But in little-noticed school board elections earlier this month, voters rebuked those decisions by electing four Democrat-endorsed candidates and, in the process, cemented a 9-0 liberal majority on the board.
Q&A: Grassroots Organizing with the Border Organization — The Daily Yonder
The first three houses I came to, I asked them what their main concerns were, and they said ‘all the illegals coming across the border.’
And my next question was, ‘how is that affecting you in your day to day life?’ and they couldn’t answer that question. Then I would ask, ‘what about the potholes on your street, is that concerning to you?’
And if we can get them focused on that, agitated around that, and then sitting around a table every month with people who are talking about immigration issues, or queer issues, then people like these older men I talked to will start to understand [these issues] when it’s never crossed their minds before.
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