Contact: Maggie Bridges, maggie@redwine.blue, 303.807.8304

Suburbs Across America, February 13, 2025 — Today, Red Wine & Blue’s nationwide local group organizing program, TroubleNation, reached a major milestone by expanding into their 50th state. Red Wine & Blue’s TroubleNation now has 672 groups (and growing every day) in all 50 states – more than double that of the extremist organization Moms for Liberty. With the midterm elections around the corner, TroubleNation groups are evenly divided between red and blue congressional districts nationwide.

“Taking back power from MAGA requires winning the suburbs,” said Katie Paris, Founder of Red Wine & Blue. “Every day, suburban women who haven’t been politically active before contact Red Wine & Blue to find out how to make a difference. We help them connect with one another, quickly grow their ranks, and take action together. There’s been a gap in local organizing infrastructure for too long. Women understand that the local level is where we have the most power – and we intend to use it.”

“The growth of TroubleNation has far exceeded even our expectations, which is in sharp contrast to groups like Moms for Liberty that are in decline,” said Missy McGinnes, Director of Distributed Organizing at Red Wine & Blue. “Since the inauguration, we’ve seen a surge in engagement, adding 148 new groups. While pundits may say that people aren’t taking action, what we’re seeing on the ground tells a very different story — people are organizing and mobilizing in greater numbers than before.”

Red Wine & Blue launched TroubleNation in September 2023 in response to the increasing demand for local organizing support among women who felt disconnected and alone. TroubleNation is a network of independent local groups across the country that are affiliated with and supported by RWB. Women can search for a local TroubleNation group by entering their zip code or get help starting their own if there isn’t one yet near where they live. TroubleNation is a full service, organizing support system that provides one-on-one coaching, new group orientation, small-group, customized training for group leaders, monthly happy hours, and continuous engagement from the Red Wine & Blue team.

Red Wine & Blue has TroubleNation members in every state available to speak on the record.

Medina Mavens, OH – Deep in red Medina County, Ohio, three women enraged by the Dobbs decision started what’s considered to be the original TroubleNation group in August of 2022. Since then, they’ve grown to over 500 members, holding monthly meetings and keeping members up to date through their Facebook group and email list. Some of their key accomplishments include gathering thousands of signatures for a Reproductive Rights petition in 2023 and educating their members about the dangers of Project 2025. In meetings, they hold discussions and watch documentaries about voting rights, gerrymandering, and more while also preparing members for action, like speaking up at school board meetings and getting one of their own members elected to the school board.

PHX East Valley – Laurie and Julie, two women based out of East Valley, Arizona, took over their local TroubleNation group after they found Red Wine & Blue through a New York Times article and were spurred into action. They relaunched the group back in September of 2024, with just 20 attendees, but their group has grown to over 150 members as of January. Mostly, their members are focused on how they can impact change around education in their communities.

NOVA Blue Squad, VA – Since starting at the beginning of 2024, this Northern Virginia TroubleNation group has grown to 260 members. They have a robust newsletter and meet monthly to discuss issues like Project 2025, reproductive health, and public education. In addition to writing letters to their elected officials, the group is heavily focused on relational organizing and getting their friends and neighbors to show up to the polls.

Red Wine & Blue is an empowered community of over 600,000 diverse suburban women working together to defeat extremism, one friend at a time. They train and connect women across the country of all political backgrounds – including many who have never been political before – to organize in their communities and address the growing threats of extremism to public education, reproductive freedom, and democracy.

The post Where’s the Resistance? It’s Right Here: Red Wine & Blue Local Groups Explode to Nearly 700 in All 50 States appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

But across the country, when it comes to education, voters rejected those policies loudly and firmly. As the founder of Red Wine & Blue, a community of over 600,000 diverse suburban women, I hear from women all the time who don’t want right-wing extremist groups coming into their school districts to impose their vision of so-called parents’ rights. The vast majority of moms believe in America’s public schools, want to work with their children’s teachers to make education better and are sick of a vocal minority wasting time and resources on culture war chaos.

But I don’t just say this because it’s what I see in my group chats and hear in conversations at the bus stop. Of the common-sense candidates — those standing up to attacks on history lessons about race and age-appropriate sex ed — who were supported by my organization in school board races across the country, 69% won. And in some states, that figure is even higher: 78% of our 45 candidates won in 15 Michigan school districts, and 86% of our 14 candidates won in six Virginia districts — an especially gratifying result given that Virginia became ground zero for the uproar over so-called Critical Race Theory in 2021.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, Mo Green, a Democrat and former superintendent of Guilford County Schools, won the statewide race for superintendent of public instruction over homeschooler Michele Morrow. Morrow was a Republican Moms for Liberty candidate who has described public schools as “indoctrination centers” and urged people not to send their children to them; called for the assassination of national leaders; and demanded military intervention to keep then-President Donald Trump in power on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump may have won the presidential race in North Carolina, but Morrow’s slogan, “Make America’s Schools Great Again,” clearly didn’t resonate with the majority of voters who want to build up their public schools, not tear them down.

It’s true that different parents and families have different values and concerns — and that’s okay. If there’s a book you don’t want your kids to read, then don’t let them read it. I believe in providing students with accurate, age-appropriate sex education, but I also believe in allowing parents to opt their kids out if they alone want to have those conversations. But I don’t think one parent should be able to take those opportunities away from everyone else’s kids. American public schools should be, at their core, places where all students should feel supported and safe. And while extremists have come in from outside communities to gain power, divide and control people, most voters want none of it.

If you zoom out and examine other election results, you see similar trends. Republicans spent at least $215 million on political ads attacking the trans community — including trans children who attend public schools — on issues ranging from sports to health care. But there is no evidence that these ads swayed voters at the ballot box. In fact, an October poll found that a majority of likely voters (including a plurality of Independents, by a 23-point margin) thought they were “meanspirited and out of hand.” Likewise, a post-election poll of voters in eight Senate battleground states found that those who saw the ads found them “intensely off-putting” and that they failed to impact candidate support.

In four states — including three that voted for Trump — voters rejected Republican priorities for education. Ballot measures to expand voucher programs, which shift money from public to private schools, failed in Colorado, Kentucky, Nebraska. In Florida (the home of Moms for Liberty), voters defeated a state constitutional amendment to make school board elections partisan.

MAGA politicians will ignore these rejections at their own peril. Many parents remain concerned about their students and the state of the public schools. And when I sit down and talk to them, we almost always realize that we have far more in common than what separates us. We don’t want a loud minority telling us how to raise our children. We don’t want books about Anne Frank or Martin Luther King Jr. to be banned. We certainly don’t want kids to be bullied just because of who they are. It’s time to tune out the claims of MAGA mandates and get to work with teachers and administrators for the good of all students.

To read the article by Katie Paris go to The74million.org

The post No MAGA Mandate on Public Education as Voters Reject Vouchers, Culture Wars appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Waves of emotion washed over DeJuana Thompson as she stood in the convention hall in Chicago last month watching Vice President Kamala Harris become the first Black woman nominated for the presidency by a major political party.

Battleground North Carolina

In North Carolina, a state that Donald Trump won by about 74,000 votes out of some 5.4 million cast in 2020, groups led by Black women are crisscrossing the state in a scramble to expand the electorate. Black residents make up about 21% of the state’s population, and North Carolina is home to nearly a dozen Historically Black College and Universities.

Thompson, the Alabama activist, is the founder of Woke Vote, an organization that in 2017 helped elect Doug Jones as Alabama’s first Democratic US senator in a quarter century. In this election, her work focuses heavily on a handful of states, including North Carolina and Georgia, which Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.

The Tar Heel State marked Trump’s tightest margin of victory four years ago, and Harris is trying to become the first Democratic presidential contender to win the state since Barack Obama in 2008. Thompson, who worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign in North Carolina, is focused on turning out rural Black voters in the eastern part of the state often overlooked by traditional outreach efforts, she said.

Black female organizers in the state also are extending their reach far beyond other Black women.

Janice Robinson is the North Carolina program director of an organization called Red Wine & Blue, which engages in “relational” organizing. She is encouraging diverse groups of suburban women to turn out their friends, neighbors and relatives for Harris and other Democrats in the Tar Heel State.

At a house party on a recent Friday morning in the Charlotte area, about a dozen people – mostly White women – gathered with Robinson to strategize over coffee, pastries and orange juice. Holding up her cellphone, she walked them through a tool to share information about the election with other North Carolinians in their contact lists.

“People listen to the people that they trust,” she emphasized.

Her goal is to get 40,000 voters to the polls in North Carolina.

The North Carolina chapter of America Votes, meanwhile, is working with an array of other organizations to reach 4 million voters in the state – a record quadrupling of its outreach in past elections, said Ashlei Blue, the group’s state director.

Deputy director Nervahna Crew is a veteran of several presidential elections in North Carolina, including 2016, when she logged so many miles door-knocking and literature-dropping for Hillary Clinton that she developed a cyst on her right foot. Crew said she worked “overtime” in that election, in part, to honor her grandmother Mary Starkey, a stalwart Democratic activist from Delaware who desperately wanted to cast a ballot to elect Clinton as the nation’s first female president but passed away in 2015.

This election cycle, Crew’s nonpartisan day job keeps her mostly focused on voter turnout rather than working directly on behalf of a candidate. But her commitment to making history in the presidential election hasn’t waned, she said.

“At the end of the day, what you’re not going to do is blame Black women for not doing their job,” she said. “If we’re not successful this time around, it won’t be because we didn’t give it our all.”

Read the full article on CNN.com

The post From Oprah livestream to house parties, Black women marshal unprecedented outreach for Kamala Harris appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

……“Women-led grassroots organizing gets dismissed by the Beltway class,” texted Katie Paris, who founded Red Wine & Blue in advance of the 2020 election. The group organizes multiracial suburban women, a Democratic response to the Moms for Liberty groups driving Republican turnout; Red Wine & Blue now has 500 groups nationwide, compared with Moms for Liberty’s 310. “But they really may have no idea what’s been going on in the middle of America,” Paris said. “Do they have any idea that we organize in our communities year-round and not just around elections? That we pay attention not just to presidential races but to school boards and school levies and whatever else needs tending in our communities? I was just listening to NYT Nate on The Daily and it’s like they have no comprehension of any dynamic outside of the candidates and their campaigns. It’s like they’re trying to report on the storm without checking the weather.”…..

Read the full article at TheCut.Com

The post The People for Kamala Harris How a women-led movement, born in the devastation of 2016, put Democrats on the brink of making history. appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Summer School is presented by the Red Wine and Blue Education Fund; ACLU Ohio; Equality Ohio; Honesty for Ohio Education; Innovation Ohio; and the Ohio Conference of the NAACP.

Read more about summer school at: Signal Cleveland

The post Need a refresher on Ohio government? This free online course is for you! appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

“We’ve all gone from doom scrolling to hope scrolling,” said Katie Paris, the founder of Red Wine and Blue – a group with about 500,000 members that organizes suburban women around reproductive freedom and pushing back on book bans, among other issues.

“That feels good. I know I shouldn’t be looking at TikTok before I go to bed at night anyway. But before it wasn’t very good for my mental health – and now I feel like I can kind of make an excuse for it,” she said. ”It’s like joy is back in town.”

Read more at NPR.Org

The post From doom scrolling to hope scrolling: this week’s big Democratic vibe shift appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

On what? It was 4:30PT and I was deep in a TikTok about J.D. Vance. I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I’m on the zoom with Heather Cox Richardson!”

Oh, right! I’d forgotten it was happening. Too bad—I’d hoped to attend. But I was buried.

Then Nadine added this:

“Over 30,000 people on! It’s awesome!”

WHAT?

Nadine isn’t one to exaggerate, but the number seemed implausible. So a bit later that night I emailed Katie Paris, who runs Red, Wine, and Blue. Her response?

42k total and apparently we turned ppl away…I’m floored.

Not 30,000 but FORTY-TWO THOUSAND people on a Zoom about Project 2025, you guys. That’s absolutely jaw-dropping. Staggering.

And there’s more:

Continue reading with Jessica Craven at: Chop Wood, Carry Water

The post Democracy isn’t a Spectator Sport appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

……

“Voters must advocate to retain reproductive rights. In addition to abortion health care, we must ensure that access to contraception and IVF is not limited, because they are also being targeted,” she warned.

Janice Robinson, NC Program Director of Red Wine and Blue, and Susan Sawin, Dare County Democratic Party Chair, delivered compelling closing remarks, urging rally-goers to mobilize ahead of the elections.

“This rally is just the beginning,” emphasized Robinson. “We must channel our passion into action by mobilizing and voting for candidates who prioritize women’s rights and healthcare access.

Sawin echoed Robinson’s sentiments, stating, “Our voices matter at the ballot box. Let’s ensure our elected officials reflect our values and fight for reproductive justice.”

Read the complete article at: The Outer Banks Voice

The post Women’s Rights Rally at Dowdy Park appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Katie Paris, the founder of Red Wine & Blue, opened the session by emphasizing the gravity of the Senate vote. She pointed out that only two Republican senators voted in favor of the Right to Contraception Act, a stark indicator of the current political climate surrounding reproductive rights.

“We need to get loud about this,” Paris said. “This election is about common sense versus extremism, and we need everyone to know what’s at stake.

To read the complete article: The Sentinel

The post Sen. Casey joins organizers to discuss contraception, reproductive rights appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

“They don’t want all children to feel that way. They only seem to want some children to be able to feel that way, and that is evident through their focus on book bans and curriculum and really specifically seeming to be discriminatory against LGBTQ kids.”

Dewey added, “Dave McCormick aligning himself with [Moms for Liberty] tells me that he believes those things too.”

Read More at Keystone News

The post Dave McCormick to attend event with Moms for Liberty and Betsy DeVos appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.