Twice a week, Markela Clinton calls together a Round Table of voters and volunteers to touch base, talk over recent events and issues, share opinions. It’s a way to “stimulate conversation within our local community, and help us stay on the same page as a Party,” says Markela. It’s also a way to help her teams stay united in their purpose to get out the vote in Sandoval County.
Markela’s volunteers are calling and contacting our neighbors to the north in Placitas, Corrales, and Rio Rancho. It’s a challenging turf in many ways – including, not least, a strong Republican voter presence. The demographics are different than Bernalillo County’s – skewing older (39+), wealthier, more conservative. Also, the voters contacted are more likely to split their votes, picking and choosing up and down the ballot. Which means the conversations happening in GOTV calls may be a bit more complicated to conduct and close.
But Markela’s steady group of volunteers (about 35 in number) is up for the challenge. Besides doing phone and text banking, she says, they’d gladly stand on corners, carry signs, knock on doors, attend rallies – if only current conditions allowed. They’re ready to become poll watchers – even one or two who are in their mid-70s. “They want to get out there,” Markela reports. “I’m really impressed.”
Markela herself has been politically active since she was about 11. She relates that her mother, an immigrant from Jamaica, was a major inspiration. Coming to the US to attend college in Arkansas, Markela’s parent encountered a kind of racism she had never experienced in her life in the Caribbean. Moved to join Bill Clinton’s campaign for governor, she stayed active from there on, and passed her strong sense of commitment to her daughter.
Here and now, with Markela, that translates into hard work organizing for the DPNM: “I feel as though Trump is dangerous, and I would feel terrible if I didn’t do everything I could to remove him from office.”
Work with Markela to dump Trump and help Dems win in Sandoval County.
[Markela photo from link below, email Markela@NMDemocrats.org
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/–This-Week-s-Actions.html?soid=1134525208873&aid=ytOo9kjHLkU