Sister District Project Connects Scarsdale Volunteers to Swing Election Districts

This November, as Westchester votes in elections for County Executive and a number of other local seats, the commonwealth of Virginia will hold elections for all 100 seats in their lower chamber, the House of Delegates. Activists have set their sights on the Virginia House races as the elections to watch in 2017, and volunteers from across New York's 16th Congressional district, including many from Scarsdale, are getting involved through the Sister District Project.

Sister District Project is one of a number of organizations formed in the days immediately following the 2016 elections. Stunned by President Trump's election and alarmed by the number of Republican "trifectas" (states where Republicans hold both legislative chambers and the governorship), Rita Bosworth, a 38-year-old former federal public defender from San Jose, California, thought there had to be a way to connect progressive donors and volunteers in solidly blue areas to swing districts, where Democratic candidates need reinforcements. Bosworth and her co-founders started Sister District Project to do just that.

One of only two states to hold state elections in odd years, Virginia has elected more Democrats in recent years (no Republican has won a statewide election since 2009), while Republicans have held control of both legislative chambers. After digging deeper into the 2016 election returns for Virginia, Bosworth and team made an interesting discovery: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in seventeen Republican-held Delegate districts -- the same number of seats Democrats need to win in order to take back control of the Virginia House.

The 16th Congressional district's local team supports two candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates -- Chris Hurst, the Democratic candidate in the 12th House of Delegates district, and Karrie Delaney, the Democratic candidate in the 67th House of Delegates district. Close to 200 residents of the 16th district have volunteered for Sister District Project, and NY-16 volunteers have reached out to hundreds of voters through phone calls and handwritten postcards, and donated more than $2,000 to Hurst and Delaney's campaigns.

To learn more about Sister District Project and sign up to volunteer, visit sisterdistrict.com or email the NY-16 team for Scarsdale at ny16dc@gmail.com.