FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: Monday, November 3, 2025
Contact: [email protected]

Local Leaders Are the Key to Saving Democracy: Run for Something Statement Ahead of Election Day

NEW YORK, NY — In 2025, Run for Something (RFS) worked from coast to coast to recruit, train, and support a bench of bold, diverse, and authentic young leaders for local and state legislative offices. Our endorsed candidates include renters displaced by skyrocketing rents, federal workers laid off from their jobs, union leaders, young parents, and countless others who know firsthand the struggles their communities face. With over 220 local candidates on the ballot this week spanning 23 states, RFS is powering a sea change in politics—rebuilding the Democratic Party from the ground up.

“Voters are ushering in a new generation of leaders, and they’re doing it in every corner of the country,” said Run for Something President and Co-Founder Amanda Litman. “The secret to saving our democracy is electing people who actually have the guts to lead. That’s what we’re doing here at Run for Something: Finding and supporting local candidates who are showing up for their neighbors and building a battle-tested bench for the fight ahead.”

Highlights of RFS’s work in 2025 include:

  • Over 70,000 people have reached out to RFS since Trump was elected in November, more people than all four years of Trump’s first administration combined. RFS has had over 230,000 people sign up with us since we launched in 2017, making us one of the largest candidate pipelines in the country.
  • Over 50% of Run for Something’s endorsed candidates are people of color, 33.6% identify as LGBTQIA+, and 20% are people with a disability or chronic illness.
  • Nearly 17% of our candidates are Gen Z (all RFS candidates are 40 or younger), nearly 27% are first- and second-generation Americans, and 41% are parents and caretakers. 
  • 70 of RFS’ endorsed candidates who are on the ballot this week are red-to-blue flip opportunities.
  • RFS has endorsed over 300 candidates across 34 states so far this year.
  • In May, RFS launched a partnership with Sen. Bernie Sanders to recruit and support young people ready to run for local and state office.
  • In August, RFS expanded its endorsement criteria to include values-aligned candidates running as Independents.
  • Nearly 4,000 people from RFS’s candidate pipeline have joined our online community since it launched just three months ago, giving them access to training and mentorship designed to support new prospective candidates and others in our pipeline.

Looking ahead to the midterms and a shifting political landscape that threatens crucial Electoral College votes in blue-state strongholds, RFS recently announced a new 5-year, $50 million strategy to expand the map. While continuing RFS’s work to recruit, train, and elect candidates across all 50 states, this initiative will scale up work in states across the South, Sun Belt, and other regions key to victories in 2026 and determining the balance of power after 2030. 

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Run for Something (RFS) recruits and supports young progressive candidates for down-ballot offices. Since its founding, RFS has helped elect nearly 1,500 candidates across the country, including 18 candidates in red-to-blue seats in the 2024 election cycle. Today, RFS has the largest database of any other Democratic organization, with 70,000 people reaching out since November with interest in running for office.