American Union of Swing Voters Releases 395 Endorsements for Midterm Elections

The transpartisan slate offers a unifying national message for frustrated Americans - vote out as many incumbents as possible.

WASHINGTON, DC, US, October 26, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The American Union, a national bloc of swing voters, issued their first round of endorsements Wednesday. On October 15, members of the American Union engaged in a one-day general strike directed against partisan politics, demanding Republicans and Democrats in Congress enact specific legislation within 10 days. With the deadline expired, the general strike moved into its second phase - voting out as many incumbent members of Congress as possible.

Their crowdsourced legislation, the Blueprint for a Better America, was developed through a consensus-driven process and informed by national survey data. It contains more than 50 policies under three planks; end poverty, end mass incarceration, and end the endless wars.

The legislation would meet one of President Biden's campaign promises, the establishment of a public option for health insurance, which, along with 18 weeks of paid family leave and $1,300 monthly universal basic income, is part of the 'end poverty' plank. Mass incarceration is addressed through robust police and prison reforms, including halting the federal war on drugs. The legislation also reduces the defense budget by one-third over five years, closes some foreign military bases, and repeals decades-old authorizations for the endless wars.

The American Union is a PAC committed to nonpartisan and nonviolent political change, and its members make a good-faith pledge to vote for candidates who receive the group's endorsement. The process ignores party affiliation, and instead divides the 1,000 candidates into two groups; incumbents and challengers. According to their website, after incumbents refused to act by the deadline, endorsements went to all challengers who had taken up the October 15th demand for immediate passage of the Blueprint.

This includes candidates like Jack Truman in Missouri’s 4th District, who tweeted his support during the October 15 general strike: “This is a great thing An American Union is doing! I support their cause. Period. It's going to take those of us with an open mind to start changing the world. #VoteAU”

In races where neither the incumbent nor the challenger asked for the endorsement, the American Union can still be nonpartisan deciders. An internal vote by the members from October 16-19 established three different tie-breaking procedures, two of which are primarily responsible for Wednesday’s 375 endorsements. First, if an incumbent tweeted support for the legislative package (but not the challenger), the incumbent was endorsed even though Congress failed to act. Second, all remaining challengers facing an incumbent were endorsed.

The slate of candidates includes 14 incumbents and six different political parties. Republicans received 204 endorsements to the Democrat’s 179, with a dozen third party and independent candidates rounding out the list.

In the other 75 endorsements needed to cover all of the 470 Congressional races, the districts do not have an incumbent/challenger dynamic. Accordingly, the members voted to decide the remaining ties between the top two candidates at random, based on the October 31 Powerball drawing. “Getting a seat in Congress as the result of an arbitrary event would undercut the legitimacy of the win,” said Brian Winters, the group's founder. “The American Union can demonstrate political power while firmly rejecting the lesser-of-two-evils game that Americans are tired of playing.”

Congress’ approval rating among Americans generally hovers around 20%. In the last 30 years, voters have shifted total control of Washington back and forth between the Republicans and Democrats five times. The American Union offers a third option, built on a foundation of Gandhian nonviolence; unionizing as voters to collectively bargain for legislative concessions. Gandhi is not the only practitioner of nonviolence that has influenced the American Union. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged Americans to “declare eternal opposition to poverty, racism, and militarism.” The three planks of the Blueprint correspond to his triple evils.

Brian Winters
American Union
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