To our Allen County Democrats,

As we prepare for the 2022 Midterm Elections, I wanted to take a moment and layout our vision as to where we are as a party and where we want to go in 2022 and beyond. While we as a party have experienced successes in the past and will surely experience success in the future, we need to look towards new ideas in terms of recruitment, organizing, and fundraising to truly build an Allen County that is welcoming for everyone regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, or financial status.

Though we hear every four years that this election is the “most important election of our times”, it is fair to say that 2020 was in fact the most important election in recent memory. America had a choice to make between four more years of chaos and division in President Trump or four years of recovery and hope in Joe Biden. Luckily, through hard work and record turnout, we elected Joe Biden as our 46th President of the United States. Allen County, like much of America, saw impressive turnout in comparison to recent years as 64% of registered voters cast their ballots.

As America recovers from the worst pandemic in over one hundred years and we begin to build back better through the leadership of President Biden, we must now as a party seize on this opportunity to expand our outreach in our local communities and build the broad coalition that we will need to help Democrats up and down the ballot be elected in 2022 and in the future.

To do this, the Allen County Democratic Party will have to recruit candidates for races that historically have not had Democrats on the ballot. We will find candidates who represent the absolute best our community has to offer. We will ensure our various campaigns work together for all of Allen County. And we will bring in new resources, new supporters, and new technologies to help our party field the most competitive group of Democratic candidates in recent memory. The days of the Allen County GOP controlling Allen County are over and 2022 is our first step on that path.

Now let me be clear: there will be setbacks and disappointments along the way. While it would be amazing for us to win every race in which we field a candidate, that is simply not possible. But through hard work, engaging our Allen County electorate, and finding common ground to build a better community, we will make progress. We will win seats that Democrats have not controlled in decades. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen. As President Kennedy said in 1962: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

I ask each of you to join me and the Allen County Democratic Party to seize the initiative, to harness our collective energy and skill, to reject the people who say it can’t be because it’s never been, and to help us all build a better and bluer Allen County.

Derek Camp