How We Win
Donate $4 – $60 today, whatever you can afford.
While making calls and knocking doors to raise money and gather signatures to put my name on the ballot, I’m naturally asked why I’m running and if I think I can win. I believe those questions deserve a transparent and honest answer, which I outline here.
With a median age of 28 years old, UT-3 is the youngest congressional district in the nation. Fifty-eight percent of the population is under 35, with an estimated 260 thousand between the ages of 15 and 34 and 188 thousand under the age of 15.
Why we win
These are the facts. By the time my 11 year-old daughter graduates from college, the global mean surface temperature, already heated by nearly 1°C, will be at least 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Heating greater than the global average has already been experienced in many regions and seasons, with higher average heating over land than over the ocean. Many of the impacts of heating up to and beyond 1.5°C, and some potential impacts of mitigation actions required to limit heating to 1.5°C, fall disproportionately on the poor and vulnerable. This human-induced global heating has already caused multiple observed changes in the climate system, including more frequent heatwaves in most land regions, an increase in the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events, as well as an increased risk of drought. Overshooting 1.5°C poses large risks for natural and human systems, and some risks may be long-lasting and irreversible, such as the loss of some ecosystems. These facts are far from exaggerated. See https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ for more detail.
There is no uncertainty that the earth is heating up and that human hands are on the thermostat. What is less certain is all the ways an earth heated by 1°C is different than the earth humans have lived in for millennia. We do know that every tenth of a degree matters. While scientists’ forecasts have painted a frightening picture, we don’t fully, vicerally know what an earth heated by 1.5°C looks like. But we know, in many ways, what an earth heated by 1°C looks like. It looks like Cyclone Idai, like Hurricane Maria, like Harvey and Dorian. It looks like Paradise, California; like smoke filled skies, deadly heat waves, and algae blooms on Utah Lake. It looks like a billion animals and dozens of humans dead in Australia. It looks like refugees in the Bahamas told to get off the boat. It looks like detention centers in Texas, where teenage mothers soak shirts with breast milk while their children cry in cages.
We know what evils man is capable of in the stable climate of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When climates change, stability fades — everything changes; the societal progress we imagine has been made in the last seven or eight decades falls apart. Half a degree or one degree of heating can sound so small, but the energy that man-made greenhouse gases have captured is equivalent to hundreds of millions of bombs like the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since scientists weaponized splitting the atom in Trinity, New Mexico, humans have been capable of causing our own extinction. A tender mercy, so far, is that no one has been crazy enough since Hiroshima and Nagasaki to use these weapons to incinerate humans; not yet.
But burning fossils is different. We don’t simply stockpile coal, methane, and oil, just in case. Business as usual, within most of our lives, will kill millions more than the Holocaust did. If Adolf Hitler had the atomic bomb we would have done anything to stop him, we would have transformed our economy, we would have spent anything, we would have fought. And that’s what our mothers and fathers, their fathers and mothers, that’s what they did. People today are making enormous profits and consolidating power today by burning fossils, they will not stop, and they must be stopped. Business as usual has no tomorrow.
What we win
I am running in 2020 because my Representative, John Curtis, is deaf to the fire alarm. I know because I’ve conversed and corresponded with him. I wanted to be a policy advisor — I didn’t want to be a candidate — so I pitched him my service. Why work to win over 140,000 votes if you can win over one politician? I know there are many academics and activists with far more clout than I who have had similar conversations with Mr. Curtis. What upsets me is not that he wasn’t motivated to action by what I said, but that he has also failed to heed others.
As a representative of the youngest district in the nation, I will have an obligation to protect and fight for a future for the 11 year olds, the 9 year olds, and the 6 year olds — for my children, as well as yours. In line with the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C, I will fight with everything I have to ensure a 1.5°C limit on global heating. I recognize the limited carbon budget that responsible accounting clearly demonstrates is compatible with that goal. That budget and the principle of equity together clearly indicate that the U.S. must reach net zero emissions by 2030. There are only around 340GtCO2 – or 8 years of current emissions – remaining, that can be emitted before the world passes 1.5°C warming.
Who we win
We win 142 thousand votes; that’s the goal line. This is achievable; as I opened with, about 260 thousand residents of this district are between the ages of 15 and 34. Definitively not Republican, my platform is non-partisan. I am running as an independent because I am an independent voter, and I must win over registered Republican voters as well as independent voters, first-time voters, and registered Democratic voters. A Democratic candidate in this district has not received more than 76 thousand votes, with an average of only 57 thousand. Running as a Democrat is not a path to victory, I have no allegiance to the Democratic party, and I refuse to be a partisan politician. I am running as an independent and I am Mr. Curtis’ only challenger; I’m not running as a spoiler.
What does victory look like? Victory is a representative that supports action with the scale and scope of the Extinguishing the Social License to Burn Fossils Act (ELBA) or the Green New Deal. Whether I am elected or my campaign pulls Mr. Curtis into this support, either is a victory.
I argue that Mr. Curtis is a product of an ideology and a generation, and that I am better positioned to represent this district, especially on this issue. The two strongest predictors that a person accepts the science on global heating is Republican party affiliation followed much less strongly by age:
First, as with other ideologies, an individual who identifies as a Republican is affected by what sociologists call implicatory denial. That is to say, we deny things when we don’t like their implications; and the implication of human-induced global heating is that big changes to the rules governing energy markets is absolutely necessary. As someone who, just a decade ago, identified as a libertarian and climate skeptic, I understand this denial first hand.
Second, young people, such as the 58% of this district under 35, are far more likely to accept the facts and implications of human-induced global heating. As a 36 year-old who refuses to affiliate with the Republican party today, I am far better positioned to represent this district and our future than Mr. Curtis is. The youth are leading on this issue. If we are audacious enough to fight for a limit of 1.5°C we must be courageous enough to run races that just as audacious.
How we win
Rep. John Curtis won his seat in a 2017 special election. He ran against Dr. Kathie Allen who spent about $870 thousand to win just 37,801 votes — about $23/vote. Professor James Courage Singer ran against Mr. Curtis is 2018, spending only $28 thousand to win 70,686 votes — only about $0.40/vote. I have a strategy to win, but it will take all the time available between today and November 3, 2020. This plan costs only $2/vote — my budget is detailed below. I plan to raise this money with just over 4,000 small donations averaging $60 each. That means I need a donation from you, and I need it today.
| Fugal 2020 Budget | |
| FUNDRAISING | $ 22,115 |
| PAYROLL | $ 70,769 |
| MILEAGE | $ 40,000 |
| PRINTING + POSTAGE | $ 26,000 |
| CAMPAIGN ADVERTISING | $ 20,000 |
| POLITICAL EVENTS VENUE | $ 20,000 |
| LODGING | $ 9,000 |
| AUTODIALERS | $ 7,000 |
| OFFICE SUPPLIES | $ 5,000 |
| FOOD FOR MEETINGS | $ 4,000 |
| TELEPHONE | $ 4,000 |
| CANVASSING SOFTWARE | $ 3,600 |
| CAMPAIGN SIGNAGE | $ 3,200 |
| VIDEO PRODUCTION | $ 1,800 |
| PHOTOGRAPHY | $ 1,600 |
| TOWN HALL MEETINGS | $ 1,300 |
| VOTER DATABASE | $ 1,200 |
| WEBSITE DESIGN & HOSTING | $ 1,200 |
| CAMPAIGN EVENT SUPPLIES | $ 1,000 |
| FILING FEE | $ 485 |
Not me. Us.
This race is not about me. This is humanity’s race. I am in this race to win it, but I cannot do it alone or without small donors.
Donate $4 – $60 today, whatever you can afford.
If you live in Utah, or can contribute skills remotely, please consider joining my campaign team. This district is R+25 (strongly Republican), but I know how to argue the moral to a majority, how to win this district’s votes. It only works if your support and dollars can give me the platform to present it.
In solidarity,
Russ Fugal