September 4, 2020
The Poor People’s Campaign will hold Senate town halls for several key states to give voters an opportunity to hear directly from the candidates about their positions on issues such as a living wage, union rights, health care for all and those directly related to the pandemic, including a moratorium on evictions.
Each candidate from all major political parties will be invited to speak directly to the issues and priorities of poor and low-income constituents. You can watch the forum at https://www.facebook.com/PPCNC or on the NC Poor People’s Campaign website.
Democrat Cal Cunningham has agreed to speak at the North Carolina town hall at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Sept. 8. The Poor People’s Campaign has attempted to reach the Tillis campaign in multiple ways and gotten no response.
“The Senate is key to any structural policy change impacting poor and low-income people in this country,” said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “The Senate confirms judges. The Senate has refused to restore the Voting Rights Act for over seven years. The Senate is, in essence, the most powerful political body of 100 people in the world. And the 140 million poor and low-income people of this country need to know where senators stand as statesmen and stateswomen committed to genuine democracy.”
In the town hall format, each candidate will be asked four questions, including two from impacted people.
Last month, the Poor People’s Campaign released a study showing that just a small uptick in the number of poor and low-income people casting a ballot could change the political calculus of the nation. The study, which analyzed data from the U.S. Senate midterm elections from 2008 to 2016, showed that an increase of 19% in the number of those voters would have changed the results in North Carolina.
“Poor and low-income people are the key to shifting the political landscape in the state and across the country,” Rev. Theoharis said. “This Senate town hall is an opportunity for poor and low-income people to put forward an agenda of health care, living wages, voting rights, education, the demilitarization of our communities, and other policies to lift the load of poverty and hear from our candidates how they are going to respond to our needs and demands.”
The Poor People’s Campaign will hold Senate town halls in several other key states; those states will be announced later.
The Poor People’s Campaign does not endorse candidates but rather builds voter power around an agenda that lifts up the lives of the 140 million poor and low-income people in this country — 43% of the population, before COVID-19.
Contact: Martha Waggoner | [email protected]
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, is building a broad and deep moral fusion movement rooted in the leadership of poor people to unite our country from the bottom up. We demand that both major political parties address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. Our updated agenda, A Moral Policy Agenda to Heal America: the Poor People’s Jubilee Platform, addresses these issues.