In this edition of How to Win Friends and Save the Republic from the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, Rob Richie, CEO of FairVote, discusses his organization, where he finds his passion for democracy reform, and how Ranked Choice Voting faired in the Democratic primary for the New York City mayor's race.
View of a line of Black Panther Party members as they demonstrate, fists raised, outside the New York County Criminal Court, New York, New York, April 11, 1969.
MILWAUKEE, WI— Leaves crunched underfoot as participants in Run Black and Green’s Strides for Survival event walked through McGovern Park on Saturday, October 31, passing a lake, an apple orchard and a 300-year-old oak tree—sights many were seeing for the first time.
The event, which celebrated the legacy of the Black Panther Movement, brought attendees together to move their bodies and learn from one another.
For Nateya Taylor, who founded Run Black and Green, her passion for movement grew from her own experiences.
“For me, growing up in Milwaukee, I was always afraid to move in my own neighborhood or to go on a walk in my own neighborhood,” Taylor said.
The idea for Run Black and Green, now in its second year, came from Taylor’s experiences working in public health and her studies of criminal justice. In her studies, she was struck by the disparities Black people experience.
Health outcomes for Black people in Milwaukee are worse in many cases than those for other racial and ethnic groups. A 2024 report from Health Compass Milwaukee showed that life expectancy for Black residents in Milwaukee County was 68.9 years, compared to 78.1 years for Hispanic residents and 79.7 years for White residents.
Run Black and Green focuses on improving those outcomes for Black people in Milwaukee through physical activities that connect people.
“You’re feeling more confident in being able to walk in your neighborhood now that you’re doing it as a community and with other people,” Taylor said.
Saturday’s nature walk was just one way the organization helps foster relationships. Attendees shared breakfast and talked about issues affecting them. The event also included self-defense workshops and a drum circle, in partnership with Drums Up, Guns Down.
“Having a resilient community means that Black people are coming together to address health disparities as a community, in a communal way, where we’re looking out for each other,” Taylor said.
Part of that communal approach means collaborating with other local organizations on issues that disproportionately affect Milwaukee’s Black residents.
In July, the organization joined a community-led day of action focused on food access after the closure of Metcalfe Park’s only grocery store. And in August, Run Black and Green commemorated the one-year anniversary of the flooding in Milwaukee with a walk and discussion on how to build flood resilience.
Taylor said these events give community members a chance to problem-solve together. She takes inspiration from the Black Panthers and their grassroots approach.
“I think that the community should be on the front line of addressing these issues. I think that community input should be prioritized… The community knows best what they need,” Taylor said.
Jada and Floyd Harmon, of Harmon Community Farm, were demonstrating a solar panel at their table. The couple uses solar energy to power tools and a water pump on their off-grid farm. According to Jada Harmon, Run Black and Green is facilitating a space for collective action.
“By everybody coming together, sharing information, knowledge-sharing, supporting one another, understanding that our issues intersect, are very similar—that is how we actually build power,” she said.
Jada Weber, who was attending a Run Black and Green event for the first time, said she was grateful to have a space with a multidimensional approach.
“I love the fact that it's safe, and it's so informative with different topics… It’s so multi, it’s not one way, and that's exactly what the community needs,” Weber said.
Taylor believes that creating a space for people to gather can foster more civic participation among attendees.
“These discussions get people’s brains turning, because a lot of times we talk about not just what we can do as a community, but what can change on a policy level as well,” Taylor said.
Weber said it takes moments like Saturday to help open the door for more participation. Attending the event reminded her of a close-knit gathering.
“It feels like a family reunion, but if it was for the community. A resourceful family reunion,” Weber said.
Abbey Osborn is a student at CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and a fall Fulcrum Fellow.
Members of Make the Road NV celebrate Election Day
From public-speaking workshops to family preparedness resources, Make the Road NV (MRNV) civically engages and informs its community.
MRNV is a Nevada nonprofit organization focused on providing resources and empowerment to Latine, immigrant, and working-class communities of color.
Robert Garcia, an organizer with MRNV, works with members to build leadership skills and teach community members how to take civic action.
A key part of their mission is helping community members use their voices to share their stories in media interviews, legislative sessions, and town hall public comments.
“Every one of our members has a unique powerful story, and oftentimes it’s working to develop them into saying their own story and how to say it. That’s directly impactful,” Garcia said.
During workshops, organizers guide members on how to articulate their experiences effectively while staying authentic.
Last year, MRNV advocated for a bill to establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention in Nevada. Garcia recalled one member, a survivor of the Route 91 mass shooting, who shared her testimony during the legislative session.
“They were hearing gunshots and they didn’t know what to do. [They] remember running away, seeing blood pouring from people’s faces,” Garcia recalled. “For me, that’s really powerful because it … holds space for those stories where folks are pouring their heart and soul out to create change.”
Although the bill did not pass, Garcia believes testifying empowered members to continue sharing their stories and advocating for legislative change.
He hopes that momentum from past efforts, paired with ongoing storytelling workshops, will help similar legislation pass in upcoming sessions.
For MRNV, building community leadership involves not only elevating personal voices, but also educating members on who represents them and where political power lies.
Recognizing that some Latine and immigrant members may feel hesitant to participate publicly under current political circumstances, MRNV offers multiple avenues for civic engagement.
“Other folks might not want to leave their house, but they want to build for the event, so they’re down to make phone calls, talk to people, send text messages, invite their friends and family,” Garcia said.
Despite these challenges, Garcia emphasizes the importance of building community resilience and maintaining hope.
“We remember that at the end of the day, our joy is a form of resistance,” Garcia said, “Our joy is what makes us keep moving forward. For me, personally, I don’t want to give up that joy, and I know a lot of people don’t want to give up their joy either.”
Ahead of the midterms, MRNV’s primary goal is encouraging voter turnout and emphasizing the impact of every vote.
“During primary season, a lot of folks’ races were determined with maybe 50 votes or less. So we understand that we gotta push people to vote,” Garcia said.
For instance, in Clark County, Nevada, the Democratic primary for State Assembly District 15 was decided by just 43 votes.
“If we’re not voting, then we’re not letting our democracy thrive. Democracy thrives and lives when we participate, and that’s what we do here at Make the Road,” Garcia said.
With the Nevada midterm elections approaching, MRNV aims to serve as an accessible resource for community members navigating the voting process.
“We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to inform, to educate and to get out the vote,” Garcia said.
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Make the Road NV: Civically Engaging Nevadan Latines and Immigrants was first published by the Latino News Network and is republished with permission.
Malory Shaw, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, is a fall fellow with The Fulcrum.
In this personal op-ed, former Miss Texas & State House candidate Averie Bishop reflects on watching the seat she lost in 2024 flip in the 2026 election, and why she feels gratitude rather than resentment. Drawing on her father's unsuccessful mayoral campaign in McKinney, Texas, she explores how political progress is built on generations of ordinary people who show up, do the work, and often never receive recognition. The piece challenges our tendency to measure success solely by who wins, honoring the volunteers, candidates, and everyday Texans whose quiet persistence laid the groundwork for change. Above all, it's a hopeful reminder that good things take time, but they don't come to those who simply wait.
Last night, the Texas House seat I ran for in 2024 flipped from red to blue. And for a brief moment, I thought about how badly I once wanted that victory to be mine.
I spent more than a year running for the Texas Legislature. I knocked on doors in the summer heat, raised money, missed family gatherings, and poured nearly everything I had into the possibility that we could do something different in a state that, for decades, had been told it couldn't.
In 2024, I lost. Last night, someone else won.
I could be bitter. I could wonder why it wasn't me, why voters weren't ready two years ago, or what might have happened if I'd done one more thing differently. But watching the election results come in reminded me of something I've been learning since I was a teenager: Sometimes you do the work without ever seeing yourself in the reward. That doesn't mean the work was wasted.
I learned that lesson from my dad.
Growing up in McKinney, Texas, I watched my father drive a public school bus. He wasn't wealthy, politically connected, or interested in a political career. He was a hardworking man who believed the students and teachers in his community deserved better.
So he decided to run for mayor. He had about $500 in his checking account. Not $500,000 in campaign contributions. Not wealthy donors or a team of consultants. $500 and the audacity to believe public service shouldn't be reserved for people who can afford it.
He lost.
I was a teenager then, and I didn't understand campaign finance, political strategy, or the systems that make running for office so difficult for ordinary people. But I understood that my dad cared enough to try. And somewhere in that experience, I began to understand what made Texas special. Not necessarily its politicians or politics, but its people.
People like my father, who get up before sunrise to drive children to school. People who work two jobs, raise families, teach classrooms, and somehow still find time to care about the strangers living down the street.
Years later, when I decided to run for office, I carried a little bit of that $500 campaign with me. I was a first-generation college graduate, the daughter of a Filipino immigrant, a former Miss Texas, and a young woman who believed public service should look a little more like the public. I knew what it was like to love a state that didn't always make you feel like you belonged.
So I ran. When I lost, I wondered whether any of it mattered.
That's the cruel thing about politics. We measure success in election-night percentages, as though everything that happened before the polls closed disappears when the results don't go our way.
We call candidates losers, pack up the yard signs, and move on. But democracy doesn't operate on the neat timelines we assign to campaign cycles. An election can be lost in one night. Changing a community can take generations.
Texas did not suddenly become a different state on November 3. The people who made last night possible were here, all along. They were the volunteers knocking on doors when nobody answered. The retirees writing postcards at their kitchen tables. The college students registering voters between classes. The local organizers who kept showing up, election after election, even when nobody believed their efforts would amount to anything.
They were candidates who ran knowing the odds were against them, sacrificing their savings, relationships, privacy, and time, only to lose. And they were the Texans who desperately wanted to leave.
Some stayed because they couldn't afford to move. Some stayed because their families and jobs were here, or because leaving the only home they'd ever known was simply too much to ask. And some, I suspect, stayed because they carried a tiny, stubborn kernel of hope that things might one day be different.
Not everyone stayed out of optimism. Sometimes staying is simply survival. But staying meant they remained part of the story. That is why I take issue with the idea that a handful of winning candidates somehow transformed Texas overnight.
We love a political success story featuring a charismatic candidate and an impressive election-night speech. We're less interested in celebrating those who spent decades laying the groundwork for that speech.
The people who didn't run. The people who volunteer. The people whose names we'll never know. Regardless of party, a healthy democracy should never depend on anyone being permanently entitled to power. Elected officials should earn the public's trust and remember that their seats ultimately belong to the people.
But there's another lesson here. Good things take time, yet they do not come to those who simply wait. I've never particularly liked the saying that good things come to those who wait. It makes patience sound like a substitute for participation.
My father didn't wait for someone wealthier to speak up for his community. I didn't wait until I was older or more politically acceptable to run for office. And thousands of Texans didn't wait for a competitive election to start knocking on doors.
They worked before there was any guarantee their work would matter. That's what hope actually looks like. Not certainty that everything will work out, but the willingness to do something meaningful without knowing whether it will.
Today, I'm thinking about my dad. He never became mayor. I never became the representative for House District 112. Yet watching that seat change hands last night, I felt something unexpected.
Not resentment. Gratitude.
For my father. For the precinct chairs & blockwalkers who worked beside me. For those who came before us. And for those who kept going after we lost.
I used to think winning an election proved your work mattered. Now I understand that sometimes the work matters precisely because it outlives you. Texas didn't change overnight. People worked for decades to change it.
And history rarely belongs to the people who waited for it. It belongs to the people who showed up before anyone believed it was possible.
Averie Bishop is a Democracy Architects Fellow and a lawyer, former Miss Texas, and Democracy Architects Council Fellow. She ran for the Texas State Legislature at 26 and now talks local politics, pop culture, and life in Dallas with nearly a million followers online.
A voter marks their ballot in the Kern County Elections Office on November 03, 2026 in Bakersfield, California.
For almost two years, I have written about our constitutional Republic. I have worried about it. And I have even written to members of Congress about it.
For months, I have asked a question I never imagined would trouble me so deeply: Can the American people help keep our Republic when its guardrails are being weakened?
Congress too often went silent. Political disorder became almost routine. Lies competed with truth. Conspiracy theories flourished. Fear became a campaign strategy. Presidential power was stretched and tested. Enormous sums of money poured into campaigns while Americans were bombarded with political ads telling them whom to fear, blame and distrust.
Corruption was no abstraction. Before the election, the Brennan Center for Justice reported that more than nine in ten voters across regions considered corruption in politics and government a big problem.
I was hopeful and worried at the same time.
During this administration, I came to understand more deeply how fragile a constitutional Republic can become when its institutions and guardrails are strained. International IDEA reported before the election that major indicators of U.S. democracy had fallen to 50-year lows.
Democracy is not self-sustaining. Protecting it is a civic responsibility.
Election Day gave Americans another opportunity to exercise that responsibility.
Then the people spoke.
They voted.
And their votes changed the political landscape.
Democrats won control of both the House and Senate, flipping Republican-held seats across the country.
But I do not see this simply as one political party defeating another. I believe many Americans voted for something larger than party: a desire to protect the Republic, restore checks and balances and remind those in power that they remain accountable to the people.
To me, their message was clear: restore accountability, respect constitutional limits, listen to the people and remember whom government serves.
The AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of about 80,000 voters in all 50 states, found that most voters identified either the economy or the state of democracy as the country's top issue. Government corruption also weighed heavily, and voters expressed a strong desire for Congress to play a more forceful role in checking presidential power.
The larger lesson is about the power and independence of the American voter.
I have family and friends in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, California, New Jersey and Virginia. I celebrated with them, not simply because particular candidates won, but because we were watching democracy in action.
Democracy is not something we merely inherit.
We practice it.
The election also challenged assumptions about the political map. Republicans in several states had redrawn congressional districts hoping for an electoral advantage, but redistricting did not prevent their loss of the House.
Politicians can draw lines around voters. They cannot draw conclusions for them.
Washington should hear the larger message:
Voters are not political property.
A presidential endorsement, a familiar name, racial identity or millions in campaign spending should not determine our vote. The ballot requires something from us, too: judgment.
This, to me, is political clarity and political literacy: examine candidates' records, character and policies, understand what is at stake and decide whether they deserve the power we are entrusting to them.
That is what self-governance requires.
But we should not become triumphant too quickly.
One election does not save a Republic.
Our guardrails have been shaken and weakened. Some faltered. Others held. Courts acted. States challenged federal actions. Journalists continued asking questions. Citizens organized, peacefully protested, wrote their representatives and spoke out. Finally, voters exercised perhaps the most consequential power ordinary Americans possess in representative government.
Now comes the harder part.
Winning an election is not governing.
As a principal, I made one expectation clear to my team: children were at the center. Our plans, decisions, strategies, budgets and resources had to begin with what our students needed. That clarity of purpose guided our work and helped us achieve success.
Congress needs the same clarity.
Put the people and the Republic at the center.
Every bill, budget, investigation and policy decision should begin with basic questions: Whom does this serve? Does it address people's needs? Does it respect the Constitution and rule of law? Does it strengthen the Republic?
Congress must listen, legislate, conduct meaningful oversight and work across party lines where the public interest demands it. Leaders must earn and maintain the trust and respect of the people through transparency, accountability, listening, keeping their promises and honoring their oath to the Constitution. Public trust is not something elected officials inherit with an election. It must be earned through how they govern.
Above all, they must remember whom they serve. Ours is a participatory government: of the people, by the people and for the people.
Courts must administer impartial justice and uphold the law. The executive must respect constitutional limits. Journalists must continue pursuing facts with accuracy, integrity and courage.
Every guardrail matters.
Transparency and accountability must be on the agenda, along with affordable health care, equal opportunity, constitutional protections and the everyday economic concerns affecting American families.
But accountability cannot become retaliation.
The purpose of accountability is correction.
Ethical leadership must RISE through Respect, Integrity, Service and Empathy. Public office is service, not ownership. The measure of leadership is not how faithfully an official serves a president or party, but how faithfully that leader serves the people and protects the Republic.
Citizens have responsibilities, too.
We cannot vote and disappear.
The late Representative John Lewis reminded us that when something is not right, fair or just, citizens must speak up and act. He also called the vote “the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.”
Millions of Americans did something. They voted.
Now they must continue using their voices between elections. Follow legislation. Check voting records. Question misinformation. Demand transparency. Hold leaders of both parties accountable.
And keep voting.
I wrote about our constitutional Republic. I worried about it. I feared its guardrails were weakening.
They were shaken. But the people spoke.
They did not always say what I hoped they would say. That, too, is democracy.
Benjamin Franklin left us an enduring challenge: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
One election has not saved our Republic or healed our divisions.
The work has just begun.
Leaders must listen. Institutions must serve. Citizens must remain engaged.
The people still have power.
A Republic cannot be kept by spectators.
This is a participatory Republic. Participate.
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Carolyn Goode is a retired educator and educational leader with experience in teaching, human relations, professional development and school leadership. She writes about leadership, equity and civic responsibility.
