The 2020 presidential election is still months away, but the primaries start next month. The first presidential caucus takes place in Iowa on February 3 and the first presidential primary is in New Hampshire on February 11. Other states follow in quick succession.
Over the last year, NLIHC’s nonpartisan voter and candidate engagement project, Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020, has successfully engaged the 2020 presidential candidates regarding affordable housing and homelessness. Almost all of the presidential candidates, including those still in the race and those who are no longer running, have released robust affordable housing proposals. In Iowa and New Hampshire, candidates engaged with residents and advocates about affordable housing, and at the national presidential debates, a moderator asked about affordable housing (in Atlanta) for the first time in presidential campaign history, and the candidates have been raising affordable housing and homelessness in responses to other questions at the presidential debates. Housing affordability is even making it into campaign ads, as in Senator Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) most recent ad, and in prime time town halls, as in yesterday’s Fox News Town Hall with Mayor Pete Buttigieg, where Our Homes, Our Votes, Our Iowa director Lauren Johnson asked the mayor for his solutions to the affordable housing and homelessness crisis. More videos and news articles about all these efforts are available on the Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 website.
But there is still more to be done in the weeks leading up to the primaries. Now more than ever, it is critical to keep candidates talking about what they will do to solve the nation’s affordable housing crisis. Here are three easy things to do – and the tools you can use to do them:
- Know the date of your state’s primary.
- Know what the candidates have proposed about affordable housing. Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 has statements and plans from all the candidates.
- Engage candidates on affordable housing and homelessness. The Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 Took Kit has materials to support your efforts, including questions to ask at town halls, tips for writing op-eds, and other non-partisan candidate-engagement resources.