On behalf of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party, I want to wish you all Happy Holidays. As we approach the end of 2020, it’s good to remember some positive moments rather than just the difficulties of living through a pandemic during the Trump Administration.

This year,

• We re-elected Joan Hartmann and Das in the March Primary, preserving our progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors.
• We threw our first ever Virtual Roosevelt-Hamer Dinner with the amazing Congressman Adam Schiff, and honored, Lorraine Waldau, Emily Murray, Joan Hartmann and the Santa Maria Valley Women’s March.
• We celebrated Labor Day and the labor movement leading the way in ensuring safe conditions for workers and costumers. The Central Coast Labor Council, UDW, UFCW770, SEIU 721 shared videos of their responses to Covid-19.
• We endorsed and supported 37 candidates during the November election – the largest number ever – and campaigned to elect Salud Carbajal for Congress, Monique Limón for State Senate, Steve Bennett for State Assembly, and dozens of other progressive leaders to our city councils, school boards and special districts. Our heartfelt congratulations go out to so who prevailed across the County!

And despite the many difficulties that the pandemic presented, we were still able to connect with each other virtually via Zoom – and in a way, we were more connected than ever with our numerous clubs and volunteers, who came from every corner of Santa Barbara County.

And of course, November brought us President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. I hope everyone is starting to breathe and feel a bit better.

But our work is not done yet! We must continue to stay engaged, and elect Jon Ossoff and Rafael Warnock to the Senate in order to form a Democratic majority. If you can, please donate or phonebank, or text, or send postcards—early voting has begun!

We wish you all a wonderful holiday season. We have weathered an extraordinarily difficult time. But democracy, though threatened, survived, there is a vaccine, and January 20th is just around the corner.

We wish you all a safe, healthy, and spirited time,

Gail Teton-Landis
Chair, Santa Barbara County Democratic Party