Strategy

Unity Platform

For an American future that is prosperous, powerful, good, kind, generous, and responsible

In these pivotal times, the Clark County Democrats stand for a practical and unifying path forward. Thus, our Unity Platform respects Democrats and non-Democrats alike. It builds people up with opportunity, kindness, and togetherness. We love Clark County, and we respect all who live here. We also believe in America, and that is why we seek unity over partisanship. We are confident that together we can build an American future that is prosperous, powerful, good, kind, generous toward all people, and responsible.

There is nothing that Americans can’t accomplish when we put our minds to it. For that reason:

1. We believe Clark County is for all of us and America is for all of us.
2. We believe good government is about balance, working together, and cultivating healthy unity among all Americans.
3. We stand for authentic democracy in our republic, including accepting the will of the people after elections and supporting the constitution.
4. We support strengthening rural communities and protecting their rural character.
5. We support good jobs, affordable homes, low energy costs, and a healthy environment, while preserving local farms and open spaces.
6. We stand for human rights and women’s rights, and we believe America is better and stronger because of the diverse races, belief systems, and gender identities who live together in our vibrant and beautiful nation.
7. We support our thriving small businesses, fast growing and innovative large businesses, and we stand for workers’ rights to earn a living wage. We believe that Clark County can find a balanced business approach that is fair to all.
8. We advocate for an orderly, lawful, and welcoming immigration system that recognizes the nation’s origins, and creates a more effective path to citizenship. We reject the notion that immigrants threaten American values, and instead affirm that immigrants enrich and fortify the very essence of America.
9. We stand up for every woman’s personal freedom to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including all forms of birth control, IVF, and safe and legal abortion.
10. We believe in healthy communities, which is why we support affordable and accessible quality healthcare without preexisting condition qualifications for all Americans.
11. We believe that climate change is real, happening now, and must be addressed as an emergency. Our children have a right to inherit a clean, uncontaminated world.
12. We believe that education is a critical public good that supports democracy and that it is our collective responsibility to ensure that every child receives a world-class education to prepare them for the 21st century. Ensuring educational options at all ages, including apprenticeship, trade school, internships, university, or other career pathways enables participation in civil society and empowers us all to lead meaningful lives, no matter who we are or where we come from.
13. We believe in responsible and lawful gun-ownership, and we support reasonable safety measures to prevent gun violence and stop our children from being killed.
14.  We support America’s role as a leader in the global community of nations, and we seek consistent leadership that upholds principles of human rights, the rule of law and authentic democracy worldwide.
15.  We envision an America where unity, kindness, and prosperity prevail, as the American people unite for a future that is not only powerful and practical, but also civil, kind, and respectful toward all.

Call to Action

The Clark County Democrats seek your support through the following actions.

1. Vote for Democrats, for a unifying and balanced approach to help all Americans succeed and thrive.
2. To help this approach grow, we ask all other interested organizations to endorse this Unity Platform and organize with us so we can pass legislation that reflects it.
3. We ask elected officials to take action to enact the Unity Platform and achieve the following milestones

Milestones to Enact the Unity Platform

1. Build the I-5 Bridge and bring federal money and jobs to every part of Clark County through construction, high-speed internet, roads, bridges, technology, and other infrastructure projects. Basic infrastructure is good for the economy and provides jobs.
2. Support local government officials in working with our federal delegation to secure funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS semiconductor law, and green jobs from the Inflation Reduction Act. These laws are creating millions of jobs across the nation, and both rural and urban Clark County should get their fair share.
3. Provide affordable energy and affordable homes for Clark County’s people. Support our Public Utility District, expand programs that reduce people’s energy costs, and hold the county accountable for developing affordable homes through transparently reporting whether we are closing the affordable housing gap each year.
4. Create “American Pride Jobs” in rural areas by modeling the 1930s New Deal programs. An American Pride Jobs Program would provide good wages for work on public projects and funding for job training, college attendance, or apprenticeships in high-demand fields. Ensuring our workforce is equipped with high-demand skills is smart for our economy, locally and globally.
5. Prepare today for predictable economic disruptions that can be caused by recessions, pandemics, climate change, modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, or other unpredictable events. Maintain an “on hold” list of American Pride Jobs in every part of the state that can be made available during economic downturns, so that people who are laid off can quickly go to work and preserve their income, marketability, self-worth, pride, and dignity.
6. Protect human rights, including women’s rights, environmental protection, affordable housing, and the rights of underrepresented groups.
7. Enact Medicare for All Who Choose It. Maintain Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and create Medicare for All Who Choose it, allowing regular Americans to buy into Medicare with a sliding scale premium, as an optional alternative to buying private sector health insurance.
8. Rebuild the middle class. Focus economic strategies on creating living wage jobs with benefits for regular Americans, instead of a more generalized goal of “growth,” which too often creates concentrated wealth at the top instead of good jobs.
9. Reform corporate law. Incentivize public corporations to consider environmental impact, human rights, worker rights, and consumer rights as priorities. Today, most public corporations have one priority: profit (also called shareholder return). They can be sued by their stockholders if they consider anything else as a co-equal priority. This must change.
10. Reduce gun deaths while upholding the right to bear arms. Prior to a gun purchase, require a gun safety course, a gun license like a driver’s license, a background check including mental health and domestic violence history, two references signing on behalf of your character and safety, and a check-in with recent domestic partners since they are the most frequent victims of gun violence; and increase the penalties for selling weapons on the black market. No policy is perfect, and we recognize this causes inconvenience and delay for lawful gun purchasers. However, the need for improvement is manifestly clear, and we believe this approach balances the right to bear arms with reasonable efforts to stop weapons from falling into the wrong hands, to save thousands of lives.
11. Reduce and adapt to climate change. Create economic incentives to reduce air pollution and prepare our communities for the coming impacts of global climate change. Support Washington’s Climate Commitment Act and oppose ballot initiative 2117, which seeks to overturn it. This initiative is funded by a Republican mega-donor and hedge-fund manager whose goal is to allow corporate pollution with no consequences. All of us—Democrats and non-Democrats alike—must work together to prioritize a clean environment and address global climate change. Vote no on I-2117.
12. Support immigrants in our communities. We believe that a sensible, humane, and responsible approach to immigration strengthens the United States. Immigrants are essential to our society and our economy. They grow our food, care for our loved ones, serve in our armed forces, and provide critical health care services. Immigrants join our families, enrich our culture and make America stronger. Not only do immigrants support us—immigrants are us. Our families and our communities, our congregations and our schools, our businesses large and small have been built and sustained through immigration. That’s why we are committed to building a 21st century immigration system that reflects our values, supports citizenship for Dreamers, repairs past harms, heals our communities, rebuilds our economy, and renews our global leadership.
13. Reform campaigns. Pass federal legislation establishing that corporations are not people and may not contribute more to any political campaign than a typical American household of median income. This will return our government to “we, the people” and give regular Americans equal footing with the wealthy campaign contributors who currently hold disproportionate power over lawmakers and lawmaking.
14. De-rigging the tax system. We recognize that the tax system is rigged for the benefit of the very rich and we insist that it be fixed. Regardless of political affiliation, all billionaires, multi-millionaires, and large corporations should pay their fair share.
15. Modernize foreign policy. Formalize a trading alliance of modern democracies, open to growth as more nations modernize, to consistently promote human rights, the rule of law, and genuine democracy inside its member-nations and across the world. This is an effective way to proactively promote stability, peace, and prosperity for all in our ever-more interconnected world.
16. Recognize the inalienable rights of all people to basic dignity, food, shelter, healthcare, education, and living wage jobs; and work toward a modern and humane society that respects these rights for all.

Friends, we stand for values that over 60% of Americans agree with: the economy, the Constitution, and common decency.  

Our commitment to working families is unwavering. We will fight for stronger unions, ensuring workers have the power to negotiate fair wages and better benefits. We will push for higher wages that keep up with the cost of living and expanded benefits that provide security for families. 

We oppose the reckless Republican push to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—lifelines that millions rely on. We will fight to protect and expand these essential programs. 

Housing remains a critical issue, and we will streamline permitting to speed up affordable housing construction, cutting red tape that stalls progress. Every family deserves access to affordable homes. 

Healthcare must be accessible and affordable. Anyone struggling to find coverage should be able to buy into Medicare, ensuring no one is left without care. 

Internationally, we will work to strengthen fair trade agreements with allies that support American workers. We will block authoritarian dictators like Putin and Xi Jinping from international markets until they move decisively toward the rule of law, human rights, and democracy. We stand firmly with Ukraine and other democratic nations. 

We must also reclaim our democracy. We will protect Constitutional checks and balances established by our founding fathers, and work to remove billionaire influence from elections, ensuring that power stays with the people, not the money. 

Finally, common decency is strength, not weakness. We will restore emergency nutrition for starving children, HIV and malaria medicines to people who are dying without them, and civil rights for all colors, creeds, and cultures to be safe, valued, and embraced in the rich American tapestry. 

Democrats have a proven record of balancing budgets, reducing crime, supporting first responders and veterans, and creating middle-class jobs. By staying laser-focused on the economy, the Constitution, and common decency, we will keep turning Clark County blue! 

Democrats will prioritize the economy, the Constitution, and common decency. Here is our plan to emerge even stronger and repair the damage caused by the current administration and their enablers.

First, A Word About Fiscal Discipline

1. Since the 1970’s only one president—a Democrat—has achieved annual budget surpluses. Republicans have all run annual deficits and increased the national debt, every year since the 1970’s. We can do better. We can have a powerful middle class, a thriving economy, common decency, and achieve annual budget surpluses at the same time.
2. Start by paying for the items below by rolling back the Trump tax breaks for billionaires, which cost $3.8 trillion.
3. Close corporate tax breaks that are not measurably creating middle class jobs in large numbers.
4. Freeze non-personnel-related military spending at current levels. Our military is the finest in world history and we must protect that, while also considering other priorities, as well.

An Economy for the People, with Good Jobs and Affordable Lives

5. Strengthen unions. Unions protect and grow the American middle class.
6. Focus economic strategy on more middle-class jobs. That is the real sign of a healthy economy.
7. Increase the national minimum wage to $15 per hour and increase it annually for inflation.
8. Allow all Americans the option to voluntarily buy into Medicare. Charge $50 per month for households earning under $80,000 per year, and a sliding scale premium for households with higher incomes. (No change to the underlying Medicare program—protect it as-is. The premiums are only for younger people choosing to opt in.)
9. Require permits for affordable housing to be reviewed and approved first, before all other building permits, and exempt affordable housing permits from many regulations that are appropriately applied to higher-cost housing and commercial buildings.
10. Build an array of shelter housing, including dorm-style housing with employment and social services on-site.
11. Make it free for anyone of any age to develop a career plan and pursue it with apprenticeship, college, or other job skill training. Also offer this option during the last three years of high school to help young people move smoothly into careers.

Protect the Constitution

12. Get the billionaires out of our elections. Adopt a Constitutional Amendment clarifying that corporations are not people and allowing no person to donate more to campaigns than 10% of the median household income in America. The Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law, not oppression of the American people through rule by the highest bidder.
13. Make all presidents follow the law. Pass legislation clarifying that no president is allowed to commit crimes while in office, defining and enforcing the emoluments clause, defining and enforcing bribery and corruption by presidents, and requiring the Attorney General and U.S. Marshalls to fully enforce federal court orders regarding the executive branch.
14. Outlaw Gerrymandering and require convenient access to the polls for all eligible voters with no barriers placed between American citizens and our right to vote.
15. Streamline statehood for U.S. territories where people are denied their full rights, including Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. territories who seek statehood.

Common Decency

16. Americans need good jobs, safe neighborhoods, thriving rural communities, and affordable lives. Put these needs first, before corporate profit maximization, and before billionaire donors’ pet projects.
17. Stop coddling dictators and undermining modern democracies around the world. Revise free trade agreements to require the rule of law, human rights, authentic democracy, and strong labor and environmental protection by all beneficiary nations, including us. Give all nations a deadline to move toward these basic principles or lose their most favored nation trading status with the USA. If Russia, China, and others do not move toward modern democracy and human rights, we will gradually exclude them from the marketplaces of modern nations until they change their approach or become economically weaker.
18. Racism is still just plain wrong, it still exists, and we still need laws to keep fighting against it. Fighting racism should be as American as apple pie and we will never stop protecting all Americans of every race, gender, orientation, culture, and creed.
19. Letting people die overseas, in the tens of millions, is weak and morally wrong. Use this opportunity to rebuild USAID and focus it even more on specific, measurable, and highly effective humanitarian aid to save people from disease and starvation. It is a tiny fraction of the federal budget, and it saves tens of millions of human lives.
20. Treat people right. Make all decisions based on competence and compassion. Compassion without competence is little more than wishful thinking. Competence without compassion is oppressive and cruel.
21. Stand resolutely against greed and cruelty. Every religion and every code of ethics calls us to treat people right. We stand for a thriving and inclusive society for all of us.

Democrats will rebuild the American middle class, protect our authentic American democracy, and improve America’s record of global leadership along with our modern democratic allies.

Vote Democrat!

Chair Probst’s Closing Remarks from the 2025 Ogden Dinner: 

My friends and fellow Democrats, we live in challenging times. But take courage, for our cause is just, we have many friends, and we know how to win. 

Earlier tonight, I talked about the positive message, the practicality of winning the swing voters, and the Opportunity 2027 plan to make big changes fast when we regain our majorities. 

Please, let’s all start using the same positive talking points about why people should vote for Democrats, and not just vote against MAGA. We Democrats stand for the economy, the Constitution, and common decency. We stand for stronger unions, affordable lives for working people, a $15 national minimum wage, Medicare for all who want it, and affordable housing. We will build global alliances with modern democracies grounded in human rights, strong environmental and labor standards, and we will lock authoritarian dictators like Putin out of international markets until they change their ways for good. We want to get the billionaires out of our elections. In stark contrast to our opposition, we are building an America where every person of every kind is authentically valued and welcomed, because their country loves them.  

We’re building an America that works for working people and respects the dignity of all people. 

We know we can accomplish that by winning the swing voters in the swing districts. Our local 17th district is 52% Democratic, and the 18th district is a 50/50 toss-up. Last year we flipped one Senate seat to blue in those districts, and next year, we are going to flip all 4 State House seats in those districts from MAGA to Democrat, by winning our Democratic base and also winning the independent swing voters. If we do that, we’ll lock in years of Democratic victory, and that means our vision will become the law.  

The swing voters need to hear us speaking to them, and we have so many ways to authentically win their votes! Democrats support working families and affordable lives better than Republicans. We balance budgets and practice fiscal discipline better than Republicans. We create middle class jobs better. We reduce crime, support cops and firefighters, and support our military and our veterans better. We are the party of patriotism. We’re tough on crime and we’re tough on the root causes of crime. We support rural Americans better, we support small businesses better, and we support blue collar workers better. 

If we just take the time and have the courtesy to remind swing voters that we already agree with them on the issues they care about, we will lock in a generation of Democratic victories while still being true to ourselves.  

Do you know what that means? It means we get to turn our talk and our vision into law, change our goals into concrete reality, and change real lives for real people across our state and nation. It means stronger unions, a national $15 minimum wage, and Medicare for All Who Want It become reality, not just hopes and dreams. 

Please read Opportunity 2027, read the 60% Plan, and read the Unity Platform. Even more importantly, please answer the call when we need volunteers, action, and money.  

It’s true, we are fighting against cruelty, gross incompetence, and thinly veiled dictatorship. But remember, that’s an opportunity for us to paint the alternative picture. As American patriots, we want a nation that is both powerful … and good. An economy that lets working families thrive, a wildly successful society that is also passionately humane, and competence to turn wise and optimistic vision into practical reality for millions and millions of real people. 

Now let’s go win some elections! Forward together. 

Voter Contact Expectations Policy and Timeline

Your involvement is important to us to win more votes for Democrats, and to build an enjoyable, respectful, and mutually supportive team. With that in mind, we offer this positive and clear approach to help volunteers and Precinct Committee Officers (PCOs) know what is expected, what is flexible, and how they can access members of the Democratic team for support.

Voter Contact Expectations for Clark County PCOs and Volunteers
1. Actively take part in Win with 10! That means connecting regularly with 10 infrequently voting Democrats in your neighborhood, to encourage them to become regular and reliable voters. This is fundamental work to increase base turnout in Clark County. Instructions, coaching, voter lists, tips, and support are available from the Clark County Democrats.

2. Attend training on doorbelling, phone calling, or other voter contact techniques.

3. Reliably show up and doorbell, make phone calls, or use other voter contact techniques upon request from Democratic candidates’ campaigns or local Democratic organizations. We’ll help you find voter contact techniques you are comfortable with and enjoy doing! This provides a team of well-trained volunteers to our candidates to help them win their campaigns.

4. BONUS: The three items above are important for Democratic success. Please focus on accomplishing them as part of our team of volunteers and PCOs! Once you have done so and you are ready to accomplish even more, then please recruit a few friends and allies in your neighborhood to help you split up this work and accomplish it. These friends and allies are your “Precinct Committee,” which is where the title “Precinct Committee Officer” comes from. Having a few friends help you organize your neighborhood makes it more fun and more helpful for achieving Democratic victories! This can give you the team you need to canvass (or telephone) your precinct in coordination with election strategy at least once a year, which is a key goal expressed in the state party’s PCO handbook.

Important note: Any PCO or volunteer who would rather not do the work shown above because they prefer to do other specific work to help win more votes for Democrats should contact their Legislative District (LD) Chair or PCO/Volunteer Coordinator to discuss that and plan for other work. There is plenty to do and all volunteer work is appreciated! It is definitely ok to take on a different task instead of those above; just let us know what alternative task you prefer to do so we all stay organized.

To help us all work toward victory as an organized team, every new PCO recruited will be invited to
participate when seeking confirmation at the Clark County Democrats General Meetings. This helps to ensure we are all working together as a team toward the same goals.

The Clark County Democrats seek to work collaboratively and invite the LDs to take part and provide a progress check-in on PCO activities at each general meeting. This may be a short reminder or a longer discussion, depending on your preferences. We seek to keep this direct voter contact strategy as a consistent priority across all our organizations.

Together, we can increase voter turnout for Democrats in our neighborhoods and all across Clark County and win more elections for Democrats. Thank you to our dedicated PCOs and volunteers!

Timeline

Shortly after even-year elections:
Clark County Democrats Executive Committee, including the LD Chairs, names a PCO Coordinator (or two) who trains PCOs on this policy and stays in regular contact with PCOs to encourage them to follow through.

Starting the December after even-year elections, and extending continuously for the next two years:
The PCO Coordinator(s) and any other leads for the voter contact effort regularly text and call PCOs and volunteers to help them be successful contacting their 10 voters.

Every PCO and every willing volunteer is taking active part in Win With 10! This means contacting 10 infrequently voting Democrats regularly and developing a rapport with those 10 people in their neighborhood, to encourage them to vote.

June – July each year:
Doorbelling training and phone calling training is held and every PCO and all willing volunteers attend and get trained up, so they are highly valuable to the candidates when asked to doorbell or phone call.

August – November before an election:
The LDs and the Clark County Democrats are supplying campaigns with large numbers of well-trained volunteers for doorbelling, phone calling, and other voter contact

November election:

Our Democratic candidates win!