What happens in November will decide how much ground the gun violence prevention movement can win back, or how much more damage this administration can inflict on the progress we’ve fought so hard to achieve. The safety of our communities is on the line.
Over the past year, the Trump administration has gutted the ATF, rearmed domestic abusers and violent criminals, and shredded federal gun safety laws — with no check whatsoever from a compliant MAGA majority in Congress. In April alone, the ATF rolled out more than 30 changes that make it easier for guns to end up in the hands of violent criminals and harder for police to trace them.
That’s the situation. Here’s the plan, and here’s where you come in.
Fighting on Two Fronts:
Everytown has two electoral goals this cycle, and they work together:
- Flip the U.S. House to put a check on the Trump administration and gun lobby at the federal level.
- Flip legislative chambers in five battleground states: Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Wisconsin, with the goal of building “trifectas” — states with gun sense majorities in both chambers and the governor’s office — to put a check on the Trump administration and gun lobby at the state level
The path to victory for both of these goals is the same: Moms Demand Action volunteers running for office.
Front One: Flipping the House
More than 40 Moms Demand Action volunteers are running for Congress this year, including eight in the most competitive districts in the country. Democrats need to net just four seats for the majority. Do the math: Our volunteers are majority makers.
A gun safety majority in the House is what stands between the gun lobby and a federal concealed carry mandate, which would force every state to honor every other state’s carry standards, including states with weak requirements or none at all.
A majority also puts a check on an administration that spent this year dismantling the country’s gun laws. It brings oversight and subpoena power. It brings the ability to stop further ATF cuts. And it brings scrutiny to changes like the one that opens the U.S. mail as a new gun trafficking channel — a lifeline for the online retailer GrabAGun (which has the goal of becoming the “Amazon of guns”) whose investor and board member Donald Trump Jr. stands to make millions.
Front Two: Flipping State Legislatures
When Washington strips protections out, statehouses are where the ground gets held. They’re also where gun safety laws are still being written.
Roughly 50 volunteer candidates are running in state legislative races across our five priority battleground states. Nearly half are running in the most competitive seats — the ones that will determine control of 10 different legislative chambers. Across those five states, just 22 seats decide the majorities.
We’re also investing in targeted governor and attorney general races. Paired with gun sense majorities in the legislature, these trifecta states serve as a critical check on federal overreach and a bulwark against the gun lobby’s deadly agenda.
Why Volunteer Candidates Win
Voters are tired of campaigns that are nothing but attacks. Our battleground research this summer confirmed what volunteers already see at the doors: People don’t believe a purely negative ad, and they’ve stopped listening to them. What moves someone is specifics, facts, and a candidate who is visibly for something.
They also want authenticity. They want people rooted in their communities who aren’t beholden to anyone. That is a fair description of every Moms Demand Action volunteer who has ever knocked a door or sat through a statehouse hearing.
That’s the advantage. Volunteer candidates came to politics through community engagement and a call to serve, which means they can talk about public safety credibly, in their own voice, without flinching. Extreme Risk laws, also known as Red Flag laws, are one example: When our candidates explain how temporarily removing guns from someone in crisis prevents tragedies, voters listen, because it’s coming from someone who has spent years working on the problem.
In a political moment this polarized, that’s rare. It’s also why our candidates get taken seriously on public safety in districts where other candidates don’t.
We’ve Done This Before
This isn’t theory. This movement flipped the Michigan House and the Minnesota Senate in 2022 and swept Virginia’s House of Delegates in 2023.
Last year in Virginia, we elected a former Moms Demand Action volunteer – Abigail Spanberger – as governor and sent 13 volunteers to the House of Delegates, where they now make up 20% of the historic Democratic majority. Then they delivered. In her first session, Governor Spanberger signed a ban on the sale of assault weapons and 20 other gun safety bills into law, making the NRA’s home state the 11th in the nation to ban assault weapon sales.
Here’s our record:
- Since 2021, more than 600 Moms Demand Action volunteers have been elected across 42 states
- 15 states now have five or more former volunteers serving in the legislature
- Six former volunteers are serving in Congress
- In the 2025 elections, 67% of volunteer candidates won
- In the 2026 primaries so far, 85% have won
The Gun Lobby is Counting on Us to Sit This One Out
The NRA may be a shadow of its former self, but its guns-everywhere agenda is alive and well thanks to Donald Trump and a MAGA Congress.
Our volunteers-turned-candidates can flip chambers and grow our majorities. But only if we do everything in our power to elect them.
They had our backs. Now it’s time to have theirs.