Mind the Movement provides free mental health support to campaign staff, grassroots organizers and former federal workers. You can access their full resource library here or join one of their weekly peer support groups here.

When I first moved to New York City 20 years ago, I went to a concert at the original Knitting Factory (RIP) and saw singer songwriter Toby Lightman perform a song with the lyric “the weight of the world is too light, and I’m heavy…”. That line comes to mind whenever I try to explain the overwhelming pressure and responsibility people who work on campaigns feel: one more call, a more perfect spreadsheet, or a catchier social post can feel like it’ll make the difference, win the race, and save our democracy.
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The infuriating thing is – that might actually be true. Electoral work is such clear cause and effect. If we do X we have a chance at getting Y. You win or you lose. It’s straightforward and tangible. Holding on to the possibility that it’ll all work out keeps us going.

A deep sense of responsibility to our country is exactly what pushes many of us into the work of campaigns and elections.

Campaign people are a really special sort: relentless, driven and inventive.
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And we’re paying an incredibly high price for standing between hopeful change and fascism every few years.

It’s that sense of responsibility that led me to creating the first organization focused on mental health support for campaign staff and movement organizers. I’d seen models from other industries – education, sports, music, food and even airlines that showed what was possible when we invest in the growth and wellbeing of our staff.

If we get it right, we could see a world in which campaigns are a coveted industry to work in, where our people stay involved (and the movement retains their experience) and where work/life balance isn’t just something you get after 20 years of paying your dues.

Here’s where it started​

After working on the 2024 presidential election, I came home jobless, soon to be insurance-less, shellshocked, and horrified by what was to come. As I made my rounds of check-in calls with my team, friends, former colleagues and volunteers I kept hearing stories of hopelessness, numbness, extreme fatigue, disenchantment and anger. I kept listening and asking how people were feeling, and what I heard between Election Day and the inauguration became darker and more concerning.
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This led me to ask how the wider industry was handling not only the electoral defeat but the abrupt loss of employment, insurance, and a sense of purpose and community. What started as a conversation with some of my closest political friends turned into a survey and a report on the state of campaign staff mental health, because I wanted to understand the scale of the problem.
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The *results and the stories shared broke my heart. Here is a bit of what I heard:

Of the 217 campaign staffers who completed the survey, 91% experienced anxiety, 74% experienced hopelessness and 12% had experienced thoughts of self-harm.

Each response was more than a data point, but a personal experience of the price we pay to work on elections.

• “I am often angry, desensitized, hopeless that any of my efforts won’t change the abuses of power that are going on in politics” – First time campaign staffer
  
• “I experienced nausea and vomiting from anxiety on a regular basis starting in the summer and had to take a nausea prescription from September-November.” – A staffer with 5+ years of experience
  
• “The guilt is present for sure. Despite the long hours worked there’s always the thought that more could’ve been done.” – A Pennsylvania organizer
  
• “I was extremely unwell while working on the campaign. I was screamed at everyday while being forced to meet unreasonable quotas while working for an unfair hourly wage. I had no time for anything else. My entire life was the campaign. This made me feel completely wound tight. I could not relax. I dreamed of work. I was severely depressed and anxious. I was working so much I forgot to eat.” – A Maine organizer

September is Suicide Prevention Month, a time when organizations, celebrities and businesses post a mix of helpful resources and cliche platitudes. Some of these resources will genuinely save lives, like ‘988’ the 24 hour suicide crisis line or Blackline (1-800-604-5841) and Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860). ​

But you don’t prevent suicidal ideation, self-harm or other mental health issues through memes and occasional workplace training

Over these past two years of thinking about campaign worker wellbeing and my own lifelong struggle with mental health issues – it’s become clearer than ever that mental health doesn’t exist and can’t improve in a vacuum. Systems-level change needs to happen to make housing more affordable, education more accessible, reduce violence at home, increase steady employment, and reduce social isolation.
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As we know, the elections we’re working on can help lead to policies that will benefit people’s mental health (as if we needed more pressure…). But at the same time, campaigns and organizations can be spaces that support wellbeing and create safety nets for their people.
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In the spirit of *”practicing new worlds” what if we used our industry as a place to try out the change we (claim to) want to bring to the masses?
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What if we invested in mental health care, access to health care and medication at reasonable prices?
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What if we cut down on long gaps in employment by creating infrastructure to keep people employed outside of the major election cycles?
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What if we taught our people how to work together in ways that feel generative and inspiring and not toxic and harmful?
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What if we treated people like our most valuable assets, not like low-paid, interchangeable cogs in a machine to churn out without care or support?
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Over the past two years, I’ve spoken to a lot of people who think it’s ridiculous to treat campaign staff better, spend time thinking about investing in people’s careers, or make our industry one people want to work in for the long haul. No, really. I’ve been laughed at. I’ve been told not to talk to one of the major committees because “they don’t care about people”. I’ve been shocked to hear how some people in the industry talk about rank-and-file staff.

In spite of these challenges to make change I’ve been lucky to spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff alongside some very smart colleagues like Arena, Kathryn Sisa, All Due Respect, Blueline Fellows, Amy Pritchard at GAIN Power, Meg Hovious, Emily Parcell and others. We’re thinking about ways to increase access to staff coaching, resilience retreats, improve hiring processes, place people in jobs between election cycles and creating tools to reduce burnout

Like all big changes we want to see in the world, this will be a long fight. To make campaign work sustainable and healthy, we’ll need to be better organized with people and money than those in our own industry who would rather invest in the latest AI tool or more mailers (always, more mail). We’ll need to take a long look in the mirror and unpack the harm done to campaign staff over the years.
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In honor of those we’ve lost because we didn’t pay attention or take care of our people, this September I hope more people will join us in thinking about how we make this work sustainable and healthy. Mind the Movement has toolkits to help you talk about mental health with your team (either as a senior leader or more junior staff) which you can grab here. We’re also hosting free weekly support groups for campaign staff of all levels which are open to join here.
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Supporting the people on the frontlines of democracy is an opportunity to show that our vision for a better world starts within our own small universe of campaigns and grassroots organizations. Let’s prove what we can do for the country by starting with how we treat our staff.

*2024 Campaign Staff Mental Health Report

*Practicing New Worlds by Andrea Ritchie

BIO: Ashley Williams is the founder of Mind the Movement, the first and only organization providing mental health care to campaign staff, grassroots organizers, and former feds. She’s worked with Arena, Vote Save America and Save the Children Action Network and lives in Astoria, Queens (home of a very popular new Mayor).