Rock the Vote rally.
What a huge turnout for the Cherokee County Democrats' Rock the Vote rally in Woodstock! We outgrew our initial venue by a MILE and packed the house for a slate of local Democratic candidates and our keynote speaker, Jon Ossoff!
Jack (16) came with me and captured a video of my turn at the lectern. And I was thrilled we got a pic with our fantastic senator. I'm a big fan of his legislation against unethical stock trading in Congress and his organization has been a wonderful ally to our State Senate campaign.
It's amazing to see how much the Cherokee County Democrats have grown over the last few years. From 2016, when their founding cohort was getting harassed out of small venues by gun-totting MAGA supporters to today, when hundreds turned out from all across the county. They've been the strongest county organization in support our our race and I'm so grateful for everything they have done and continue to do to advance democracy in the metro area's reddest county.
Gallery
Transcript
Thank you everybody. My name is JD Jordan. I am the father of five teenagers, ages 14, 15, 16, 17 and 19. I am a digital product designer by day, so my professional job is solving other people's problems already. In addition to being a parent, I'm a novelist, so if anyone wants a good book recommendation, I’ve got one for you. And I'm a stage-three colon cancer survivor going on seven years. I always throw that one out because that's the non-partizan applause I can get. But I'm also, the Democratic candidate for State Senate District 56, which is Woodstock, Holly Springs, East Cobb, and West Roswell.
So, if you're anywhere close to 92, I'm your guy.
This is a very surreal moment for me because, as has been said before, my territory covers three different counties, and the very first county party event I went to was in this church with the Cherokee Democrats. And Antonio Daza was the very first person who met me at the door. There were maybe 40 people here.
So, this turnout is spectacular and very humbling. And thank you all so much for coming out to support this Democratic slate. It means the world to us. And please give yourself an applause for that.
Now, most of you may know I don't normally talk off notes. And I only have, like, three, but I want to make sure I don't miss them because we're all asking everyone to do stuff tonight. And I want to start by asking you guys to do the easiest thing you can do after voting on Tuesday.
The easiest thing, I think, you can do is to talk to people on whatever social media platform you're engaged with. Talk to your neighbors. At least the ones not flying the “Let's Go Brandon” flags off their porch right. Talk to your neighbors to let them know, because—to plus-one what Danielle was saying—I think there are way more Democrats in Cherokee County than we're given credit for. I think, the turnout has been low because, Why? Right? Like we couldn't move it a few years ago. But we can this year. And I think there are a lot more of us than we realize. And so I want to talk to you about two things.
One, if you've got a Democratic neighbor or a left-leaning neighbor, how do you tell them that they should vote for JD Jordan? I think it's pretty straightforward. Okay, I got into this race because my oldest two children are LGBTQ and my oldest is on a journey as a young trans woman and our current opponent—our incumbent state senator—was the author of SB 140, the bill that blocked gender affirming care for minors in the state against the recommendation of doctors and parents.
He's my neighbor. He lives about 20 houses away. We used to work together. I have his cell phone number. And it took 16 months from the first time my wife and I tried to reach out to him about SB 140 before he acknowledged us for the first time, to insult us on social media.
So, what's really important to me is equality for everyone in Georgia, regardless of race, or gender identity, or whatever the case may be. You shouldn't be able to be fired for being gay any more than you should be fired for being pregnant, like you could’ve been once upon a time.
And I think, frankly, that this segues into another issue which most of us care about: reproductive equality.
It's not the job of the government to tell us and our doctors—and our families, if we're dealing with minors—what we should be doing to take care of ourselves if it's within the approved best-practices of those industries. The state does not belong in our doctor’s office.
And I would go further to say that this overreach has extended quite painfully into the public school system, something that affects how well our kids launch into their future and how well a simple thing like our property values can be measured—The divisive topics rule—especially just south of here in Cobb County—has led to a slowdown in the teaching of things like the Holocaust and the history of slavery and racism in this country.
It's led to books being challenged with no clear rubric as to why, other than the possible mention of Allah or the existence of a gay person. We have professional masters and PhD, ALA trained librarians curating these collections for a reason. We have professional educators for a reason. They are experts, and we should allow them to do their jobs without state interference.
And that's why you should tell your left leaning friends, why they should vote for me.
Your independent friends, your Republican friends. Let me give you a few nuggets for them, and I'll talk briefly about my opponent, who I don't like talking about too much because he sucks. But he’s a seven term Republican named John Albers. Many of you may not be aware of him because he redistricted himself into Cobb County and Cherokee County two years ago, in order to help hopefully entrench his position.
But he’s the chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee. This is the committee that is responsible for overseeing the state prison system, for also looking at gun safety legislation in this state. And I want to hang on that one for a second, because that's the place where this guy has dropped the ball, probably more than any other legislator under the Gold Dome. And why John Albers remains, to this day, the greatest opponent we have to gun-safety legislation in this state.
So, let's ignore for a second that under his watch, since 2019, 300 correctional officers—including a warden—have been arrested for conspiracy with prisoners inside our state prison system. Or that the federal government, the Justice Department, just found that [conditions for[ prisoners within our state prison system are not meeting the requirements of the Constitution in terms of cruel and unusual punishment.
Let's rather focus on his specific voting record. Where over the last few years, he has voted to allow concealed carry in public places. He has voted to allow concealed carry into college and university campuses. He has voted to allow concealed carry into K–12 campuses. And just this last session, blocked a red flag law from making it from the House into the Senate that could’ve handled the warning we had in advance of the Apalachee school shooting.
And that's my final point: if you're talking to Republicans about why or why not they should support the seven term incumbent, remind them that there have been 48 school shootings since John Albers became chairman. And there has been no new gun-safety legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and unsupervised minors.
That's the place where Democrats and Republicans agree. We're not trying to undo the Second Amendment. We're just trying to let our kids go to school safely.
Thank you. S,o that's the easy ask. Talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors, go vote. And then you're you're free. You'll have your sticker on. People will want to know. And you can be like, vote for the other JD, right?
The other two are… I think I gave out a lot of stickers earlier tonight. You or your neighbor may be wearing a sticker with a cute dog on it? That has our website forthe56.com. If you go to that website, there are two things I'd ask you to do next weekend:
Micheal Garza and I are partnering on an event called The Day of a Thousand Doors. We're actually planning on canvasing like 2,000 doors. Stacey Abrams is going to come out and do it with us. It's based out of Roswell but we would very much love anyone who would want to participate. There will be phone banking, there will be canvasing to train you up. It's going to be a blast. We've already canvased about 8,000 houses in the area. And we want to hit 10,000 by the end of next Saturday.
And the other is, of course, there's a little donation button up in the corner. I'm not going to harp on that because that's what candidates do. But, any that you can help as we get into this final leg would certainly be help.
Thank you all so much.
JD JORDAN FOR GEORGIA STATE SENATE DISTRICT 56
For anyone in East Cobb, Roswell, or Woodstock alarmed by the state’s escalating attacks on our bodies, our families, our doctors’ offices, our classrooms and libraries, even our polling places, I’m running for State Senate district 56 to fight for our freedoms and to deliver a better future for everyone in Georgia.
And unlike my opponent who’s spent 14 years rolling back our freedoms, failing to safeguard our kids, and gerrymandered his district to stay in office, I promise to bring everyone in the 56—regardless of ideology—the best possible constituent experience so you feel heard, valued, and supported. As we all deserve to be.
I’m running for the 56. Let’s make a better Georgia for all of us.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT
Jordan For Georgia, LLC
10800 Alpharetta Hwy Ste 208 #629
Roswell, GA 30076-1467
jdjordan@forthe56.com
706.804.0456
