Many people have asked me if I have been on a victory tour after all we fought for and accomplished in 2024. Though well-intentioned, I am reminded of the Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones’s famous quote, “I have not yet begun to fight!” Like our Founding Fathers after the British surrender, the work has just started. There’s no doubt the America First Movement is feeling good about the November victory and the swearing-in of President Trump as our 47th President. But now is not the time for victory laps. Instead, we must run up the score. We must focus our strength on continuing the fight at the national level to support America First nominees and, possibly even more critically, at the local level among the states and counties.
As another saying goes, “All politics is local,” we must not celebrate too much and instead concentrate on the battle for local elections. Wisconsin, for example, has a crucial state Supreme Court election on April 1 that could have long-term implications if we do not act now to support honest judicial officials. The current liberal extremist court is already notorious for being an activist court, which is ironic since it only decided 14 cases in its first year. The devastation to the state, however, continues to this day. This current court blatantly overturned the will of the people and demanded redrawn legislative maps, effectively governing from the bench while giving power to liberal extremists in the legislature. In another radical move, they overturned election security protocols meant to secure ballot integrity and further disenfranchised the citizens of Wisconsin. This April Fool’s Day will determine whether Wisconsin continues down this undemocratic trajectory or whether citizens get out to vote and protect their rights.
On the surface, local races like these may seem less “exciting” than presidential years, but make no mistake, the consequence of their outcome is massive. Take Pennsylvania, for example. This coming November, three State Supreme Court judges, a Superior Court position, and a Commonwealth Court position are all on the ballot, along with many municipal elections from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. There’s much at stake with all of them. Remember, the State Supreme Court alone held controversial opinions in recent years. It extended COVID-19 restrictions on businesses that ultimately gave the radical governor fiat power, caused chaos in the state’s education funding mechanism, and essentially rewrote Pennsylvania’s congressional redistricting process. Every citizen will feel the impact here.
North Carolina is still dealing with the outcome of November’s election. Their state Supreme Court has had to step in to ensure votes were properly counted for a seat on their own bench as recently as January 7 — two months after Election Day. After being struck by Hurricane Helene, throwing election plans awry, the federal government delayed emergency services to support the free and fair elections in North Carolina. With mass road outages, electrical grid failures, and countless citizens forcibly removed from their homes due to the storm, it was largely left up to outside groups to help ensure every North Carolinian had access to secure voting without the threat of nefarious actors from out of state diluting their votes with illegal ballots. Ensuring protocols are in place for disasters and that our government is working for us, not their political objectives, is why we must continue to fight on every battlefield.
On top of their natural disaster hurdles, North Carolina had at least 60,000 questionable voter registrations. These included voter registrations lacking key information that included supposed residents of the state and overseas voters whose ballots are often processed with much less scrutiny. Unfortunately, states like North Carolina and others fail to follow their own laws where nearly a quarter million voter registrations were accepted without the proper identification to confirm their eligibility to vote in North Carolina alone. This is why we must continue to fight for adherence to the law and increase election transparency and security, especially voter roll maintenance. Other states, such as Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona, to name a few, still need to bring their voter rolls up to date and in accordance with the law, not to mention overseas voters’ ballots being thrown into the same pile as military ballots (who undergo even less scrutiny) causing further concern for the integrity of the election process as a whole. Continuing to fight for transparency in our election process, from the counting and handling of ballots to the accuracy of voter rolls, will only serve to protect Americans’ faith in the “Great Experiment” that is America.
Our movement must expand our focus beyond traditional swing states, too. In California, there is widespread growing support for tougher penalties against criminals convicted of child trafficking supported by the Children Are Not for Sale movement. California has some of the weakest laws about filming children in compromising acts, with fines for first-time offenders of up to just $2,000 and one year in county jail!
Common sense changes should be fought for regardless of a state’s historical political affiliation. Thanks to President Trump, the America First movement has the wind at our backs and all the momentum in the world. We must keep up the fight in states throughout America.
So, to all those asking about taking victory laps, I simply remind them of John Paul Jones and that we still have many who seek to destroy our beautiful Nation. Let’s fight for it.
Ashley Hayek is President of America First Works, former 2020 Trump Campaign Coalitions Director, and author of Beat the Elites.
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