About us

Pass The Torch formed in the days after the Biden-Trump debate, expanding into a nationwide group mobilizing Democratic voters to urge President Biden to pass the torch. Pass the Torch is an all volunteer organization that started as a loose affiliation of around 15 friends-of-friends and quickly grew into a network of over 80 volunteers, including current and former Democratic elected officials, delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, advocates, activists, designers, communications professionals, project managers, community organizers, and everyday voters from across the country.

In the two-and-a-half weeks after it formed, the group helped mobilize Democrats across the country to contact Congress nearly 30,000 times via phone calls and online actions, including 8,000 phone calls. Pass the Torch produced a TV ad which it planned to run in Washington, D.C. and Rehoboth, Delaware on Morning Joe (Biden’s favorite show) and during daytime MSNBC programming. The spot, which can be viewed here, features Democratic voters from Lancaster, Pennsylvania—all of whom volunteered to elect Biden in 2020—urging Biden to pass the torch. Pass the Torch also organized delegates and state representatives across the country, commissioned a poll, and organized rallies in Ohio, Michigan, and Washington, D.C. The rally at the White House, which brought together over 100 people and gained widespread national press, was held hours before President Biden made his final decision to step aside from the race.

Pass the Torch represented the voices of the millions of Americans and the majority of Democrats that knew that we needed to nominate a stronger candidate in order to defeat Trump. To almost every person we talked to, this had become undeniable by July of 2024.  We hold a great deal of respect for President Biden and owe him an enormous amount of gratitude for his historic achievements. Many of our members view him as the best President in their lifetimes. Yet, we also acknowledged the difficult realities that ultimately became so clear–he was not our best standard bearer in 2024. President Biden has shown once again his ultimate dedication to our country by putting its future first. Thank you Joe, and we will dedicate ourselves to making sure the momentous progress that you led continues.  

Fear and hatred of Trump are the core of the Democratic id—that's the whole reason we're freaking out right now. None of us need our top choice on the ticket, and polling shows it will take approximately five minutes for the party to get in lockstep behind any competent ticket.

Please email contact@passthetorchbiden.com with press inquiries, ideas for collaboration, or questions.

Linkedin's of a few of the steering committee are above, and you're welcome to contact us directly. Right now our focus is funneling support and energy to the Harris / Walz ticket.

Pass the Torch raised money from over 350 individual Democratic donors to fund its operations and to donate to the new nominee. We are excited to donate the around $30,000 dollars raised on our website to the new Democratic nominee as soon as the nomination is secured. The operations of the Pass the Torch Political Action Committee were supported by a group of courageous and forward-thinking donors. We would like to thank them all, including Popular Comms, for being the first organization to step forward with funding.

Pass the Torch has been a grassroots effort, uniting progressive volunteer organizers with various ideas about next steps for the nomination behind a single message: we urgently needed a new candidate in order to defeat Trump again in 2024. Given the widespread enthusiasm among Democratic voters around Vice President Harris's candidacy, it’s clear to us that she is the leader who can unite our party, run on the achievements of the Biden administration, and make the case against the convicted felon on the GOP ticket.With that in mind, it's our great pleasure, honor, and relief to add ourselves to the growing list of Democrats and all Americans organizing to make Kamala Harris our next president, and we are excited to do everything we can to support her candidacy! Stay tuned for what that might look like down the road from a specifically PTT perspective, as we consider the unique ways that our young organization might keep advocating for a fresh future for the Democratic Party. (And please feel free to send us your ideas!) But until November, it's all-hands-on-deck to boost Kamala's campaign - we encourage all who've supported this effort to ensure that we seize the historic opportunity Joe's choice to pass the torch has offered us all.

Thank you to all the amazing people who worked tirelessly together on this quixotic, crazy, and victorious mission despite risks to their jobs, sleep deprivation, and the stress of trying to simultaneously assemble an organization and grow it into a national movement amidst a constantly shifting world. Listed in alphabetical order, here are just some of the folks who helped make this work possible:

• Ernie Britt
• Regina Clemente
• Elliot Colbert
• Joshua Decker
• Sebastian Fernandez
• Lauren Gibbs
• Thomas Gokey
• Nick Horton
• Clint Keaveny
• Lake Liao
• Tiara Mack
• Olya Makarova
• Claudia Nachega
• Emily O’Keefe
• Will Petrik
• Aaron Regunberg
• Brandon Robinson
• Quentin Cólon Roosevelt
• Jonathan Smucker

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