CAPA21 Donates to Senators Warnock, Kelly, Cortez Masto, and Calif. AG Rob Bonta

By Tamlyn Tomita, CAPA21 Co-Chair

This is my first post in my role as CAPA21 Co-Chair and I want to thank you for supporting our efforts to ensure that Asian Pacific Americans impact the direction of our country through the political process.

First, some bad news that you already know. Democrats were trounced earlier this month in Virginia, losing the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general races, and also losing control of the House of Delegates. The good news is that this is a wake up call for 2022 so that Dems can support outreach to communities of color, and refine their message. The results tell us that our Democratic candidates need to do a much better job connecting with voters of ALL colors. If we take our eyes off the prize in 2022, we can easily lose control of Congress. 

By supporting CAPA21, you’re joining dozens of other donors in providing sorely needed resources for our endorsed candidates. The other good news is that we raised another $45,000, with the total so far of more than $70,000 raised towards our $100,000 match campaign.

CAPA21 is grateful to the sponsors of our $100,000 matching donation challenge: Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. and Sandra O. Ocampo, Joan Haratani, Clement Kong, Kei-on Chan and Sonia Ng, Don Tamaki, Minami Tamaki LLP, Dianne Fukami, and Ai Mori and Dale Minami. We would not be able to do this match campaign without these sponsors and we appreciate their generous support!

We have also approved these donations:
$5,000 to Senator Rafael Warnock in Georgia
$5,000 to Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona
$5,000 to Senator Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada
$2,000 to Calif. Attorney General Rob Bonta

CAPA21 expresses its appreciation to the following donors for their support of our matching campaign!

$25,000+
Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. and Sandra O. Ocampo – $25,000

$15,000+
Clement Kong – $15,000

$10,000+
Craig Yamada, MD and Monice Kwok, MD – $10,000
Tani Takagi – $10,000
Alan Sparer and Charlotte Fishman – $10,000

$5,000+
David Louie – $5,000

$2,500+
Walter Fujii – $3,000
Mona Lisa Yuchengco – $2,500
Masako Takahashi – $2,500
Christine Noma – $2,500
George and Brad Takei – $2,500
Gina N. Shishima – $2,500

$1,000+
Paul Lee – $2,000
Celia Lee and Clarke Holland – $1,000
Renie Yoshida Grohl – $1,000
Maeley Tom – $1,000
Steven Gotanda – $1,000
Stuart and Naomi Kubota Lee – $1,000
Johnnie Giles – $1,000

$500+
Karen Mori – $500
Eda Fukuyama – $500
Jeanne Sakata – $500
Richard Komatsu – $500

Up to $500
Linda Cabatic – $300
Ikuko Kiriyama – $300
Vida Holguin – $250
Ruth Ashley – $250
Calvin Abe – $250
Ken Kashiwahara – $250
Doreena Wong – $200
William Gee Wong – $200
Jani Iwamoto – $100
Laura Masunaga – $100
Norbert Kumagai – $100
Brenda Wong – $100
Chad Taniguchi – $100
Tia Wu – $25

Donors (amount not disclosed)
Joan Haratani
Wendy Tokuda
Kiroku Kato
Shirley Nakao
Naomi Harada
Mari Watanabe
Grace Yoo
Lynda Hirose
Miya Iwataki
James Toma
Lucy Lee
Edwin Oshika

CAPA21 can only support these candidates with your assistance! So please help once again with whatever you can afford. Your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000 in cumulative new donations.

And please share this on social media (click on the icons below) to let your followers know that you’re engaged in APAs protecting our democracy!

Your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000 in cumulative new donations.

We raised more than $25,000 in just one week following the announcements of our $100,000 match campaign and our new co-chairs, Tamlyn Tomita, Maeley Tom, Ginger Lew, and Dale Minami.

As I mentioned in my last email, Trump remains a danger to our democracy even though he is not (yet) on the ballot. But his anti-democracy Republican acolytes are running for office in 2022 and we need to ensure that Democrats do not lose control of Congress.

CAPA21 is grateful to the sponsors of our $100,000 matching donation challenge: Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. and Sandra O. Ocampo, Joan Haratani, Clement Kong, Kei-on Chan and Sonia Ng, Don Tamaki, Minami Tamaki LLP, Dianne Fukami, and Ai Mori and me. We would not be able to do this match campaign without these sponsors and we appreciate their generous support!

We’re thankful to these donors who responded to our request last week with donations from $100 to $10,000: Craig Yamada, MD and Monice Kwok, MD; Tani Takagi; Walter Fujii; Renie Yoshida Grohl; Maeley Tom; Karen Mori; Wendy Tokuda; Linda Cabatic; Naomi Harada; Jani Iwamoto; Laura Masunaga; and Mari Watanabe.

We will be supporting these Senate races:

1. Georgia where Rafael Warnock barely won in 2020 and is running again;
2. Arizona to support Mark Kelly;
3. Nevada where Catherine Cortez Masto won by less than 5%;
4. Pennsylvania where incumbent Senator Pat Toomey is retiring so the seat will be open;
5. Possibly Wisconsin, North Carolina, even New Hampshire.

For the House races, we are focusing on California first, on races that Republicans are now targeting, and if we raise enough money, we can direct more to other states:

1. Josh Harder
2. Katie Porter
3. Mike Levin
4. John Garamendi

In addition, we will consider Jay Chen who is challenging Young Kim with an aggressive, smart strategy in Orange County. Lastly, we will use some funds to support Attorney General Rob Bonta, and several APA state legislative races.

For the House races in California, we will wait until the state redistricting is completed before we make final decisions.

So please help once again with whatever you can afford. Your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000 in cumulative new donations.

And please share this on social media to let your followers know that you’re engaged in APAs protecting our democracy!

Dale Minami
Co-Chair, CAPA21

We helped win the battle against a would-be tyrant in 2020 but we haven’t won the war. Yet. I am outraged that a man who actively tried to overthrow our democracy is not in prison! And his collaborators are plotting to steal the 2022 and 2024 elections. The only defense we pro-democracy supporters have is to win more Senate seats by true Democrats and increase the Democratic members in the House.

In 2020, we were not able to capture as many Senate seats as we needed and we lost some House seats. But we can’t give up now as the loss of either house of Congress in 2022 and a complicit Supreme Court dooms us to a resurgent Trumpist hell for many more years. And the loss of our democracy, perhaps permanently.

So, we must fight but with an even more strategic plan. Unlike 2020, rather than spread our donations too broadly, we feel targeting 4-5 Senate races and 5-8 House races would be a smarter use of funds, especially since we probably cannot raise as much as we did in 2020. We will need to invest in more selected races where APA’s can make a difference in toss up races. Contributions would prioritize effective APA ground operations and specific candidates in the targeted states and districts.

Specifically, we’re looking at these Senate races now:

1. Georgia where Rafael Warnock barely won in 2020 and is running again;
2. Arizona to support Mark Kelly;
3. Nevada where Catherine Cortez Masto won by less than 5%;
4. Pennsylvania where incumbent Senator Pat Toomey is retiring so the seat will be open;
5. Possibly Wisconsin, North Carolina, even New Hampshire.

For the House races, we are focusing on California first and if we raise enough money, we can direct more to other states. The House Democratic seats the Republicans are pursuing and that we need to preserve, are:

1. Josh Harder
2. Katie Porter
3. Mike Levin
4. John Garamendi

In addition, we will consider Jay Chen who is challenging Young Kim with an aggressive, smart strategy in Orange County.

Lastly, we will use some funds to support Attorney General Rob Bonta, and several APA state legislative races.

We are initiating a matching donation challenge of $100,000 and have received pledges for that total amount from Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. and Sandra O. Ocampo, Joan Haratani, Clement Kong, Kei-on Chan and Sonia Ng, Don Tamaki, Minami Tamaki LLP, Dianne Fukami and Ai Mori and me.

Many of you contributed to the existential battle of 2020 and we really don’t enjoy asking for donations again. What you gave in 2020 was so generous and allowed us to channel over $150,000 to Georgia that proved critical to our mission. In 2020, we started with a matching donation challenge of $125,000 and ended up raising $640,000 but, of course, we had Trump as a lightning rod during a presidential election.

So please help once again with whatever you can afford. Your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000 in cumulative new donations.

CAPA21 (capa21.com), an Asian Pacific American political action committee, named Tamlyn Tomita, Maeley Tom, and Ginger Lew as new co-chairs, joining co-founder Dale Minami as leaders of the PAC.

CAPA21 was co-founded by Minami and Glen S. Fukushima in 2013 and has roots in the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans, founded in 1988 as one of country’s first Asian Pacific American PACs. CAPA21 invests in progressive candidates, AAPI field operations, and projects to improve AAPI participation in the political process.

Since 2013, CAPA21 has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates and committees that support Asian Pacific Americans and our priorities.

Maeley Tom holds the unique distinction of breaking the glass ceiling twice in both houses in the California State Legislature and earned the nickname as the “political godmother” of the Asian Pacific Islander community because of her dynamic leadership. Now retired, Maeley recently wrote a book, “I’m Not Who You Think I Am: An Asian American Woman’s Political Journey,” to share the positive sides of her struggles in climbing the political ladder, self-knowledge and sacrifices, as well as share heartfelt advice to the next generation of policymakers.

Ginger Lew is CEO of Three Oaks Investments LLC, served as Senior Counselor to the White House National Economic Council until October 2011. She provided economic policy advice on a broad range of matters, including innovation, commercialisation, small business, capital access and formation of entrepreneurship policies. She also co-chaired the White House Interagency Group on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She was also appointed by Secretary Hillary Clinton to serve on the Board of Governors of the East West Centre.

Tamlyn Tomita is an actor an activist, now as well-known for her advocacy of Asian American issues as she is for starring in “The Karate Kid Part II,” “The Good Doctor,” and “Star Trek: Picard.” In 2020, Tamlyn served as one of California’s 55 representatives to the electoral college who cast votes for Joe Biden for President and Kamala Harris for Vice President. California’s electors gave Biden/Harris the electoral college votes they needed to pass the 270-vote threshold. Congresswoman Judy Chu selected Tamlyn for the honor to represent California’s 27th Congressional District on recommendations by Maeley Tom and Dale Minami.

Dear Friends of CAPA21:

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you personally for your support of CAPA21—moral, intellectual, and financial—and for your faith in our ability to make a difference. Thanks to your warm support, we were able to contribute to the fabulous success of winning back control of the White House and Senate and keeping our majority in the House of Representatives.

When Dale and I established CAPA21 in 2013, Barack Obama had just been re-elected president, and we were feeling optimistic about the overall direction of our country. We felt, however, that we needed to make special efforts to identify, nurture, and support progressive AAPI candidates running for political office, hence, CAPA21. But the election of 2016 was a shocking regression that gave us the worst president in our lifetime and a Republican majority in the Senate and House that enabled Donald Trump to encourage and energize the worst elements of our country: bigots, racists, fascists, homophobes, and xenophobes.

With your support, we were able to help end “our long national nightmare” on January 20, 2021. Although Joe Biden won the electoral college by a comfortable margin (306 vs. 232) and won the popular vote by over 7 million (81,283,485, or 51.4%, vs. 74,223,744, or 46.9%), we face the uncomfortable truth that over 74 million Americans voted to give Trump a second term. What this means is that we must remain eternally vigilant and continue our efforts to support progressive candidates who can ensure that we protect, preserve, and expand our freedom, our liberty, and our democracy. I look forward to working with all of you on our quest to ensure that AAPIs fully participate to make our beloved America a “more perfect union.”

In solidarity,

Glen S. Fukushima
Co-Founder and Chairman
CAPA21

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Dear Supporters of CAPA21, Friends and Colleagues:

I just wanted to say “Thank You” to all the folks who supported our efforts to save our country, through your donations, encouraging folks to donate, organizing, voter engagement and protection, sharing our posts, writing letters, and making phone calls, and just voting. From those who gave $100,000 to those who contributed $5 or more, from Hawai’i to Maine, we appreciated the donations, but just as important, we valued your emotional support and inspiration for all of us at CAPA21 to keep on and do more. This was a slog, a trek, a marathon, and undamped fight for the soul of a country we love. You kept us going.

And what inspired me was the fierce determination to combat voter suppressions, lies, manipulation, degradations of the Rule of Law, intimidating voters, violence against People of Color who came out and mailed votes during the time of CV19. Seeing the lines to vote in the heat, rain, and inclement conditions reminded me of the unshakeable resolve and courage of the African Americans who endured immeasurable hardship so they could exercise a fundamental right denied them for decades, just like their sit-ins at lunch counters just to get a bite to eat. We stand in their worn and tired shoes and we are the heirs to their legacy.

I have been active in electoral politics since 1987 when we formed CAPA (Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans), which evolved into CAPA21. I have never been so moved by our friends (and strangers) who donated, nor prouder of our American voters who walked this perilous path with us to help restore the United States I respect.

So, thank you all. My appreciation is bottomless.

Dale Minami
Co-Founder and President
CAPA21