Emerge Maryland Trains Women For Political Office

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Heading into the 2018 elections, Maryland doesn’t have any women representing the state at the federal level, nor has the state ever had a female governor.

Emerge Maryland is trying to change that.

“All of the mystery is solved, and it’s not as big and scary as they thought it would be,” said Diane Fink, the executive director of Emerge Maryland. “Putting their name on a ballot is something that they not only envision themselves doing, but actually do.”

Emerge America is an organization that has existed since 2005. It aims to train Democratic women from diverse backgrounds to run for public office. Emerge America is in 24 states, and its Maryland branch was the 10th installment when it started in 2013.

“When [Emerge] first started, it was a pretty big deal in political circles that this great national organization was coming to Maryland,” said Sarah Elfreth, who is currently running to represent District 30 in the Maryland State Senate.

Now in its sixth year, Emerge Maryland has graduated 88 women. In the 2018 election cycle, 47 of its alumni will be running for office. Not included in that number are the alumni who already hold seats that aren’t up for re-election.

The Emerge Maryland program is seven months long and consists of 75 hours of training. The training sessions take place once or twice a month, and most of the meetings are on Saturdays, Fink said.

One of the weekday sessions is a group trip to Annapolis in which the women meet with legislators, and sit in on hearings and sessions. However, the training sessions take place all over the state so the women can travel around and see their classmates’ different sections.

“They gave us pretty much all the tools, just a great deal of familiarity that made it all seem less foreign,” said Betsy Bury of the Democratic Central Committee of Anne Arundel County.

Though she has done several other trainings, Elfreth said Emerge Maryland addressed the differences between men and women.

“There’s always a catch [that] there’s a difference in public speaking and public presentation between men and women,” Elfreth said. “This really provides the grounding and the training of how to do these things from the perspective of a woman, which is really helpful.”

Pam Luby, who is currently running for state delegate in District 33, said the most helpful part of Emerge Maryland was learning how to “navigate and persevere” through a campaign, which can be “daunting.”

“If I hadn’t gone through Emerge, I wouldn’t have known the hiccups and the obstacles that I have encountered, and I don’t think I would’ve known how to handle them as well,” Luby said. “You’re just so prepared when you walk out of that class.”

One of the biggest takeaways from Emerge Maryland was that there are many different ways to contribute, Bury said.

“You don’t have to run for governor. You can run for local office, you can serve on a commission,” Bury said. “There’s a lot of different ways to make a contribution depending on what you want to do.”

Though there are other training programs that aren’t strictly limited to Democrats or women, none are in the same model as Emerge Maryland, Fink said.

“Nobody does anything that comes close to the deep dive that we take,” Fink said. “We don’t just train them and then don’t talk to them again. They have support all the way through with the whole sisterhood.”

Allison Pickard, who is currently running for the Anne Arundel County Council in District 2, said that the campaign trail can be lonely, and the connections she made in Emerge Maryland are “truly the lifeline.”

“It’s just really nice to know there’s someone else in your shoes, other women balancing their work, their motherhood, whatever it is with their campaign,” Pickard said. “It’s knowing if she can do it, I can do it, and vice versa.”

Applications for the 2019 class will open in the summer. Tuition for Emerge Maryland costs $500 with a commitment to raise another $500 for Emerge Maryland as part of the women’s fundraising training and practice. For more information, visit emergemaryland.ngpvanhost.com.

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