Struck by the incredible lack of women holding elected office at the local level in San Francisco, Andrea co-founded Emerge California in 2002 to lead the fight to get more women elected to office in Northern California. Emerge California’s top notch training program took off, so in 2005, Andrea founded Emerge to replicate the model in all 50 states, with the ultimate goal of changing the face of power, politics, and leadership in this country in order to have policies that are responsive to all Americans.
Emerge currently has affiliates with staff on the ground in 22 states with plans to expand across the country. On Election Day in November 2017, 86 women trained by Emerge won, including nine of the 14 House of Delegate seats flipped in Virginia. Since 2016, the number of women applying to Emerge’s training programs has increased by more than 85%, with no signs of slowing down, and more than 300 Emerge alumnae have stepped forward to run in 2017 and 2018.