The powerful alliance that could swing the mayor’s race
Plus everything you need to know about how Saturday’s caucus will work
It started small.
On September 11, 2020, a private Facebook group sprang up with a very catchy title: Nasty Women of Allen County, Indiana.
Its name was an ironic nod to a phrase Donald Trump used to describe Hillary Clinton during the third presidential debate in 2016. In the months and years that followed, “nasty woman” became a women’s rights rallying cry, appearing on signs at progressive marches and rallies.
In an effort to reframe the term, many women started using it to describe themselves, putting it in their social media bios and wearing shirts with it emblazoned across their chests. It soon took on a new positive meaning in more liberal circles, signaling one’s resistance to Trump.
But apparently someone decided it was a little too racy for Fort Wayne, so four months later, the name of the Facebook group was changed to Women United For Progress Allen County.
Today, it’s better known by its acronym: WUFPAC.
Since those early days, the group has grown to more than four thousand members. Though it’s private, I’ve been able to confirm that it includes several elected officials and community leaders.
It also includes multiple Allen County Democratic Party precinct chairs.
That’s significant because one of WUFPAC’s stated goals is to “get Progressives — specifically Women, LGBTQ+, and People of Color — elected to public office.”
That would suggest WUFPAC members won’t be supporting Phil GiaQuinta for mayor.
With less than 100 votes total — and I’ve been able to confirm at least four of the 98 precinct chairs will not be present to vote Saturday — even a small bloc that pledges not to vote for a white man would narrow GiaQuinta’s potential path to the 51% that any candidate needs to be declared the winner.
In the days after Tom Henry’s death, I spoke to several WUFPAC members who are also precinct chairs and I heard a similar refrain: they wanted the next mayor to be a woman, and they planned to vote that way.
Were they representative of the WUFPAC members as a whole? And if so, how many of them would be voting in the caucus?
I heard whispers there were 10 WUFPAC members among the precinct chairs. One longtime Democrat and women’s advocate speculated the number could be as high as 25.
It wasn’t until I got a hold of the official precinct chair list this week that I was able to find out the actual number of WUFPAC precinct chairs, which was I was able to confirm with an administrator of the group.
Thirty-seven.
That’s nearly 40 percent of the total number of precinct chairs who will be voting on Saturday.
That means that if every WUFPAC member decides to commit to vote for a woman — even if they don’t all vote for the same woman — GiaQuinta or Austin Knox would need to secure 84% of the remaining 57 votes to win. (Fifty-one percent of the votes are required to win a caucus.)
Of course, there’s no guarantee that each WUFPAC member feels the same way when in comes to their voting requirements.
But if they do, they could find themselves with enough power to ensure the next mayor of Fort Wayne is — in the words of the resistance — “a nasty woman.”
Questions on the caucus?
If you’re curious about how Saturday’s caucus will work, the Journal Gazette has published a free Caucus 101 slideshow on their website. It’s excellent.
You can view it here.
WUFPAC has not pledged "not to vote for a white man" as you suggest. Our goal to “get Progressives — specifically Women, LGBTQ+, and People of Color — elected to public office" begins years before an election - encouraging women to discern whether running for public office is right for them and then journeying alongside them as they do so. I'm disappointed by the way you have misrepresented your neighbors.
It definitely comes across as sensationalized. Ultimately, this is all a blip in time until the general public gets a vote.