An article in fivethirtyeight details how much voter registrations had fallen off in the first few months since the pandemic started. Any increases in online voter registrations had not kept pace with huge declines due to the lack of in-person voter registration drives.
This had very bad implications for Democrats. When more people vote, Democrats win. Plus, the age group most likely to vote for Democrats, the young, is the age group where the most people need to register for the first time and the age group that changes its address the most frequently, requiring re-registration.
However, the statistics in the fivethirtyeight article end at the end of May and on May 25, everything changed. The protests of the killing of George Floyd have become massive voter registration drives.
And voter registration is not just taking place at the protests. Voter registration is soaring both in-person and online.
Groups including Vote.org, the Voter Participation Center, Color of Change, She the People, and Rock the Vote have all reported a shift in recent weeks following the death of George Floyd.
The Voter Participation Center had seen a drop in registration rates at the end of March and beginning of April. But, more recently, the group has seen a 250% increase in online voter registration applications. And 88% of that activity is coming from unmarried women, people of color and young people. The nonprofit specifically targets this "Rising American Electorate."
Do you know who the “Rising American Electorate” plans to vote for? While there is special focus on local officials and there are prosecutors and council members who need to be held accountable, the latest Marist poll finds African Americans support Biden over Trump by 86 points, Latino voters by 20 points, Millennials by 21 points, women by 23 points. The racist on top of the GOP ticket will be a roadblock to new laws to hold police accountable until he is removed, and people can see that. Calling out the Army to gas and injure peaceful protestors for a photo op with a book he’s never opened in front of a church he’s never visited made that abundantly clear.