Look, it’s simple.
Who are the non-voters?
The invaluable Pew Research has some information about this. These data are from 2014, a year we suffered a heavy defeat:
They’re younger. Roughly a third (34%) of nonvoters are younger than 30 and most (70%) are under 50; among likely voters, just 10% are younger than 30 and only 39% are under 50.
They’re more racially and ethnically diverse. Fully 43% of those who are not likely to cast ballots Tuesday are Hispanic, African American or other racial and ethnic minorities, roughly double the percentage among likely voters (22%).
They’re less affluent and less educated. Nearly half of nonvoters (46%) have family incomes less than $30,000, compared with 19% of likely voters. Most nonvoters (54%) have not attended college; 72% of likely voters have completed at least some college.
Do I have your attention now? I hope so. And this should REALLY get your attention. Here’s the headline, from Fortune from 9 August 2018:
Who Helped Trump Most in the 2016 Presidential Election? Nonvoters, Pew Study Says
The crux of the article:
The study researchers also expanded on the demographic and political distinctions between voters and voter-eligible nonvoters. They noted that compared with validated votes, “nonvoters were more likely to be younger, less educated, less affluent, and nonwhite.”
The study includes a lot of granular statistics, some of which easily stand alone. For example, “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents made up a 55% majority of nonvoters,” [my emphasis] the researchers noted. An increase in under-30 voters in key swing states could have cinched the election for popular vote winner Hillary Clinton.
When we EXPANDED our voter base in 2018, we WON BIG.
OUR VOTING GROUP TARGETS
According to Pew Research (right here), in 2018, this was how the vote for Democratic candidates for the House broke down. I have highlighted our priority targets in bold, and I sometimes have added 2016 turnout data to Pew’s data.
% of the group that voted Democratic:
A. By Gender, “Race”, Ethnicity, Education (Among White Voters)
Men 47% [Turnout in 2016: 59.3%] 48% of 2016 Electorate
Women 59% [Turnout in 2016: 63.3%] 52% of 2016 Electorate
Whites 44% [Turnout in 2016: 65.3%] SHARE OF 2016 VOTE: 73.3%
Blacks 90% [Turnout in 2016: 59.6%] SHARE OF 2016 VOTE: 12.9%
Hispanics 69% [Turnout in 2016: 47.6%] SHARE OF 2016 VOTE: 7.4%
Asians 77% [Turnout in 2016: 49.3%] Counted as Part of Non Hispanic, Other races, SHARE OF 2016 VOTE 5.5%
White men 39%
White women 49% (tied with the Republicans)
College-educated White women 59%
Non-college White women 42%
College-educated White men 47% (compared to 51% Republican)
Non-college men 32%
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS: Of the approximately 137,000,000 people who voted in 2016:
--About 65.76 million were men
--About 71.24 million were women
--About 100.4 million were white
--About 17.7 million were black
--About 10.1 million were Hispanic
--About 7.5 million were Asians and others (numbers don’t quite add up to 137 million because of rounding)
IF OUR CANDIDATE GOT THE SHARE OF VOTES DEMOCRATIC HOUSE CANDIDATES GOT IN 2018, WITH THE SAME TURNOUT MODEL AS IN 2016, THAT CANDIDATE WOULD GET 73,000,000 VOTES.
In 2020, with 50% of men voting Democratic, and 63% of women voting Democratic, on a turnout of 150 million, with 48% of the electorate male and 52% female, our candidate would get 85,000,000 votes.
B. By Age
Now let’s zero in on Democratic vote percentages in 2018 by age:
18-29 67% [Turnout in 2018 31%; turnout in 2016 51%] 19% of total vote in 2016
30-44 58% [Turnout in 2016: 58.7%] 25% of total vote in 2016
45-64 49% (Close!) [Turnout in 2016: 66.6%] 40% of total vote in 2016
65+ 48% (Surprising!) [Turnout in 2016: 70.9%] 16% of total vote in 2016
If we can get a 150 million turnout in 2020, let’s see what would happen under the following scenario:
18-29 year olds making up 22% of the voters, at 67% Democratic = 22,110,000
30-44 year olds making up 30% of the voters, at 58% Democratic = 26,100,000
45-64 year olds making up 35% of the voters, at 49% Democratic = 25,725,000
65+ year olds making up 13% of the voters, at 48% Democratic = 9,360,000
That would add up to 83,295,000 Democratic votes. Definitely in the ballpark, and definitely DOABLE.
C. By religion
The data are located here.
Protestant/Other [non-Catholic] Christian: 42%
Catholic: 50%
Jewish: 79%
Other faiths: 70%
Religiously unaffiliated: 70%
Evangelicals 22%
D. By Place of Residence
According to data accumulated by Data for Progress (which was in graphic form, making it hard to get precise numbers), in 2018 the Democrats won about 67% of the urban vote, about 55% of the suburban vote, and over 40% of the rural vote.
Suburban voters moved SUBSTANTIALLY in our direction in 2018. From 538:
So how exactly did the suburbs help make a Democratic majority possible? Using CityLab’s neighborhood density categorizations, we can place all 435 districts into six groups that range from “Pure Rural” to “Pure Urban” and get a sense of which types of seats mattered most to Democrats. The two categories we’re most interested in are “Sparse Suburban” and “Dense Suburban.” “Sparse Suburban” covers districts in outer-ring suburbs at the edge of major metropolitan areas, like the Virginia 10th, which sits outside of Washington, D.C. “Dense Suburban” districts, on the other hand, are those where people are packed in more tightly in mostly inner-ring suburbs and some urban areas, like the California 25th, which falls in the Los Angeles metro area. And as the table below shows, Democrats are poised for a net gain of 27 seats from these two categories, which is four more than they needed to gain a majority.2 In other words, 75 percent of Democrats’ gains came from these predominantly suburban districts.
And the received wisdom that we are out of the running in rural areas is false. From Washington Monthly:
For most pundits and journalists, Democrats’ successful Election Night was marred by a rural disaster. The New York Times wrote that “the Democratic collapse in rural areas that began to plague their candidates under President Obama worsened.” Vox correspondent Zack Beauchamp argued that “Democratic inroads in the suburbs were offset by huge Republican gains in rural areas.” The Hill summarized such thinking by claiming that “rural voters stormed to the polls in virtually unprecedented numbers, delivering once again for the president they voted for in 2016.” That article quoted Oklahoma GOP representative Tom Cole, who said, “Rural America’s much more Republican than ever before.”
They’re wrong. On the whole, Democrats performed better in rural areas during these midterms than in 2016, which helped the party win some of its most consequential victories.
According to the most recent data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES)—a political science survey of more than 50,000 people conducted around election time—roughly five percent of rural Trump voters cast their ballots for a Democrat running for a House seat. That’s not a huge gain, and as Tufts political science professor and CCES co-director Brian Schaffner told me, it was smaller than Democratic improvements in urban and suburban regions. But a five percent improvement is far from meaningless, and a preliminary breakdown of the returns in three critical contests suggests that, in some parts of America, the rural shift to Democratic candidates was even larger. In some races, it ultimately made the difference.
E. By Economic Status
Data are from the CNN Exit Poll
Democratic share of the vote by income:
Under $30,000 (17% of voters) 63%
$30k-$50k (21% of voters) 57%
$50k-$100k (29% of voters) 52%
$100-$200k (25% of voters) 47% (!)
$200k or more (9% of voters) 47% (!)
Yes, more affluent and better educated voters moved toward us in 2018.
In short, in almost every demographic category, the Democrats made gains, often significant ones. The goal of getting 85 million Democratic presidential votes is REACHABLE and REALISTIC.
So...what do we do?
We engage in voter outreach.
We help people get Voter ID.
We learn how to vote early/vote absentee.
We help people register to vote.
We help people CHECK THEIR REGISTRATION!
We work with LOCAL groups.
We use the many, many tools at our disposal.
Where to start? Try these links.
POSTCARDS TO VOTERS.
VOTE FORWARD’S LETTERS TO VOTERS.
TEXT OUT THE VOTE.
THE MoveOn TEXT TEAM
And don’t close the door on canvassing just yet! There are safe ways in which this can be done!
Our Target Groups: WHERE THE VOTES ARE
ID REQUIREMENTS FOR EVERY STATE, HOW TO OBTAIN VOTER IDs
1. Information from The National Conference of State Legislatures, located here. This is an excellent source.
2. Information from Ballotpedia, here. This has a wealth of detail.
3. VoteRiders will help people obtain voter IDs. Take a look here.
ABSENTEE BALLOT REQUIREMENTS
Vote.org
Absentee and Early Voting
REGISTERING TO VOTE
1. State voting requirements can be found at U.S. Vote Foundation, located here.
2. You can register people to vote at Vote.Org, located right here.
3. You can not only register to vote at this site, you can check your current eligibility, right here.
WORKING WITH DEMOCRATIC GROUPS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
1. Act Local put this guide out last year. It has plenty of good information, and I’m sure they’re already cranking up for 2020. Take a look here.
2. You want to be part of a fighting organization? Check out Indivisible, right here.
3. Check out Wave 2020, right here. Their list of local organizations is here.
4. Take a look at SwingLeft, right here. And their swing state project is HERE.
5. The Action Network has links to let you volunteer in key states.
FOR AMERICANS ABROAD AND MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY
And Democrats Abroad has valuable information.
I have GOTV suggestions specifically targeted for PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO, MICHIGAN, WISCONSIN, IOWA, NORTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, and FLORIDA.
If you want to help in Texas, try The Texas Organizing Project. If you’d like to go an additional route, there’s The Texas Democratic Party.
Here is a big list of Texas progressive organizations from ActLocal.
Here’s the Dallas County Democratic Party.
Here’s the Harris County Democratic Party. (Houston)
Here’s Texas Democratic Women.
Here’s Turn Rural Texas Blue. (From Kossack sane)
Here is the largest Latino Democratic organization in Texas, Jolt. Note: One in three eligible voters in Texas are Latino!
If you want to help in Arizona, look at AZ Dems. If you are in Arizona, it’s imperative that you look at this: Arizona Voting Guide. It’s full of VITAL information.
And take a look here:
The Campaign Workshop: GOTV for Democrats
Nuts & Bolts, right here on DKos.
Progressives Everywhere
National Democratic Training Committee
Progressive Turnout Project
For the Win (county-wide GOTV)
Daily Kos Groups (from Kossack mettle fatigue)
Sister District Project (for winning state legislatures)
Joe Biden’s Take Action Page.
And MICHELLE OBAMA is ready to go BIG on GOTV!
Here are ALL of the state Democratic parties!
We need your help BIG TIME this year! Never think we’ve got this in the bag. We need to be fighting EVERY day.
And your money is vital as well. ActBlue is a handy-dandy way to contribute.
So every day from now until 3 November, my message will be simple and straight-forward:
GET OUT THE VOTE, GET OUT THE VOTE, GET OUT THE VOTE!