Democrats Are Ignoring the Voters Who Could Decide This Election – The New York Times

Black neighborhoods in key swing states hold enormous power to reshape politics in November and beyond. But in order to maximize this potential, progressives need to imagine and invest on an unprecedented scale.

Black voters have consistently supported Democratic candidates over Republicans by stunning margins: about 90 percent to 10 percent. No other major demographic comes close to this level of support for either party. For every 10 new black voters, 9 will likely vote for a Democrat and one for a Republican, yielding eight net Democratic votes. In contrast, 10 new Latino voters (who voted 70 percent Democratic and 30 percent Republican in 2018) would produce four net Democratic votes. For white, college-educated women, the figure is two.

Said another way, one new black voter has the same net effect as two new Latino voters or four new white, college-educated female voters. While it is true that there are more eligible but nonvoting people of other important demographics, there are more net Democratic votes available from new black voters because of the huge differential in Democratic support.

What is a new black voter? In the 2016 presidential election, an estimated 3.3 million black people in six key swing states were unregistered, or registered but had never voted, or didnt vote in 2016, despite previously doing so. In those six states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia) the number of eligible but nonvoting black people was at least 2.8 times Hillary Clintons margin of loss. Five of these states also had Senate elections; Democrats lost all five.

In Pennsylvania, for example, Mrs. Clinton lost by about 44,000 votes, while Katie McGinty, the Democratic Senate candidate, lost by about 87,000 votes. But an estimated 350,000 eligible black people didnt vote statewide. Combine this with the fact that half of Pennsylvanias black population lives in Philadelphia, and it becomes clear where there is concentrated, untapped political power. This type of geographic concentration is not unique. Just 14 cities account for over half of the black population in these six crucial states. (There are also large concentrations of black nonvoters in Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando, Fla.; and in Fayetteville and Winston-Salem, N.C.)

And within these 14 cities, majority-black census blocks (areas usually much smaller than election precincts) account for a vastly disproportionate percentage of the black population. For example, majority-black census blocks account for 80 percent of Milwaukee countys black population, which itself accounts for 70 percent of Wisconsins black population. The upshot is clear: Nonvoting black residents in key places have the potential to swing elections, from the presidency on down, in 2020 and beyond. Republicans have understood these dynamics for years; they long ago decided that they were better off trying to suppress black voters than to compete for their votes.

The argument here is not that Donald Trumps election in 2016 is the fault of black voters. Nobody but the 63 million Americans who voted for him bears responsibility for that. In fact, turnout patterns of black voters are largely similar to whites. Yes, it is true that black voters were slightly underrepresented in 2016 and slightly overrepresented in 2012. And in elections like the 2016 race with razor-thin margins, a small change in turnout can matter.

But by fixating on the small turnout differential from 2012 to 2016, progressives miss the far larger prize: the more than 30 percent of all voters who consistently dont vote in presidential elections. In midterm and municipal elections, that figure is even higher. This is a result of progressives failure to execute a plan ambitious enough to change the status quo.

How can we seize this opportunity? The political scientists Donald Green and Alan Gerber conducted an analysis of hundreds of voter turnout experiments that tested methods like yard signs, mailers, text messages and TV ads. No simple, inexpensive tactic improved turnout more than three percentage points on average in high-turnout elections. Weve been answering the question: Can we get a little by investing a little per targeted voter in the final three weeks before an election? But weve never asked: Can we get a lot by investing a lot far in advance of election season?

Research shows that the most effective voter-turnout technique is person-to-person contact from a trusted source like a family member, friend or neighbor; this is far more successful than impersonal paid communication like TV, digital or radio ads. But most nonvoters or infrequent voters dont get this kind of outreach because campaigns and independent political groups generally ignore people with low turnout scores. And since these scores are developed based on voting history, nonvoters become less and less likely to be contacted. Even worse, people who have recently moved or are unregistered may not even show up in campaign databases. This problem is acute in areas with high transience, like urban, majority-black neighborhoods.

But the opportunity lies precisely with these people. To realize this potential, we must shed cynical assumptions about what is and isnt possible. Here is a proposal to develop a robust organizing infrastructure that can build real relationships with black nonvoters and maximize turnout.

In all the 14 cities, two residents in every micro-geography would be recruited, trained and given a stipend to form a block team. The block teams first step would be to connect with a member of every household on the block going back to every door as many times as necessary to make contact. This introductory interaction would be an unhurried conversation about the block team and its goals of building power and turnout, and it would gather the names of all voting-eligible people living at the residence. This data would then be reconciled with the voter file to categorize every eligible black resident by registration status and voting history. Lets say the block team has 100 black households with 200 eligible voters. Once the team gets good data, it can focus on deep canvassing having meaningful conversations at the doorstep with only the nonvoters or infrequent voters, maybe 80 people in all. In this conversation or future ones, block teams can help them register and make plans to vote, perhaps with a user-friendly tool like Map the Vote.

This is not the only model or necessarily the best one, but it does typify the big thinking required to match the size of the opportunity. There are many questions that need to be answered: How many block teams can a full-time organizer train and support? How large an area can a block team effectively cover? How often should block teams meet? Should they focus on hyperlocal, nonpartisan issues or national partisan issues? We cant definitively answer these questions this year (maybe block teams should focus on 75 black households, instead of 100). But every year, there are two chances to continue refining the infrastructure. The 2021 municipal primary and general elections allow block teams to build on this years lessons. When the 2022 elections for senators and governors are in full swing, block teams will have been able to refine their strategies even further.

The neighborhood team model is not new: Barack Obamas presidential campaigns empowered tens of thousands of ordinary people to achieve extraordinary levels of voter contact in their own neighborhoods. But even the best-resourced political campaigns are hampered by a lack of time. They exist only for a few fleeting months every four years, often building infrastructure from scratch and leaving little behind for the next campaign.

So who should build this permanent organizing infrastructure? Ideally, both state Democratic parties and independent political groups. State parties have a tremendous amount to gain: They could more effectively mobilize voters for priority issues cycle after cycle and have a vastly improved way to listen to marginalized voters and incorporate their ideas and frustrations into the partys platform. Independent groups can build community power apart from a political party, which could more easily hold elected officials accountable.

Some groups are already doing this. Black Leaders Organizing for Communities in Milwaukee, for example, trains community ambassadors to turn their neighborhoods resources into collective power that can be wielded to win. And Color of Change aims to do this on a national scale. But such groups need an order of magnitude more funding, well before election season and on a regular basis, to seize this huge opportunity. Both the breadth and depth of their work are limited by insufficient and unpredictable investment. Genuine community organizing takes months and years, not days and weeks, a truth that is often lost on the donor community.

To be sure, big money on the Democratic side does exist its just not being spent effectively. A majority of the $1 billion that went toward Mrs. Clintons candidacy was spent on paid communication like TV and digital ads not on groups that could best facilitate neighbor-to-neighbor contact.

Enormous investment in organizing can build real power in traditionally marginalized neighborhoods and elect accountable politicians, now and for years to come. Done the right way, this will develop leaders and political power which can be used to achieve whatever people want thats the true essence of democracy. We know black neighborhoods in six key states can get us there. Now we need to make it happen.

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Democrats Are Ignoring the Voters Who Could Decide This Election - The New York Times