*Don't* Get Out The Vote!
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/01/democrats-voter-registration-minorities/
A confidential memo circulated among top Democratic donors has sparked a furious debate in Democratic circles about whether to narrow the focus of voter registration efforts to avoid signing up likely Republicans.
For decades, nonpartisan groups allied with the Democratic Party have run wide-ranging efforts aimed at increasing voter registration among people of color and young people — groups that tend to lean Democratic but have historically voted at lower rates than older and White people.
In recent years, however, there has been a marked shift among the roughly 1 in 5 citizens of voting age who are unregistered toward Republicans, raising fresh questions about how much boosting nonpartisan voter registration could help presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump heading into November.
Aaron Strauss, an influential data scientist who helps direct progressive spending at the firm OpenLabs, sparked private disagreements over this issue in January, when he sent about a dozen major Democratic donors a confidential memo that challenged traditional nonpartisan registration.
“Indeed, if we were to blindly register nonvoters and get them on the rolls, we would be distinctly aiding Trump’s quest for a personal dictatorship,” Strauss argued in the memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post and cited recent polling that showed Trump’s strength among unregistered voters.
"Dictatorship"
At the root of the conflict is a shift in the political preferences of nonregistered voters. Gallup found in 2016 that about 51 percent of those not registered to vote identify as Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared to 31 percent who identify as Republican or leaned Republican. Those numbers were largely consistent with findings from 2012.
But Gallup surveys in 2023 and 2024 have found the Democratic share of the nonregistered population has fallen to 42 percent, while the Republican share has risen to 40 percent. Another 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found nonregistered voters favored Democrats over Republicans by margin of 45 percent to 37 percent.
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Is a personal dictatorship better or worse than an impersonal dictatorship? Asking for a friend…
