The acting president’s poll numbers are down. Way down. Down in rumors of his party ditching him for another candidate down. Down in his telling Sean Hannity that Joe Biden might wind up president next year “because some people don’t love me, maybe.”
Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes explain at The Atlantic that Donald Trump “Season 4 just doesn’t have the zest and sparkle of the previous seasons.” Ratings have fallen through the floor, poor thing.
But it is no time to celebrate. Something else has fallen through the floor this season: voter registrations.
Five Thirty-eight reported on June 26:
Poll after poll showed a high level of enthusiasm for voting in the general election in 2020, and in the beginning of the year, voter registration surged to match that excitement. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. New registrations have fallen off a cliff.
The enthusiasm is there, says David Becker, the executive director and founder of Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR). But the registrations are not.
“Every piece of data we had looked at with regard to enthusiasm about engaging in this presidential election cycle indicated that we had to be prepared for the highest-turnout presidential election that almost anyone living had ever seen,” Becker said, “which makes the decline in March and especially April all the more striking.”
Old North State Politics grabbed my attention two weeks earlier when Dr. Michael Bitzer announced a “precipitous drop in NC voter registration” since March. COVID-19 has significantly depressed new registrations here.
The trends could certainly reverse themselves. Assuming the track of the pandemic does. That … is not looking likely.
Currently, about 40 states allow online voter registration. The online system works for people already holding state-issued driver’s licenses or identification cards and uses the signature on file with the DMV for verification. North Carolina added this option for the first time as of March. But few know about it, especially people of voting age and unregistered. Don’t expect any GOP-controlled legislature to allocate funds to mailings promoting online registration. Growing the electoral choir is not their game plan.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) today announced it will invest up to $30 million in a nonpartisan, nonprofit voter outreach organizations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. The program’s goal is to “increase voter registration and participation among people of color.”
Now, try finding them.
Ordinarily at this time in the cycle, volunteers would be out in the streets with clipboards registering voters. At campaign rallies. At outdoor concerts. At street festivals. On downtown street corners on weekends. At all kinds of public events not happening this year because of the contagion and that may not happen by the fall. The SPLC and its partners could try registering people at black churches. But only at everyone’s peril.
Even in normal times, voter registration efforts by volunteers is haphazard, a matter of chance and sweat. The unregistered are on no campaign’s radar because they are not registered. They are not likely voters, therefore not high-priority for targeting in get-out-the-vote efforts. They are not identified by party. They have no contact information in the parties’ voter databases. This makes them all but invisible to activists trying to engage them in the election process. And just when the acting president and his party seem on the ropes new registrants could be key to Democrats winning races this fall up and down the ballot.
Getting around that little problem is consuming me.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.