Campaign business as usual won’t cut it in 2024
If you live in a blue county, you probably think independents lean your way. And maybe they do. Inside city limits. But outside? Nationwide, independent voters lean red, and did in November 2022 even if the split looked closer in December 2023.
Plus, the segment of the electorate that identifies as independent is growing steadily (below). There are more of them than there are Democrats or Republicans.
Over half of voters roughly 45 and younger identify as independents.
Not all states register by party (including some key swing states), so there this is harder to parse out. But here are two 2024 swing states that do.
In North Carolina (16 electoral votes), for example, the current registration breakdown is:
Independents: 36%
Democrats: 33%
Republicans: 30%
In Arizona (11 electoral votes), the registration breakdown is:
Independents: 35%
Republicans: 34%
Democrats: 30%
Good News, Bad News
Democrats cannot win without earning the votes of a sufficient number of independents and that could be a challenge, especially for candidates running statewide.
The good news is that even if independents have a significantly unfavorable view of both major parties, voters 49 and younger have a significantly more favorable view of Democrats than Republicans (below).
The bad news is that those younger independents who most lean Democrat actually vote far less than those who bleed red. See Nonvoters under “AGE” below. In 2022, nearly 2/3 of nonvoters were 49 and younger, per Pew. See Millennials and Gen Z, above.
Regular readers already know the next chart. Where’s the most potential for Democrats to increase voter turnout?
Millennial and Gen Z independents are exactly the Democrat-leaners Democrats need voting more. But they don’t, not enough. Why not? (This gets technical, but I’ll try to simplify.)
To target prospective voters for get-out-the-vote efforts, Democrats rely on their national voter database, VoteBuilder, a product of NGP VAN. The tool’s premise is microtargeting: each voter gets assigned a Democratic Support score based on a variety of factors. For example: 1) Are they registered Democrats? 2) If unaffiliated, have they ever voted a Democratic ballot in a primary (as in Arizona and North Carolina)? 3) How often do they vote? Included are minor weighting factors for income, education, consumer preferences, etc. Based on those scores, campaigns decide which voters look like low-hanging fruit for voter outreach. Many campaigns start contacting voters with scores of 70 and higher. Independents less-prone to vote start with three or more strikes against them, and there are more of them than there are of us (Democrats).
Lower down the scale, warns the Michigan Dems help desk, “while only 50% of voters with a score of 50 are expected to support Democrats, that group could be 50% left wing activists, 50% Tea Party Republicans.” Few campaigns in this political environment want to dispatch door-knockers to homes with scores that low. Too risky.
Michah L. Sifry commented on the recent report “The Experience of Grassroots Leaders Working with the Democratic Party.” One complaint stood out: A majority of respondents said the party does a terrible job targeting voters, saying that its lists are far too narrow.
Now you know why. Democrats are policy liberals and campaign conservatives.
Multiple precinct chairs and field organizers balked when asked about outreach below their accustomed arbitrary Democratic Support score. If canvassers knock doors where VoteBuilder does not indicate firm Democratic support and volunteers get their heads bitten off a couple of times, they said, they’ll go home and organizers lose their volunteer base. That’s a reasonable concern. But it’s hardly a campaign-winning strategy.
The problem Democrats face in North Carolina, for example, is that, statewide independents vote 58% against Democrats. What helps keep statewide margins narrow here is that while independents outnumber Democrats by 3%, they turn out at 6.5% less than Democrats. But in hundreds of urban precincts in the largest, bluest counties where independents (in the aggregate) vote 60, 70, 80-90% for Democrats, they vote at roughly 12% less.*
Chicken or egg? Are these lower-propensity voters not turning out like their independent neighbors because they are simply less-engaged? Or because Democrats are not engaging them?
Buckle up. Let’s win this thing.
This is microtargeting’s Achilles’ heel. In neighborhoods where independents who do vote choose Democrats by 60, 70, 80-90%, campaigns bait individual hooks for high-scorers instead of casting nets. Many of these voters reside in neighborhoods campaigns deprioritize for outreach because they consistently vote blue and heavily. Just not the independents in them.
Pie-in-the-sky? If turnout for independents in these canvassable neighborhoods matched Democrats’ turnout there, I estimate in ten counties an additional 56,000 votes for the Democrat at the top of the ticket. That’s unrealistic. But even if campaigns could boost independent turnout there up to the state average (6.5% below Democrats), that’s still over 25,000 extra votes.
Democrats and allied 501s can mitigate risks of canvassers and phone bankers encountering hostile (read: MAGA) independents by expanding outreach in specific precincts where independents vote Democrat by 60, 70, 80-90%. (Talk about low-hanging fruit.) As Billy Beane said in Moneyball, “We are card counters at the blackjack table. And we’re gonna turn the odds on the casino.”
But not using a partisan message. Volunteers’ pitch to these untapped, young independents is not to evangelize for Democrats. Independents don’t like them. They don’t pay close attention to party politics. Independents “view themselves as proudly unmoored from any candidate or party.” Voting in 2024 has to be about them, about local/state issues to be decided in the election that may impact them or people they love. The ask is: Vote this fall for them.
Are there issues about which they care strongly? Do they know they’ll need a photo ID in 2024 because THOSE GUYS don’t want them voting? Offer nonpartisan information on the where, when, and how of casting their fall ballot. Will you exercise your freedom this fall? Save democracy? Make history?
In these precincts, we don’t care what indys’ support scores are. If they vote, Democrats score. Those are the odds.
But this requires campaigners in North Carolina, in Arizona, and maybe Pennsylvania to change the way they are accustomed to doing business, so maybe forget it.
Of course, if I were former N.C. Chief Justice Cheri Beasley who lost her seat by 401 votes in 2020, I’d settle for any fraction of 25,000 extra votes.
* My own estimates from 2022 precinct results across almost 50 N.C. counties. Hello, Arizona? There are over 900 precincts in blue Maricopa alone. What I’ve estimated here, activists could estimate there.