I spent the entire 2018 cycle in a bit of a jealous mood. Whenever given the chance, I have been jumping up and down to suggest that young people, and in particular college students with their relatively closed social networks and enclosed spaces (depending on the school), are absolutely essential to the future of the Democratic Party. Finally, in 2018, there was an organization that got this message and made it a priority: Next Gen America.
Next Gen did a truly fantastic job. I should know because I was in Maine making the same argument about young people and either having doors slammed in my face, or just being ignored. While rejection was rough on me, it showed me beyond a doubt the contrast between Next Gen’s successful efforts and what happens when things don’t go as well. Let’s compare two campuses: one, the University of Maine Orono, where the effort was minimal, and the other, the University of New Hampshire at Durham, where Next Gen was at work. These campuses and towns are similar enough in student demographics, town demographics and the kinds of races in which students could vote, that comparisons are valuable.
In the last midterm election (2014), Durham, New Hampshire had 4157 votes cast for Congress, with 2875 going to the Democrat. In this most recent election it had 6572 votes cast, and 5153 votes for the Democrat, increases of 58% and 79% respectively. In contrast, in 2014, Orono, Maine had 3430 votes cast for Congress and 2324 votes for the Democrat. This year it cast 4339 votes and had 2995 votes for the Democrat. (a slight asterisk is in order here because Maine uses ranked choice voting, and we can only track first choice votes for the Democrat. Some Orono voters were ultimately counted for the Democrat after ranking him second). Durham 58 % increase in turnout, and 79% increase in votes for the Democrat, compares very favorably to Orono’s 27% increase overall and 29% increase for the Democrat. If you’ll bear with me on the math, you’ll see that the marked increase from Orono’s 30% boost to Durham’s 60% gain is roughly 30 points, or in percentage terms a 100% increase in voter improvement Let’s call this the Next Gen effect.
The Next Gen effect can be powerful, but it doesn’t come cheap. We can’t say precisely how much was spent at UNH directly. But the papers alone reported $750,000 in Next Gen spending in the state of New Hampshire. Thus, an estimate of roughly $100,000 for UNH seems reasonable, maybe even a touch low. Consider how well spent these funds were. Had Durham had the only the same 127% of its 2014 number in 2018 as Orono achieved, this would have meant about 1200 fewer total votes from this liberal town. Since the Democrat won 78% of Durham’s vote, not having the 1200 extra votes would have cost the Democratic candidate a gain of almost 700 votes over the GOP opponent. The margin might even have been greater since the rise in Democratic percentage in Durham from 69% in 2014 to 78% in 2018 suggests the newer surge voters were overwhelmingly Democratic. Compared to other forms of campaign spending, Next Gen earned a truly excellent return on investment.
But here now is our problem. Next Gen’s financial backer, the investor, Tom Steyer is potentially moving on to other things. Even if he does not, we can’t count on him to spend year after year, the $30 million he did this cycle on youth turnout. The risk is not merely that youth turnout efforts lose funding but that we lose the targeted, isolated effort that made Next Gen so effective. Because Next Gen was exclusively about youth turnout, it was not distracted by many of the other aspects of sprawling campaigns. Divided attention can make doing anything separate from your main operations seems like a luxury. Yet what our numbers show is that youth turnout can be a necessity when comparing this mission to others historically undertaken by campaign. Persuasion is getting harder and harder as partisanship plays a massive role, and a larger and larger % of electorates are locked in. Turnout efforts in some places are just spinning wheels as many voters will turn out without regard to campaign outreach. Any campaign tactic that has a proven impact should be given the absolute highest priority. Youth turnout is it. Replicating and improving upon what Next Gen did is a singular opportunity for Democrats to add votes going forward. How this actually happens in the absence of continued commitment from Steyer is anyone’s guess. But it needs to happen, so let’s get to work.