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Approximately a third of Americans under 30 cast ballots in 2018. If that turnout grows, young voters may cast the decisive ballots in November.
Young people's political activism on the rise, poll finds
Jun 30 2020
Young voters are interested and engaged, and they may finally assert their power in the fall election, according to a new poll released Tuesday that finds youth activism at record highs.
And that looks like good news for Democrats, particularly former Vice President Joe Biden, who now holds a 34-point lead over President Trump among younger voters, according to researchers at Tufts University focused on politics and young adults. By comparison, Hillary Clinton held an 18-point margin over Trump when Tufts took a similar poll during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The results are significant because early expectations of a heavy turnout by young voters in prior elections haven't regularly materialized.
<p>Two years ago, for example, about a third of voters younger than 30 cast ballots in the congressional midterm — a level of turnout that trailed every other age group, but still was a big jump from the level of youth voting in the 2014 midterm.</p><p>The new poll does contain some warning signs for Democrats, and the Biden campaign in particular. Nearly one in five young voters said they would prefer someone other than the two ready to claim the major party nominations this summer.</p>
<p>And fewer than half reported being contacted by a political party so far, which is a strong predictor of voter turnout. </p>
<p>Regardless, the survey shows a huge increase in youth activism, including:</p>
<ul class="ee-ul"><li>The percentage of youth who say they are protesting (27 percent) is five times the level of four years ago, a clear reflection of the rallies in hundreds of big and small cities nationwide to protest police brutality and systemic racism in the month since George Floyd's death.</li><li>Half of voters in their teens and twenties say they have encouraged other people to vote — and a quarter of them reported they have helped to register voters. Both percentages are far higher than before the last presidential election.</li><li>More than 8 in 10 said they believe young people have the power to change the country and about the same percentage said the coronavirus pandemic has helped them realize that politics impacts their everyday lives.</li></ul>
<p>"It is clear that 2020 could be a watershed election for youth participation," said Alan Solomont, dean of the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts, which conducted the poll.</p>
<p>But the survey also found young citizens need help in navigating the logistics of voting. </p>
<p>A third of them said they did not know whether they are allowed to register online. And, of those who answered the question, one-fourth got it wrong. (The correct answer is online signups are allowed in <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/coronavirus-impact-on-voter-registration" target="_self">all but nine states</a>.) </p>
<p>Most critically, only one in four reported ever having voted by mail before. That's in line with the number nationwide in recent elections, but the share is sure to surge this fall because of Covid-19 — although by how much will depend on voter education as well as whether states change their rules or spend more to smooth their systems</p>
<p>"We must convey clear and accessible information about when, how and where young people can register and vote and actively reach out to you," said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning at Tufts.</p>
<p>The center commissioned the poll from Gallup, which interviewed 2,232 adults ages 18 to 29 in the four weeks ending June 18. The poll's margin of error was 4.1 percentage points.</p>
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First Second Books
A new nonfiction graphic novel probes democracy's challenges, inspires fixes
Jun 29 2020
How did American democracy get so broken and what are the paths forward to fix it?
These complex questions are explored with levity and clarity in a new nonfiction graphic novel. In "Unrig: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy," the campaign finance reform advocate Daniel Newman dives into gerrymandering, money in politics, voting rights and more — all through comics illustrated by author and illustrator George O'Connor.
Having worked in the democracy reform space for the better part of two decades, Newman says he saw a critical need for material that explained the issues plaguing American politics, while also providing optimism and inspiration for making the system work better. Sales of the books, which start next week, will suggest whether he was right.
<p>"I've had so many conversations over the last 15 years where I'm explaining how the rules of political money and voting affect every other issue in the county, and a lightbulb goes on, so this book is meant to provide a lightbulb moment of clarity," said Newman, who created in 2005 and remains president of <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/maplight" target="_self">MapLight</a>, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that chronicles the influence of money in politics.</p><p>Newman, who's based in Berkeley, Calif., has been working on the 290-page book for two years, using interviews with more than 100 advocates and experts, plus his own knowledge and experience, to inform his writing.</p><p>His artist partner O'Connor, based in Brooklyn, is best known for the "Olympians" series of Greek mythology graphic novels.</p><p>Throughout, their work highlights central problems with the political system and explains tried and tested solutions, while also weaving in real-life stories of democracy reform advocates. The book leaves the reader with potential next steps they could take to get involved in the fix-the-system movement.</p><p>The chapter on political money — the topic Newman's most familiar with — explains how corporations and special interests are able to use their wealth to exert influence over politics, while remaining largely hidden from the public. One example is Republican John Ward, who lost his 2008 bid for the Montana Legislature by 25 votes following a last-minute ad blitz funded by entities whose identities remain hidden.</p><p>The chapter also points to solutions at the federal and state levels, including Congress bolstering disclosure rules for political ad spending online, the Federal Election Commission requiring greater campaign finance transparency and states adopting donor disclosure rules for political ads.</p><p>Democracy reform issues can often seem dry and complex, Newman said, but he hopes "Unrig" brings clarity and inspiration to readers.</p><p>"I hope people will be inspired to see that change is possible and is already happening — and how you can be involved, too," he said.</p><p>Here's an excerpt from that money-in-politics chapter of "Unrig."</p>
Chapter 3: Political Money
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://thefulcrum.us/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxNDU4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTc0MDEzN30.EekWuTCTD3vku349NNem_Nnhmv1oZeefn85RAME8seQ/image.jpg?width=980" id="c1da4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7f0892de4fd941a15a56eb28922e8c88" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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Photographer is my life./Getty Images
A growing and diversifying economy has 706,000 people living in the city, more than Vermont or Wyoming.
First vote by Congress for D.C. statehood lays the ground for next year
Jun 26 2020
The House has voted for the first time to rectify one of the most counterintuitive quirks of American democracy:
People living in the national capital have less of a voice in the national government than all the rest of the nation — consigned to the same second-class status, taxation without representation, which sparked the Revolution that created the country.
Legislation to change that, by making the District of Columbia the 51st state, was approved 232-180 on Friday, the only passage of such a statehood measure by either chamber in the history of Congress.
But the almost purely party-line tally in the Democratic House will be the proposal's symbolically resonant high-water mark, at least for the year. That's because the Republican Senate had made plain it has zero interest in the measure, even before President Trump made explicit this week that he would veto it.
<p>As a result, once they became confident of passage by the House, many proponents started focusing their attention on the coming election — working to raise money and organize not only for former Vice President Joe Biden, who has endorsed the bill, but also for his fellow Democrats in close Senate contests.</p><p>A Biden presidency combined with a still-blue House and newly Democratic Senate, especially one willing to drop the 60-vote filibuster test for legislation, could propel the measure into law next year.</p><p>"The ample resources of D.C. residents — both human and material — should be devoted to races most likely to elect or reelect women and men who believe residents of the District deserve the right to full participation in American democracy," columnist Colbert I. King wrote this week in the Washington Post.</p><p>Partisan politics have neutralized the drive for statehood for decades, but Democrats believe they may be able to capitalize over time on the antagonism the president and administration officials have shown the city during the coronavirus pandemic and the protests over police brutality and racial injustice.</p><p>The legislation would create "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth" (an homage to the abolitionist Frederick Douglass), guaranteeing the new state would be treated the same as the existing 50 with respect to federal aid and spending formulas — and its people could elect two senators and one representative.</p><p>Now home to more than 706,000, the city is more populous than Wyoming or Vermont. Rapid growth and gentrification, spurred mainly by the arrival of high-tech and other industries that thrive off federal contracts, has diversified the population and made it more prosperous than ever. District residents now pay more federal income tax per capita than the residents of any state, and D.C. provides more tax revenue to the federal government than 22 other states.</p><p>The population nonetheless remains almost three-fifths Black and Latino, a bigger majority than any state, a demographic fact that has made statehood part of the agenda of many civil rights groups.</p><p>The D.C. electorate is such a deep blue — the last seven GOP presidential nominees have averaged 8 percent of the vote — that it would be guaranteed to elect a pair of Democratic senators and make a fully-enfranchised House member out of the non-voting Democratic delegate.</p><p>"We stand out as the only democracy in the world that denies democracy to the people of its national capital, and it's long past time to change that," Eleanor Holmes Norton, who's had that job for three decades, said in concluding the debate for her bill, which got the designation HR 51.</p><p>Partisan lopsidedness has assured solid Republican opposition to statehood. But GOP members also say the new state would have an unfair sway over the federal government, that D.C. officials are not prepared for the extra responsibilities of statehood and that the measure would deny Congress its constitutional power over the nation's capital.</p><p>To address that, the bill would shrink the seat of the federal government to the two square miles that take in the Capitol, White House, Supreme Court and bulk of the city's federal buildings.</p><p>Statehood was supported by 86 percent of D.C. residents in a 2016 referendum. Three years earlier the city started signaling its displeasure with the status quo — which includes Congress having the power to veto local ordinances — by making "Taxation Without Representation" the logo on its license plates.</p><p>The campaign gained new urgency this spring because of how the city was affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the civil unrest.</p><p>Although the District had one of the highest infection rates early on, and the economic consequences of its sustained shutdown were severe, it received $750 million less than the smallest state under the pandemic recovery package enacted in March.</p><p>And then last month, without the city's consent or collaboration, Trump deployed federal law enforcement officers and National Guard troops across the city to repress protests after George Floyd's death in police custody.</p><p>"Statehood fixes it all," Mayor Muriel Bowser declared when the House announced debate on the bill.</p><p>The measure does not make clear who would pay the costs of becoming a state, however. The federal government, for example, might no longer feel obligated to provide more than $1 billion annually to fund Medicaid and much of the city's criminal justice system.</p><p>The last House vote on statehood was 27 years ago, when the municipal government was in a fiscal and ethical shambles. The bill got just 153 votes.</p>
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Darren Weimert/Barash Media
Meet the Reformer: Jenna Spinelle, fix-the-system podcast impresario
Jun 26 2020
In the somewhat fractured democracy reform movement, Jenna Spinelle is doing her part to bring some cohesion. She has developed The Democracy Group, a network of 11 podcasts focused on improving the American political system and increasing civic engagement. (The Fulcrum has recently agreed to feature some of the network's programs on our site, and the first will appear soon.) Spinelle — who hosts one of the podcasts, "Democracy Works" — has lived in central Pennsylvania for most of the past two decades and has worked at Penn State since graduating in 2008. She now teaches journalism and works on external communications for the university's McCourtney Institute for Democracy, where the podcast network is housed. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
A network of podcasts about democracy, civic engagement and civil discourse.
<p><strong>Describe your very first civic engagement.</strong></p><p>I always went with my dad to vote as a kid, but the first real engagement was registering people to vote in the fall of 2004. I was a college freshman and struggling to find my place on the large campus. The registration drive was a great way to get to know people and meet friends that stuck with me through college. </p><p><strong>What was your biggest professional triumph?</strong></p><p>When "How Democracies Die" author Daniel Ziblatt told me during an interview that I had asked something no one had ever asked him before. He had done a ton of interviews for the book when I spoke with him.</p><p><strong>And your most disappointing setback?</strong></p><p>The moment not long after college when I realized that a career in journalism (at least full-time, anyway) was not going to be in the cards for me.</p><p><strong>How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?</strong></p><p>The job I have now as a podcaster working in the democracy and civic engagement space is the perfect mix of my skills and identity. I use my journalism skills to do interviews on my show, the marketing skills I've built over the past 10 years to expand our network's reach, and my previous experience in civic engagement to stay connected to the mission that's at the core of our network. </p><p><strong>What's the best advice you've ever been given?</strong></p><p>Never stop asking questions or lose your sense of curiosity about the way the world works. I heard this from several of my journalism school professors and try to pass it along to my own students today. </p><p>It's easier than ever to be distracted by our phones and find simple answers to every question we have — and curiosity gets lost in the process. One of my favorite things as a teacher is seeing those lightbulb moments when students connect the dots on two things that they might not have ever put together otherwise. </p><p><strong>Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.</strong></p><p>The All-Nighter: vanilla ice cream with chocolate-covered espresso beans and a coffee-caramel swirl. </p><p><strong>What's your favorite political movie or TV show?</strong></p><p>It's not solely about politics but I loved "The Newsroom" on HBO. More recently, I enjoy "The Circus" on Showtime. I hope it finds a way to adapt to the new normal.</p><p><strong>What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?</strong></p><p>Check the hourly forecast to see if the weather will cooperate for an early morning run.</p><p><strong>What is your deepest, darkest secret?</strong></p><p>I've never been able to whistle. </p>
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