[applause] peter good morning and welcome. Im peter canellos, Political Editor at large. Id like to thank you all for joining todays event, americas biggest voting bloc, nonvoters. Thanks to those watching via live stream. As a 202020 Campaign Ramps up both democrats and republicans are working very hard to rally the base. Theyre also trying to win over swing voters, but i think we all know especially we will see today that by far the largest bloc of voters out there come when hundred million voters voting ages of those who dont go to the polls. I cant say enough that the balance of power in the united balance of power in the United States rests in those voters. These nonvoters span every demographic, every racial demographic, age demographic, education demographic. Today were going to have i hope very enlightening Panel Discussion discussing with Party Leaders themselves how the plan to appeal to this group and get some of these people to come to the polls. Were also going to discuss the very interesting results of this knight study that is finally being released today and that weve all been anticipating for a long time. I want to encourage you all as you follow our discussion to also join the conversation on social media, politicoelections. And to begin the sponsored segment, heres a quick video from our sponsor, the Knight Foundation. Thank you very much. Theres a crisis facing our democracy. Who has the power to solve it . Is it americas voters, or perhaps its americas nonvoters . In 2016, we witness one of our countrys most contentious president ial elections. Donald trump won the presidency and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. But who did most americans support . Nobody. I am not registered to vote. I havent voted. I do not vote. I dont think im going to vote. Nearly 100 million eligible voters did not vote. This is the story of perhaps the most important voice in american yet to be heard. The 100 million project is a landmark study of 12,000 nonvoters done at unprecedented scale. And depth. So who are these 100 million americans . They are as diverse as of this this country, as different as 100 Million People can be. Many nonvoters lack basic faith in our democratic system. 38 of nonvoters say theyre not confident that elections represent the will of the people. Many believe the system is rigged. Me and my sister always think theres a conspiracy theory. That it is rigged. I think the whole thing is predetermined. I think it is rigged. Nonvoters engage less with news and feel underinformed on politics, and yet many nonvoters are College Graduates and over onethird are middle class are wealthier. Democrats, republicans, and independents each make up onethird of nonvoters. Half of respondents reported an unfavorable view of President Trump, 40 favorable, and the rest undecided. In the emerging electorate, 18 to 24yearolds, are less informed, less interested in politics, less likely to vote in 2020 than nonvoters overall. Are we losing a generation of voters . Im not informed than anything, i feel like my vote would be wasted. Being young and voting people will judge you for because you are not educated enough about the whole voting process. Increasing voter turnout isnt just about politics. Its about the future of our democracy. To start the most important conversation of 2020, visit the100million. Org. Please welcome to the stage Senior Vice President and chief Program Officer of the Knight Foundation, sam gill. [applause] sam good morning. Thank you all for coming out. Thank you, politico, for organizing this important conversation. Thank you ed harris for taking time out from apollo 14 to record that introduction. The Knight Foundation is focused on supporting a stronger democracy through more informed engage communities, and so led by our director who is here today, we commissioned the survey from bendixenamandi to understand health of our democracy at a time when our political conversation usually focus on the narrowest slice of voters. While elections may ultimately be about convincing a few, our view is that democracy is about engaging the many. To kick things off today im really delighted to be able to lead a conversation first with fernand amandi who led the project who runs bendixenamandi which is a legendary south floridabased survey firm. He led election polling at all levels, including president. And also Yanna Krupnikov was a professor of clinical signs at suny stony brook and a leading voice on how information influences choices and decisions within democracy. She helped design the survey, helped lead the statistical analysis. Were going to talk a bit about what was surprising or not about what we learned regarding his this large voting bloc. Fernand, id like to start with you. Whats the biggest thing that jumps out to you about who the nonvoter is or isnt based on the survey . Sam, the amazing thing about a project like this is so many folks, myself included, i think all of us have these preconceived notions about who nonvoters are. Theres all this conventional wisdom that suggest they tend to be of this group and overwhelmingly this. What we found in the study, what the data reveals is they are like everyone in america. In the sense that you run the full breadth of what the american body politic looks like. Yes, there are some deviations from voters and voting behavior in terms of them perhaps a little more minority, little more undereducated, but nonetheless these are groups of people that feel the same way that voters do. In a lot of respects take the information consumption piece. 82 of voters said that they are following news and information about politics very closely. One would think from a hypothesis level the nonvoters are probably in the 20 percentile range. Granted they are lower than voters, but 62 in our study say they are as first in political issues and political news ozment of the people industry and many people watching on life streaming, and to see that come alive in the data and understand the reasons for why so many of those feel the way do i thought was eyeopening and raises a lot of questions not just about what it means but what any for the democracy as you alluded to. As a political scientist thinking about what we learned about this group through really one of the largest studies ever mythbusting . Political scientist have been talking for decades about why people do or dont engage in industrialized democracies. So what conventional wisdom was upended by the survey . One of the tremendous benefits of the survey is that often when we talk to people we ask them to selfreport, whether they are voters are nonvoters, and people have great incentive misrepresent what theyre doing. A great benefit of this study is that we knew in advance how often these people had voted so we knew exactly what they bring to the survey. One of the things that emerges from the study is about how people get information. A longstanding theory of Political Science is as long as people get information, maybe not from the news, but from a friend or somebody in the network, they are probably going to be ok. But one of the most robust results across a lot of statistical modeling, across a lot of the data is one of the greatest differences is who votes and doesnt vote is whether to get your information directly from the news or whether you try to bump into from someone else. And that is a result that holds regardless of a demographic differences, regardless of education, your job, gender, pretty much everything, how you get the news seems to matter quite a lot. Potentially more than we had thought in Political Science. So, given that context, given that this has to do a lot with sort of behaviors that people illieuthe mill you m they are in, fernand, someone who is talking a lot to campaigns come helping campaigns think about how to succeed and when, we could have highminded ideas about trying to engage anyone. I happen to have those ideas. My foundation has those ideas. Hopefully they are shared here. But well hear later from some of the folks who are focused on issue of persuasion. In a in a world where the stakes are incredibly high, when it comes to focusing on the few people who are not just bumping into news, who really are junkies, highly engaged, and, therefore, highly persuadable, is there anything we can do to encourage campaigns to actually think about nonvoters as being worth the time, the effort, the investment . Absolutely. And again in the theme of myth busting, the way the Data Destroys a lot of this conventional wisdom, one of the things a lot of people believe or just inherently think about the nonvoters is that it overwhelmingly probably favors one party over another. That if one party were just to overwhelmingly cultivate this group of voters they would win every election and that a permanent majority, and thats that what we saw in the data. Its pretty evenly split. A third of these nonvoters support the Republican Party. A third of these voters support the democratic party. And a third are in what you might call an independent perhaps even quasipersuadable mode. What has always been the challenge with nonvoters . Resource limitations. A lot of campaigns and news organizations and outlets say look, its interesting but we just dont have the resources to engage this segment of the electorate. But what i think the study revealed is there is a first mover advantage for these campaigns, whoever gets to them first might actually enhance their prospects of winning in spite of the fact some people might say dont go after them as much because theyre not likely to vote. If you make an appeal to them, they have shown they beliefs and strongly held beliefs at that. Just to follow up. Is that something we can expect of a president ial campaign or is this going to have to happen in municipal elections, county elections . Who is going to be willing to say, im going to make a big upfront investment because i think i am activating a constituency that will have a good lifetime value. Its the 64 million question. Campaigns are like the nfl. Whenever theres an innovation in the nfl, all 31 other teams copy. The first campaign, whether its a president ial campaign or becomes the culture in a local municipal campaign, they see there is a pool, properly engage in activated and sometimes its worth the engagement and they can show that puts them over the top, it might have a force effect that changes the culture of how these voters are, these nonvoters are engaged. Making this practical as a political scientist think about what it would take whether its a campaign or social movement to activate these folks, you already mentioned one of the key vectors is whether you actively encounter news or bump into it. We used to have a model where you would to both called the newspaper. Its now as economically viable as it used to be. Obviously working on intensely at the Knight Foundation. In the information environment we live in, one in which we are all increasing bumping into information more, what are some of the more promising levers, areas of behavior that you think campaigns or others, about information or anything that folks should be focused on based on the survey . One of the things that emerges in Political Science research that people are more likely to vote when their networks vote, family, friends, people they work with. And this survey reinforces these ideas. The people who are not voting feel a certain disengagement from their communities. They are less happy with their lives in general. I think to activate these people its not necessarily treating them as individuals, but approaching whole communities, engaging whole communities and suggesting to whole communities that of often been disengaged for decades there something worthwhile about their voices. And once you get people within a community to encourage each other, that would lead to these networks that political scientists talk of work people encourage each other to vote, to participate, and to even follow the news. There is in some sense privilege with some people to spend a lot of time following the news that many just do not. And once we really kind of reinforced Network Effects and reinforce these kind of connections that people might have and use those connections to encourage people to participate politically, i think that would be the most promising avenue for increasing both interest and encourage participation. Someone, to go deeper on this, where any moment what a lot of the work that bob putnam and others lead urban social Capital Formation from the late 1990s is coming back into vogue as people face the sentiment of disconnection and disengagement whether its with National Politics or in community. Certainly that school of thought would agree with the sentiment you just espoused. This about how you associate with them, since this act is being valorized in your community. Some people say look, the places where that happens are gone. Others would say they are just happening in new places, happening online. How do you in your work thinking should we be hopeful that we can regain those that works and new places, or is this going to be about rebuilding institutions in community that are at the very least stressed . I think Research Suggests that we dont need bob putnamstyle bowling leagues to great connections and to create networks. Networks exist all around us. They exist in our families. They still exist in religious communities and certainly online. Theres research to suggest if your online friends report that vote, youre more likely to do so. So i think the institutions are there. Just a matter of reaching people who are within these communities who are Pressure Point so these communities who might actually suggest to their friends and neighbors and families that theres something worthwhile to you being engaged with politics. Its something you should put your time into. Fernand, last word to you. Think about that through sort of a cynical political lens. Is that a message . Is there a message there that a campaign can embrace about this active contribution to community and to democracy . No question. I take a cynical, sometimes political perspective. Ive seen entire president ial campaigns designed around a subgroup of voters in the swing state of florida, Puerto Ricans or maybe cubans, small target pool of voters. These are 100 million americans. They are concentrated in every state. This isnt a some fringe group. What you need to see, especially in the media fragmentation as we see younger demographics less and less likely engage in traditional media, campaigns and the culture of campaigns need to do a better job meeting these nonvoters where they are. And they are not always on the traditional media websites. They are on gaming platforms, they are watching tv shows that sometime has nothing to with politics or on the phone, completely isolated from traditional means of dissemination of information. Those campaigns that see it more as an opportunity and the Value Proposition that the opportunity could lead to massive electoral gains, i think that might change the culture, but they have to be willing to make those risks as well. Thank you for leading the study. Thank you for joining us this morning. We really appreciate it. [applause] please welcome back to the stage, politico editoratlarge, peter canellos. [applause] first of all, i want to thank fernand and yanna and sam for that very insightful presentation. Also want to remind people that you can participate in the discussion via politico elections and will be taking some questions via twitter later on. So we are here now to talk about where the metal meets the road, so to speak, here where nonvoters and how the Political Parties are going to be contending with this in the 2020 election. Im very honored to be joined starting on my left with caroline bye, whos a managing director for morning consult, thats a polling operation that works with politico. It does an outstanding survey. Thank you so much. Matt dailer, the deputy political director of the Republican National committee. Thank you so much for being with us. Kristal knight, political director of priorities usa which is a democratic super pac. And doctor Costas Panagopoulos from Northeastern University up in my old stomping grounds of boston. To start off, i wanted to ask matt a question. The numbers that came out of the knight study had some good news for President Trump. And that was that in every swing state with the exception of georgia, there was a pirelli of of nonvoters who actually supported trump. This was very surprising because those of us who followed follow this issue for a while sort of assumed nonvoters were skewing more liberal. In fact, the nonvoters even more than the voters were actually protrump. So think of a state like arizona, where welltodo suburbanites have been trending a little bit more towards the democrats. There are a lot of people along the border, a lot of guys in pickup trucks who are supporting President Trump, but it turns out they may not be registered or if they are registered they may not be voting. How are you going to continue with that at the rnc . First of all, not surprised they are all supporting President Trump. But with that, i mean, its very interesting i look back at this i think of the question like nonvoter, most of us and never understand what that would be like. We are all about politics all the time. We always cant wait to vote because its like our super bowl. Thinking that people who didnt vote and why they did not vote, right . Its the job of the Republican National committee and the Trump Campaign to go out there and find his voters in a state like arizona and figure out what motivates them to turn out to vote. So, luckily we are fortunate to have a huge ground game thats been on the ground for a long time engaging these people right now to figure out why they wont vote, and then how we can motivate them to go vote, deliver a message to them to turn them out. We have all this time to do that. On the left right now they are figuring out who the nominee is going to be. We are already to be able to do this, so time is on our side which is very valuable in politics. Theres been a lot of attention in the last couple of years, republican secretaries of state in some of these states who had voter purges of often hundreds of thousands of voters who just havent voted and a few as to make of the last few elections are imagining the arizona comparison, it could be a lot of those casual voters are trump voters. Are you concerned that the party has been adopting the wrong strategy when it comes to moving people off the rolls . Its interesting a lot of secretaries of state take different approaches to this. Some follow the laws in the state. Im from west virginia, where they refuse to purge the rolls forever because once they did that the democratic registration with also much and republicans would show their gains there. Their registration is a priority. Its up to secretaries of state decide what they want to do but from the data perspective we are focused on these people. We Pay Attention to movers lists, endstate, at a state. We Pay Attention to people come off the rolls and if we know that republican, how do we register them to get active again. Imagine a conversation if one of the secretarys of state can do the rnc and said if we enact one of these voter purge laws would that hurt us . What would your response be . I would say it would not hurt us. We want the best Data Available so every state has a voter file that shows whos registered to vote on that day. We update, we buy that list we need the best Data Available. So if the secretary of state will purge the role of inactive voters that just makes are just easier to figure out who we can target to turn out. Crystal, at priorities usa trying to mobilize liberal leaning voters, one of surprising results of the study was that it showed both the most dedicated voters are women but also the most dedicated nonvoters are women. In the category of voters that was the most disengaged, this was measured by political literacy, ability to answer questions about public issues, 65 of that group were women, which is a very significant, large, large number. Now, weve all heard about the womens march and womens engagement and women are never more engaged than the are right now. Theres obviously a Huge Community that is not. What can be done to, from your point of view, to get those people out . I think that statistic was very surprising, number one, but i also think that we have to speak to issues that affect women. Women are just as affected by the economy, healthcare, the rising cost of prescriptions just as men are. But if a woman has competing issues and she lives in a state like pennsylvania, for example, where you only have one day to vote on, and im a single parent, i have to think about dropping off my child in the morning, maybe i try to go and vote in the middle of the day and the line is really long, maybe after work i have to think about going to care for the elderly parent or another relative. All of those things become competing issues when i think about going to the booth. And so when i think about all of my priorities, i think maybe im not as engaged around the candidates that are in the race, then its not that i dont care about voting, its that i have all of these other things that are paramount to me actually going to vote. Are you concerned that among Democratic Women theres sort of a feeling that the core issues of pay equity, abortion rights, family leave, that they are just going to naturally motivate me women to come to the polls and that may not, in fact, be the case . I think those issues are important to women. I also think they are important to men. But it also think we have to find the messaging that speaks to women in the states that they live in. One message about abortion rights or paid family leave that may be applicable to all women, but in a state like michigan, if im a woman who has been laid off from gm, for example, and i see that the top executives are getting tax breaks by the president , then maybe i feel like the system really isnt working for me. And so i have to figure out candidate is speaking to my issues . Do they care about me . Do i see myself, my life, Getting Better under this particular candidate . And so, that will obviously determine whether i decide to go to the booth or not. Caroline, one thing that surprised me also in this is the number of people, the largest number of voters said the reason, nonvoters said the reason they didnt go to the polls is because they didnt have reliable information, didnt know enough about the candidates. Is that realistic given our nonstop campaigns and the whole kind of cacophony out there . Is that true to your experiences in surveying voters . I think there are two main camps of nonvoters. I think one, we have a low information voter who is not that interested in learning a , about politics because maybe they are just not interested. One of the top reasons we see cited in surveys as to why people dont vote is not necessarily because they dont have time to vote but because theyre not interested in politics to begin with. The other half might be interested, but they think the system is broken. And i think on both sides, on both republican and democratic sides, we have candidates who are speaking to that half of the nonvoter segment but weve yet to figure out a solution to the other half, those folks who dont have enough information, theyre not necessary interested in learning more information, and so its a huge conundrum for campaigns and parties to begin to engage those voters. I would ask you and others alwaysgh in, but we assume those low information voters are low information by choice, that they have just checked out of the process in some way. Weve also experienced a lot of changes in the last 20 years. Theres been a decline in the Mainstream Media that has been well documented, and theres also been much more contentious advertising thats been out there. Could it be that they want to know more and just cant get the information . Yeah. I think most of us in d. C. See cnn, msnbc and fox on screens all the time, and we can see that these headers and headlines are provoking and polarized, and as we move away from local reporting, what we see is we have created a media system that thrives on profit, and profit thrives on the polls. The polar opposite. So we have far less getting further left, we have the far right getting further right. So most voters exist in the middle, and there is no longer a media that speaks to those voters. I think one of the things as we think about solutions is, is how we focus on factdriven media, how we focus on data in media, how we focus on having representative reporters in media, and just renewing that faith and that understanding that most people in our country actually exist in the middle. Our polling consistently shows on an ideological scale most people dont exist at the one or the five. They exist at the two or the four on the ideological skill. So speaking where people are i think is a promising prospect. I would invite our other panelists to join you but also this relates to some of your research. I think some of us who live in washington can be shocked when we go to swing states and just turn on the tv, and you get this endless back and forth of negative ads and super pac advertising things like that. It becomes plausible when you see all of that, the people can just be really confused. You you see all sensational charges going back and forth and you sort of think this cant be true, and what is true. Does the cacophony of modern campaigning actually diminish peoples confidence in the information they have . Its not only confusing, its also exhausting. By the end, many voters are just sick of it. They want it to just be over. They have seen so much negativity and all these outlandish claims they are not sure what to believe and theyre just exasperated. I think that can turn off some of them, for sure. But getting back to this point about how much information voters have, one of the striking findings in the Political Science literature is that even people with relatively low levels of information can still make wise voting decisions. They can rely on other information, shortcuts, and what we call huristics. Party labels is a great example. The choice to vote for people who are going to sport the kinds of policies that you believe in, but sometimes its just an endorsement that someone has gotten or piece of information youve got from a neighbor or a friend, what the Previous Panel talked about. Weve also us ways of getting information. You dont necessarily have to be immersed in following whats happening in the media and in the news. For two years with incredibly long election cycles in this country and theyre just getting longer and longer in part because of the need for candidates to have to raise huge sums of money and that does have the potential to just tire people. To spin out of it on your research and perspective, Party Identification and endorsement from a newspaper might be a reasonable reason that a low information voter would be able to go to the polls and make a choice, but did you also find they are making choices based on race, gender, ethnicity, you know, they like the sound of somebodys name, whatever, the thing that is listed right after their name, is that an issue that inspires them . I mean, what did you find . Its not just my research but its all sorts of research that has examined these types of voting queues, the kinds of information that people use. We might think of that is information that is not that great, not that useful, that is not the way voters should be making up their minds. But if that is important for voters, if that is a signal that is relevant to them or important to them, we want to support someone with a particular type of experience. For example some of the research i have done has looked at the impact of having served in the military. For some voters that is a very important feature. If that is important for them than why should they not vote for that is of information or other source of these cues they pick up in different places that andnot be viewed by experts analyzes as a nice package of a fullyvetted candidacy, but its important to those voters and that theres nothing illegitimate about using that as a basis or a rationale for casting a vote. Priorities usa does advertising and stuff. Do you find that negative advertising works that thats what you want to go into a race or not . It depends. We do our advertising based upon the issues of the state. Right now, were focused on trump accountability. And that looks different in florida, looks different in michigan, it looks different in wisconsin, it looks different in pennsylvania. So what we try to do is identify the issues that are most salient in each state, go out and get real stories from real individuals who are really affected by the economy, by health care, by rising costs of prescriptions, or whatever the issues are in those states and then speak to those issues. So voters in those states, key battleground states that we have identified through our polling, research and analytics, so we are messaging them directly to what they want to hear, what they care about. Matt, what is your take on that . It seems like in some of the states when you go and see, youll see an ad like youre describing, where it says that President Trump has presided over the greatest increase in drug prices of all time, and then after it, President Trump has cracked down on pharma, blah, blah, blah. How does that work . Well, i mean, the question, does negative advertising work . Of course it does. Because thats why everyone does it. Its effective and you have to know the race in your state, whats going on there. And thats like the outside groups, you know, you see them and theyre able to go way more on the attack and the candidate will say not go negative and you have to deal with that sometimes, too. But i was just in iowa, even here in d. C. And were getting bombarded now constantly with ads, back to back. So i think what you are saying, people might get confused from it, what to believe. People do not Pay Attention to the disclaimers, who is paying for what, theyre trying to take it or just turn it off. So its very interesting. You just have to run your race, and if you feel you have to go negative, unfortunately that is just a part of politics. I want to go to something you said earlier that is relevant to our later conversation. You talked about the various targeting that goes on and both parties do it, trying to get their people to the polls. Is that part of the problem . Are the parties speaking too much to the base and not enough to the general electorate . Lets go back 20 years to 2000. All right . Most states didnt have early voting yet so only had one day to cast your ballot and only a couple of ways to reach voters. Mail, tv was king, land line phones, and then kind of door knocking. And now fast forward to 2020. 32 states have some type of early voting and i think its five to 50 days to go to cast your vote early, and all these other mediums that we can target you on, you know, youtube, twitter, google, facebook, which is huge for everyone, direct boxes, you know, if you have the money, you can be in a neighborhood and every Single Person gets a different message on their tv. So, we can just inundate people with so much information that it becomes too much. What youre kind of saying. So you have to figure out what message do we need to drive to this voter, what is the best way to deliver that message, and then try to follow up to be like, did we persuade them. Are they with us . How do you choose which voters to target . Based on enrollment . All of this goes back to data for the Republican National committee. We invested over 200 million since 2012 in the data and we use market targeting and consumer data. An example would be with the president s rallies. We see large amounts of turnout for the rallies tha did not , not register to vote, or registered democrats. That is really interesting to us. So they use all of that to model, and then we have to go back talk to these people and figure out, ok, this is interesting, this set of people might be with us, lets go find out if they are or not, and then we decide, yes they are, so we expand other states and if they are not, we have to go try something else. There has been a major demographic change was Trump Administration that head of the Republican Party has approached as opposed to previous nominees. Affluent ands more casual voters that respond to trump . Yes. Americans, who feel that they have been snubbed in some way or another, and now we have the administration that has accomplished so much and we have all of this talk, and that will bring people back into the fold and kind of the research that says, of course im going to vote now, which, of course you would say, you are going to vote. Why would you want to act like you are not doing your civic duty. But the president to have brought in people who originally felt like it didnt matter, and why the demographic of voters that we can target, it is very similar, i believe President Trump is as well. That is the point of and candidacy,insurgent and another reasons that people cited for not voting is they do not think there vote is going to matter and nothing is ever going to change. I will ask the whole panel. Do we need more insurgent candidates to wake up the withorate . We could start you, crystal. The democrats, they need to have an outsider nominee to get people to change their habits and get to the polls . I think on the democratic side, we have a very feisty primary right now. Wait. L priorities, we do not have an opinion about who becomes the nominee, we will support the democratic nominee,. We do have some insurgent candidates on the democratic side, some traditional candidates, moderate candidates, but one of the things about the primary in the long process of it is we are able to identify nonvoters, we are able to identify our base and expand our electorate, because you have so many options of people to choose from. As we are seeing right now and this primary process playing out, ultimately, we will determine who will be the candidate of our party and how they will build the base and to make sure that everyone is brought and for this election. Think insurgent candidacies do have the capacity to excite people who may not be excited by the traditional candidates or mainstream establishment candidates, but the question is, depending on the outcome, what happens to those voters . Do they stay engaged or do they stay motivated if their candidate loses, or if their candidate twins as was the case of obama in 2008, and then they realize they still have to go through the same political process that is slow and gradual and incremental, and not necessarily going to deliver the type of wholesale dramatic shifts that they expected that someone new and fresh is going to deliver for them, we have to reset expectations were voters in this country to square with the institutional arrangement that the rest of the political system through the constitution puts into place, and i think that is part of the issue. I do want to speak to this targeting issue for second, because first of all, targeting does not always work, and sometimes it can actually backfire. Case that the parties are increasingly focusing on focusing their attention on the base or on dedicated voters. Part of the problem with chronic nonvoting is that campaigns and are not going to focus on those voters. They fish where the fish are. And they are constantly reaching and theyher voters will spend their resources targeting those types. You are unlikely to get contacted in the first place and that is the big issue. It is one thing the political time literature has also shown is motivation is important. And they are with other , but nonvotersrs are not being asked to vote simple because of their history of not voting, and that cascades into the selffulfilling situation of chronic nonvoting, and i would also point out that that context, there is no onesizefitsall mode of voter mobilization. The tops the types of things that work for a lower density voters are not the types of things that are going to work as effectively for higher propensity voters. It is important to keep assessing that, keep figuring that, and we have some knowledge about that from studies and other tests that have you done, but if you are expecting the one approach is going to mobilize voters across the board including low propensity voters who were going to try to reach out, we may be mistaken. Think is ayou solution to that, does the government need to do more and should there be more foundations that are actually targeting and reaching out to people who are chronic nonvoters or should the parties be sort of shamed into a broader message somehow . I am not sure what the governmental role in this would be. I think this is a role for Political Parties and other activists and organizations for campaign to take up on the mobilization end of things. The more we know about some of these nuances and details, the more effectively that campaigns can do their jobs. This is an area where Political Science literature has made a contribution over the past 25 years, and part of testing different modes and methods. We now have really good information about what kinds of things can effectively mobilize voters and the more and more research that is done to explore the nuances of that, of those approaches, and the types of people that are likely to be affected, the better campaigns will be able to do their job of stimulating these voters, reaching out to them anyway that actually works. Back to theto get insurgent candidate question, i think, when i was picking before about where nonvoters and the sects they fall into, i think one thing that we see answered by insurgent candidates is the system is broken. We see this on both sides, so we have donald trump, and President Trump saying drain the swamp, we have Bernie Sanders saying the system is rigged. It is actually the same message and in some ways, it is speaking to the nonvoters for both sides of the party. In terms of bringing people into the fold, i do think that insurgent candidates might have an advantage but i do not think they necessarily will win at large, whether that means winning the Electoral College or the popular vote, but i do think you bring people into the fold with messaging that speaks to the system being broken and needing change, because those people that are nonvoters who do not think the system is working quant to hear a that. Workingng the system is want to hear politician saying that. You have an academic who is suggested that they are misserving the public to some degree by targeting voters and trying to rally the base rather than appealing to nonvoters. If you are advising them, do they have anything to gain from reaching out to nonvoters, or does it seem like rallying the base is going to win . There is two different answers. I do not think it is that simple of you having to choose one or the other, but it is a multipronged approach where you have people dying to rally the base and then you have messages alsorally the base, but targeting the nonvoters in the hopes that they turn out. Obviously, we do see greater investment in those who we know are going to vote, and from a strategy perspective, you are batting 1000 on those people. From a nonvoters perspective, the investment is more risky, because you do not know if they are going to turn out. The difference between strategy and what is going to win versus what is better for democracy at large, i do not think i would advise either party to go against what is going to make them win in november. It isviously, troubling that we invest so much in the base as a whole. Just a sketch out the magnitude of the problem, it is an astonishing fact that you have 100 millipeople that could devote to are not voting, and yet, 75,000 votes in three states made the difference in the election last time, and it made the difference in all of this man. Votes had5,000 flipped, we would not be talking about Donald Trumps issues, but an entirely different conversation. There are 100 Million People who exempted themselves from the process. What does that say about american democracy. Democracy . Or folks who voted for donald trump in 2016 and did not vote in 2018, i ink that if you look at those margins and you look at michigan, you look at wisconsin, and if you look at pennsylvania. The states voted for obama in 2012, and then did not vote in 2016. Similarly, we saw really high workingclass bluecollar white voters are trump and 2016, who did not turn out again in 2018. If i were focusing on not chronic nonvoters, but folks who have voted and have shown political allegiance in some way , those are folks from both lenses that need to be remotivated. People in5,000 detroit voted for obama in 2012 and then did not vote in 2016. Having sketched out the normandy of the nonvoting thelem the enormity of nonvoting problem, because there is george will who has written many, many times, for voters who do not feel fully informed, we do not want them to participate. Just guessingre based on Party Affiliation or whylike someones name, does that help democracy to help these people out there, and the parties have obviously made a voice to try to target people who actually do have a chance to come out and vote. They are in it to win, and theres nothing wrong with that. How much should we care about people who are sort of willfully absent thing themselves absenting themselves in the process . I think we should care at least to the extent that we can give people reasons to vote and make it easy enough for them to do so if they want to. We should not necessarily be putting a gun to peoples heads to make them vote. That is not necessarily such a great thing for democracy. There are places that do that. Have voter turnout, 75, 80 percent voter turnout as they have in the australia that have compulsory voting, if we wanted to compel people to vote at the polls. I am not so sure that is a better system. It is something that even barack obama at some point suggested we should think about in this country if that is something we want that is compulsory registration, not compulsory voting. Inwell, right, but australia, you do have to vote or pay a fine. And many other countries, there are at least a couple dozen countries where voting is not a choice, you have to go vote. And there is no guarantee that those individuals are going to make wise choices. They may even cause outcomes to occurred that are less desirable for whatever reason. I think one thing to acknowledge, i do believe that we should get asthma in people as possible to vote, and i am committed to that as an individual and as a scholar trying to think about this and study it. I think it is important to point out, that if we do raise voter turnout dramatically, this will look like a different country. The kinds of policies that people support, the kinds of views out there, and the kinds of issues that politicians will support, it could look very, very different and in some ways, maybe not this early the way that we ask, that arleigh why look likeers may not we think they look. The state dispels a lot of myths. Is that we could be making Public Policy move into a more conservative direction on some issues and perhaps liberal on others. Automatically made all 100 million of the people vote in the next election, the kinds of people that would get elected and the things that they support could look very different than what we currently have. I want to remind the audience that we will be taking questions from you and about two or three minutes, so please send your questions in or we can also ask a couple of people if you want to raise your hands in a couple of minutes, i will signal for you to do so. One final question for the whole panel to discuss here. In terms of the whole getting people all in the whole cacophony what would be the one thing you would do to increase that you think would meaningfully increase turnout. I have one caveat, people seem to dwell inordinately on rules and in the night study, only a negligible amount, so i will starting with caroline. I would start an education and i think that it comes down to making sure we have engaged voters and that students are able to parse through news and parse through. That is a long term strategy, and i do not have the conundrum of turning people out in a few months, but it is a broader societal strategy. State, every line that has her publicans up for election, make sure the slot is filled, make sure the campaigns. F resources to let people know so fill ballots. I think we have to lower the barrier to get people to go to the ballots. Be to makeing to election day a holiday. Suggestion would be to make election day a holiday. Orremove barriers of work family are any of the things that are competing interests if we make election day holiday. You two. Give one is a set of rules and that is the focus on registration. Automatichat is registration or election day, sameday registration. And it is the twostep. Equirement one of the things we have seen not necessarily and more candidates, but better candidates, whatever your destination is, one of the reasons why barack obama was able to lift turnout and in 2008, it is because ee was able to inspire people. It is the kind of vision he could put forth for the country , and we need candidates that are able to do that on both sides of the aisle to be able to show people that voting is not talented andare skilled, etc. , you do not necessarily going to politics these days in our society. It used to be a very respected profession. It is becoming increasingly less respected. Maybe even dangerous for some of these people, and that is not a good place to be. Thank you. A few questions from twitter. On the political spectrum, the farleft is going further left, the farright is going further right. Voters in the middle, how can we engage them in such an environment . Do you have, any interest in the voters in the middle . [laughter] we care about all of our voters. We had to meet voters where they are, and priorities, we have a great job creating and putting out digital ads, so on the Previous Panels, one of the about gamerlked sites. A so if we target over orders on youtube, though see high volumes and traffic daily. So if we are meeting voters nonmetal wherever they dwell, then we are able to grow that base of support. Never take any voter for granted, and as we talked about, we have a longer time span to reach these voters and how we can target these voters to turn them out. I think that helps with all of this. Do you have questions from the audience . I think someone can bring you a microphone, somewhere. There we are. Wondering, the daytona 500 spectacle a couple c, days ago, do yall, the rn have people there registering people to vote . States,l of our target one of the main focus is registering voters. Our data shows that someone that we register or registered republican is 80 more likely to turn out to vote in the next election, so at any campaign rally, events like daytona, there are volunteers out there registering voters, and wanting to get bagel on the ballot, or just general data collection, so yes. Registering voters everywhere. One more question from twitter, relating to a topic we talked about a few minutes ago. Are there know were the differences between the groups . That is a question more for tonight, but having for the knight, but having studied the tends to bers, it the very disengaged voters that are more likely to be chronic nonvoters. The people who are casual nonvoters tend to be more people who have distrust in the system. Is that ring true to your experiences . Yes. Yes. [laughter] if people are really disengaged, i think it will take more at just registering them up to the polls. Question, i know this came from quentin bradley, and he has raised issues about the barriers that may be facing eligible voters with disabilities including people who have dyslexia and may have trouble dealing with the ballots. We know it is statebystate, but in your experience, is that a significant problem, that states are not commenting people with disabilities . It is actually a significant thing, if you think of people who have dyslexia, and transposing numbers, the ballot is a daunting thing to approaching you can easily imagine people skipping it entirely. Do you come across that at all . States have made tremendous progress in trying to expand access to voting for these types of voters and it is hard to cover all of the bases in all jurisdictions and all precincts across the country, but i do think that most states have accommodations in place to try to make it possible at least for some of those voters to do so. I think the expansion of early voting in many states helps in that process. There is no pressure to do that all at one time or do it through mail and ballots are absentee ballots. Question right there. You did not mention the influence of money in the election and some people think bloomberg trying to buy endorsements or surrogates, kind of like legalized prostitution or something. Uh, i am trying to discern a question but a question would be, people are concerned about money and politics and whether enormouse bloombergs theding or the on money money that goes to super pacs, wouldnt the best antidote be a higher turnout and hybridiz and participation . That might be true but im not so sure that that will diminish our need for money. Campaigns are expensive, especially national campaigns. Need money and resources, so unless we are going to think about Something Like public funding of campaigns or some way of providing resources, the candidates and campaigns will have to go out and acquire these things for themselves. It is different from spending 500 million on advertising to pursue a nomination, but we have seen very dramatic shifts in the sources of money, especially in the aftermath of Citizens United which is now open the floodgates for corporate money and super pacs and dark money to attract huge sums of money that was just much harder to do in previous years. It is really hard to get around that in the absence of a constitutional amendment. And to put some language together, and to cooperate with other states that are pursuing this, to try to do exactly that, to create a constitutional tondment that allows money be regulated in elections and properinks about the rights that corporations and other artificial entities should have in the space. This is a good final question. If you are a nonvoter inspired by an outsider candidate, what happens to those voters after the election . How do we keep them engaged in longterm and this suggestion is that we to invest in communities way before and way after elections. Is the disengagement partly a result of local communities breaking down and local politics breaking down and not alienation from the national level, but the community that is breaking down. What have you all seen . All think definitely, politics is local and if you cannot, if you are trying to get a stop sign put up on your and your local elected official will not answer your emails or letters, why would you be inspired to get involved in politics at all. I think that is right. Lets think about how this happens in practice in the u. S. We have these elections every so often, the campaigns are really excited, they are trying to win, they are recruiting voters, they are trying to speak to them, etc. , and then some win, some lose, and they more or less disappear until the next candidates that may or may not speak to these voters and may or may not try to target them. Contact,no consistent communication, relationship with voters. Campaigns or candidates develop and that is apart from incumbents. This is also a role that parties can play and in fact, local parties can help to play this role because they can have ongoing relationships with local individual voters that are part of a community of likeminded individuals in the places they live that i think will keep them engaged and keep them sustained, and keep them involved in the process. Where you and i are from, we have the old town meeting system, has that diminished . I think so, but i think we are seeing a resurgence of that. That is a good, hopeful note. It looks like we are out of time and i want to thank our panel, and also thank the Knight Foundation for making this possible. Fornt to thank all of you coming, so please stay tuned to for more events, and have a great day, thank you. [applause] season,g this election the candidates beyond the talking points are only revealed over time. But since you cannot to be everywhere, there is cspan. Programming 2020 differom polical coverage for one simple reason. It is cspan. Brought you your unfiltered view of government every day since 1979. This year, we are bringing you an unfiltered view of the people seeking to spear that government this november. This election season, go deep, direct, and unfiltered. See the biggest picture for yourself, and make up your own mind. Campaign 2020, brought to you as a Public Service by your television provider. Campaign 2020 is in nevada, friday, live at 3 00 p. M. Eastern, as President Trump speaks in las vegas ahead of the states caucus. Live coverage on cspan. Watch ondemand on cspan. Org and listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Students from across the country told us the most important issues for the president ial candidates to address our climate change. Gun violence. Teen vaping. College affordability. Mental health. And immigration. We are awarding 100,000 in total cash prizes. The winners for this years studentcam competition will be announcer the National Press foundation recently presented awards for outstanding journalism. Week the group recognizes journalists in Mental Health innovative storytelling, broadcast journalism and editorial cartoons. We hear from bob woodward, dana and night kiplinger. Announcer ladies and gentlemen, podium back to the