Vote for certain candidates. From earlier this week, this is just over an hour. Thank you for those watching by livestream. Democrats and republicans are working very hard to rally their base, and win over swing voters. But i think we all know, especially in we will see today, that by far the largest bloc of voters out there, 100 million voters, are those who do not go to the polls. That thesay enough balance of power in the United States rests in those voters. Span everyters demographic, every racial age,ratic demographic, education. Hopefully anl have enlightening panel discussion, discussing with Party Leaders how they plan to appeal to this group and get people to come to the polls. We will also discuss the interesting results of this knight study which is finally being released today, which we have all been anticipating. I want to encourage you all to follow our discussion and join the conversation on social media at politicoelctions. Quick video from our sponsors, the Knight Foundation. Thank you. Theres a crisis facing our democracy, who has the power to solve it . Is it americas voters . Or perhaps americas nonvoters . We witnessed one of the 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 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 the most important voice in america yet to be heard. Ae 100 million project is landmark study of 12,000 nonvoters, done at unprecedented scale and depth. So who are these 100 million americans . They are as diverse as this country, as different as 100 Million People can be. Many nonvoters lack basic faith in our democratic system. 38 of nonvoters say they are not confident that represent elections represent the will of the people. Many believe the system is rigged. We always think its a conspiracy theory. I think all things predetermined. I think its rigged. Nonvoters feel underinformed on politics. Yet many are college graduates, and over a third are middleclass or wealthier. Democrats, republicans, and independents make up a third of nonvoters. Half of respondents report an unfavorable view of President Trump. 40 favorable, the rest undecided. The emerging electorate, 18 to 24yearolds, are less informed, less interested in politics, less likely to vote in 20 than nonvoters overall. Are we losing a generation of voters . Im not informed on anything. I feel like my vote would be wasted. I feel like being young, people will judge you because youre not educated enough about the whole voting process. Increasing voter turnout is not just about politics. Its about the future of our democracy. To start the most important conversation of 2020, visit the 100 million. Org. Please welcome to the stage, Senior Vice President of the night foundation. Good morning. Thank you all for coming out. Thank you, politico, for organizing this important conversation. Thank you ed harris for taking time out to record that introduction. The jonathan and James L Knight havingion is focused on a stronger democracy received through engaged communities. So we commissioned the survey to understand the health of our democracy at a time when our political conversation is really focused 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, im delighted to lead a conversation with those who lead the project, he has led election polling at all levels, including for the president. Is a of Political Science leading voice on how information influences choices and decisions and democracy, she helped design the survey and do the sick to to discipline analysis. We will talk a bit about what was surprising or not about what we learned from this large voting block. , whats thestart biggest thing that jumps out to you about who the nonvoters is or is not . The amazing thing about a project like this is that so many folks, myself included, all of us, had these preconceived notions about who nonvoters are. Theres all this conventional wisdom, that they tend to be at this group and are overwhelmingly this. What we found, what the data reveals that they are like everyone. In the sense that you run the full breadth of what the american body politic looks like. Yes, there are some deviations from voting behavior, and perhaps a little more minority, a little undereducated, but nonetheless these are groups that feel the same way that voters do and in a lot of respects take the information consumption piece. They areters say following news and information about politics closely. One would think from a hypothesis level, the nonvoters are in the 20 percentile range. Lower than voters but 62 in our study say they are as versed in political issues and political news as many of the people in this room and watching on live streaming. To see that come alive in the data, and understand the reasons for why so many feel the way they do i thought was illuminating and raises a lot of questions, not just about what it means, but for what it means for democracy. Yanna, as a political scientist thinking about this group, political scientists have been talking for decades about why people do or do not engage in industrialized democracy. So what conventional wisdom was upended by this survey . One of theov tremendous benefits is that when we talk to people we ask them to selfreport, whether they are voters are nonvoters, people have a great incentive to misrepresent what they are doing. The great benefit of this study is that we knew in advance how often these people had voted. We knew exactly what they were bringing to the survey. One of the things that emerges from the study is about how people get information. A longstanding theory and Political Science is that as long as people get information, maybe not from the use, or some one in their network, from the news, but some one in the network, they will probably be ok. Of what we saw across a lot the data is that one of the greatest differences between who votes and who doesnt is whether you get your information directly from the news or whether you try to bump into it from someone else. That holds regardless of your demographic. Differences regardless of education, job, gender, everything. How you get the news matters. Potentially more than we had a thought in Political Science. Given that context, given that this has to do a lot with the sort of behaviors that , and someone whos talking a lot to campaigns and helping campaign think about how to succeed and to win, we can have highminded ideas about engaging everyone, i happen to have those ideas and mouth fed and and my foundation does. I think we will hear later for some folks really focused on the issue. In a world where the stakes are incredibly high, when we are focusing on people who are not just bumping into news, the junkies were engaged in highly persuadable. Is there anything we can do to encourage campaigns to actually think about nonvoters as being worth the time, effort, and investment . Mr. Amandi absolutely, in the theme of mist bus myth busting and the way the Data Destroys this conventional wisdom, one of the things i think a lot of people believe or inherently think about nonvoters is that it overwhelmingly favors one party over another. End of one party were to overwhelmingly cultivate this group of voters they would win every election and have a permanent majority. Thats not what we saw. Its pretty evenly split. A third of the nonvoters support the Republican Party, a third support the democratic party, and a third are what you might independent or even quasipersuadable. What has always been the challenge . Research resource limitation. News outlets say its interesting but we dont have the resources to engage this segment of the electorate. I think what the Study Reveals is that theres a first mover advantage for these campaigns. Whoever gets to them might enhance their prospects of winning, in spite of the fact that some people would say dont go after them as much because they are not likely to vote. They have shown that they have strongly held beliefs. Mr. Gill does that have to follow . Is that something we can expect from a president ial campaign or will this have to happen in municipal elections and county elections, who is going to be willing to say, im going to make a big upfront investment because i think im activating a constituency that will have a good lifetime value. Campaigns are like the nfl, all 31 other teams immediately copy, i think the first campaign, whether its a president ial campaign or whether its the culture of municipal campaign, they see that theres a chance and its worth the engagement. And they can show that it puts them over the top, it may have a force effect and changes the culture of how these voters or nonvoters are engaged. So thinking about what it would take, as a campaign or social movement, to activate these folks, who you already mentioned, one of the key vectors is really whether you actively encounter news or bump into it. We used to have a model that would do both. Viablet as economically as it used to be, it is something we are working on at the Knight Foundation. In the information environment we live in, where we are all increasingly bumping and information more, what are some andhe more promising levers areas of behavior where you think campaigns or others, about information or anything that folks should be focused on based on this survey. Dr. Krupnikov one of the things that emerges is that people are more likely to vote when their networks vote, familys friends, people they work with. And this survey reinforces these ideas, the people who are not voting file certain disengagement from their community. They are less happy in general. To activate these people, i think its not necessarily treating them as individuals, but engaging whole communities, and suggesting to whole communities that have often been disengaged that there is something worthwhile about their voices. Once you get people within communities to encourage each other, that would lead to these Network Effects of Political Science, to talk about people encouraging other to turn out to vote, to participate, and to even follow the news. In some sense, there is this privilege that you could spend a lot of time following the news that many do not. Really reinforce those Network Effects, and reinforce those kinds of connections that people might have and use those connections to encourage people to participate politically, i think thats the most promising avenue for increasing interest and participation. To go a little deeper into this, we are into the work coming back into vogue. As people face the sentiment of disconnection and disengagement, whether its with National Politics or with community, certainly that school of thought would agree with what you just said, its really about who you know and how you associate with them, that this is being done in your community. But some people say look, the places where that happens are gone. Others would say theyre just happening in places, online. How do you, in your work, should we be helpful that we can regain this networks, or is really about rebuilding institutions and communities that are, at the very least, stressed . Research says the that we do not need bob putnam style bully leagues. Networks actually exist all around us, they exist in our families and religious communities. And certainly online. There is research to suggest that if your online friends report that they vote you are more likely to do so. I think the institutions are there, its just a matter of reaching people within these communities who are pressure points who might actually suggest to their friends and neighbors and families that there is something worthwhile to you being engage with politics, that it is something you should put your time into. Mr. Gill in the last word to you, think about that through the political lunch, lens, is there a message there that a campaign can embrace that talks about this active contribution to community and democracy mr. Amandi . Mr. Amandi i take a cynical and democracy . Mr. Amandi i take a cynical and somewhat skeptical approach. I have seen a small target pool of voters in south florida, 100 million americans concentrated in every state, this is not a sub fringe group, and as was alluded to, what you see in the media fragmentation as you see younger demographics less likely to engage in traditional media. Campaigns in their culture need to do a better job of meeting nonvoters where they are. And not only on traditional media websites but gaming platforms, they are watching tv shows, they are completely isolated on the phone from those partition all traditional means of dissemination. In those campaigns that see it as an opportunity and the Value Proposition that the opportunity could lead to electoral gains, i think that could change the culture but they have to be willing to make those risks. Mr. Gill thank you for leading the study and thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. Please welcome back to the stage, editor at large, peter s. Nalis canello mr. Canellos i want to thank our first panel for that insightful presentation. I also want to remind people that you can participate in the discussion through politicoelections. And we will be taking some questions later on. About here now to talk 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. Joined,y honored to be starting on my left with the managing director for morning consult, a polling operation networks with politico that does an outstanding survey. And we have the deputy political director of the republican committee. The director of pac, and itic super wanted to start off asking matt a question. The numbers that came out of the study had some good news for President Trump. That was in every speech swing state with the exception of georgia there was a plurality of nonvoters who supported President Trump. This is surprising, think those of us following this issue would assume that nonvoters were skewing more liberal. In fact, nonvoters were even more than voters pro trump. So think of a state like arizona, where welltodo suburbanites were trending more towards democrats. Trucksf guys in pickup are supporting President Trump, but they may not be registered, and if they are registered they might not be voting. How do you contend with that at the rnc . First im not surprised, but its interesting. When i look back at this, i think the question of nonvoters, most of us would never understand what that would be like, we cant always wait to vote because its like our super bowl. So thinking of people who do not of thed why, if the job Republican National committee and the trunk campaign to go out there and find those voters in a state like arizona and figure out what motivates them to turn out the vote. So we are fortunate to have a huge ground again that has been on the ground, engaging people now to figure out why they wont vote, and how we can motivate them to go vote and delivering a message to turn them out. We have all this time. On the left they are dealing with figuring out who is their nominee, time is on our side which is very valuable in politics. Matt, theres been a lot of attention to republican secretaries of states in some of the states that have had voter purges of hundreds of thousands of voters who just have not voted, and as he was two of the last two elections. If you imagine the arizona comparison, 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. A lot ofdailer secretary of states take different approaches, in West Virginia they refused to purge the roles forever because they were seeing gains there. But Voter Registration is a priority. The secretary of state can decide how they want to do. But from a data perspective we are focused on these people, we Pay Attention to people who come off the rolls, and if we know that they are republican we figure out if they are still there and how do we reregister them to get active again. Mr. Canellos imagine the conversation if one of the secretaries of states came to the rnc and they say we want to enact these voter purge laws with that hurt us . What would your response be . Mr. Dailer i would say it would not appear we want the best data available, so every state has a voter file which shows who is registered to vote on that day, and we purchase that list. So we need the best data available. The secretary of state will purge the role of inactive voters, that makes it easier to figure out who we can target to turnout. Kristal, for parties trying to motivate liberal leaning voters, it showed that the most dedicated voters are women, but the most dedicated nonvoters are women. In the category of voters that was the most disengage, 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. Weve all heard about the womens march and womens engagement and women are never more engaged than the are right now. Theres a Huge Community that is not. What can be done from your point of view to get those people out . Ms. Knight 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 prescription just as men are. 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, 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. When i think about all of my priorities, i think maybe im not as engaged around the candidates that are in the race, 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. Mr. Canellos are you concerned among Democratic Women their sort of a feeling that the court the core issues of pay equity, abortion rights, family leave, that they are just going to naturally motivate me to come to the polls and that may not, in fact, be the case . Ms. Knight i think those issues are important to women. I also think they are important to men. But i 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 a woman who is been laid off from gm, for example, and i see that the top executives are getting tax breaks by the president , and maybe i feel like the system really isnt working for me. And so i have to figure out which candidate is speaking to my issues . Do they care about me . Do i see myself, my life Getting Better under this particular candidate . 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, 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 . Ms. Bye i think there are two main camps of nonvoters i think one, we have low information voter who is not that interested in learning a ton about policy politics, because maybe theyre just not interested. One of the top reasons we see surveys as to why people dont vote is not necessarily because they dont have the time to vote, but because they are not interested in politics to begin with. I think the other half might be interested but they think the system is broken, and i think on both the republican and democratic sides, we have candidates who are speaking to that half of the nonvoters segment. But weve yet to figure out a solution, 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 in those voters. Ms. Bye mr. Canellos i would ask you and others can sort of weight in common is that we always 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 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 they want to know more and just cant get the information . Ms. Bye yeah. I think most of us in d. C. See cnn in, 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 polls. The polar opposite. So we have far less getting further left. We have the farright getting further right. 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 fact driven media, how we focus on data in media, we focus on having representative reporters in media, and just renewing that faith and that understand 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 two or the four on the ideological skill. Scale. So speaking where people are i think is a promising prospect. Mr. Canellos i would invite our other panels 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 backandforth of negative ads and super packed super pac advertising things like that. It becomes plausible when you see all of that, that people can be really confused. You you see all essential 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 . Dr. Panagopoulos 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 seem 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 heuristics, party labels is a great example. The choice to vote for people were 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 friend with the Previous Panel talk 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, raise huge sums of money and that does have the potential to just hire tire people. Mr. Canellos 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 voters 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 . What did you find . Dr. Panagopoulos its not just my research but its all sorts of research that has examined these types of voting queues, the kinds of information people use. We might think of that as information thats not great or that useful, thats not the way that voters should be making up their mind. But if its important to those voters, if thats a signal thats relevant to them and is useful to them, if they want to support a woman or someone of a particular ethnic background nor race, someone with a particular type of experience. Some of the research i have done has looked at the impact of having served in the military as a voting queue. For some voters thats an important feature, and if they happen to know that and its important to them, why should they not vote on that piece of information . Or other cues they pick up in different places which may not be viewed by experts and aalysts as a nice package of fully vetted candidacy. But its important to those voters, and theres nothing illegitimate about using that as a rationale for casting a vote. Ms. Bye mr. Canellos in terms of the cacophony, do you find very contentious negative advertising actually works . Is that what you want to go in kristal . A race, ms. Knight it depends, right now we are focusing on trump accountability, it looks different in florida, michigan, pennsylvania. 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 were really affected, by Health Care Rising cost of prescriptions, or whatever the issues are in those states and then speak to so voters in those states, key Battle Ground states that we identify through our polling, research and analytics, so were messaging them directly to what they want to hear, what they care about. Mr. Canellos 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 . Mr. Dailer well, i mean, the question, does negative advertising work . Of course it does. 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 get away 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. And people might get confused from it, what to believe. People dont Pay Attention to the disclaimers of 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 have to go negative. Thats what you have to do and unfortunately thats a part of politics. Mr. Canellos i want to go back to something you had said earlier that was relevant to our later conversation. You talk about the intensive targeting that goes on. 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 . Mr. Dailer lets go back 20 years in 2000. All right . Most states didnt have early voting yet so only had 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 the 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. Mr. Canellos how do you choose which voters to target. Based on enrollment . Mr. Dailer it all goes back to data for the Republican National committee. We invested over 200 million since 2020 in the data and we use microtargeting and consumer data to dump that in there. I mean, an example would be with the president s rallies. Like we see large amounts of people that turned out to the rallies that didnt vote in 2016, are not registered to vote or registered democrats, right . So thats very interesting to us. Weve got to figure out who they are. So the data team adjusts all of that, use that to model and we have to go talk to these people and figure out, ok, this is interesting. This section of people might be with us. Lets find out if they are or not and decide yes, they are, expand to other states. If not, weve got to find someone else. Describe to us, also, theres mr. Canellos describe to us, also, theres been a major demographic change with trump at the head of the Republican Party as opposed to previous nominees. How has that played out . What have you noticed in your research, that its a less affluent demographic, perhaps more casual voters that are responding to President Trump . Mr. Dailer yeah, i mean, he delivers a message that resonates with people, it resonates with nonvoters, thats the left behind americans, that feel like theyve been snubbed in some way or another and now, we have all of this, the administration has accomplished so much we have all of this to talk about and i think that will bring people back into the fold kind of what the research says, you know, of course im going to vote now, which we were talking about, of course youre going to say youre going to vote. Why would you not act like youre patriotic and doing your civic duty, but i think the president has brought in people that traditionally just didnt feel like it mattered and hes done such a good job at delivering, you know, the message that he cares for them and it widens up the demographic of voters that we can target. Its similar to president obama, what he did. And he was a movement. I believe that President Trump is as well. Mr. Canellos that goes to the point of insurgent candidacies. So another reason that people cited for not voting, either they dont believe the system works for them or they dont think that their vote is going to matter. Nothing is ever going to change. Ill ask the whole panel. People can weigh in on this. Do we need more insurgent candidates to sort of wake up the electorate . And we could start with you, kristal, do they need an out two democrats need an outsider nominee to get people to the pole . Ms. Knight well, i think the democratic on the democratic side, we have a very spicy primary right now, and we will well wait. I mean, priorities, we dont have an opinion who becomes the nominee. We will support the democratic nominee whom ever he or she is. I think we do have some insurgent candidates on the democratic side. We have some traditional candidates. We have some moderate candidates, but i think the one of the things about the primary and the long process of it is, were able to identify these nonvoters. Were able to identify our base and expand our electorate. Because you have so many options and people to choose from. I think as were seeing right now, this primary process play out, we will, you know, ultimately determine who will be the candidate of our party and how they will, you know, build the base and make sure everyone is brought in for this election. You know, i think that insurgent candidacies do have the capacity to excite people who may not be excited by the traditional candidate, mainstream establishment candidates, et cetera. But the question is, depending on the outcome, what happens to those voters . Do they stay engaged . Do they stay motivated. Either their candidate loses or you know, iulos think that insurgent candidacies do have the capacity to excite people who may not be excited by the traditional candidate, mainstream establishment candidates, et cetera. But the question is, depending on the outcome, what happens to those voters . Do they stay engaged . Do they stay motivated. Either their candidate loses or if their candidate wins, as in the case of obama in 2008, and then they realize that they still have to go through the same political process that is slow and gradual and incremental, and thats not necessarily going to deliver the type of wholesale dramatic shift that they expected that someone new and fresh coming in was going to be able to deliver for them. We have to reset expectations for voters in this country to square with the institutional arrangement that the rest of the political system, through the constitution puts into place. And thats part of the issue. And i do want to speak to the targeting issue, first of all, targeting dont always work. Sometimes it can actually back fire. But its the case that parties are increasingly focusing their attention on the base or on dedicated voters. All right . And part of the problem with chronic nonvoting is that campaigns and parties and other types of groups are just not going to focus on those voters. They fish where the fish are. Right . So they are constantly reaching out to those voters who through microtargeting and other means, they know are likely to vote and theyre going to spend resources targeting those types of voters. If youre a nonvoter or if you have a low propensity voter, youre unlikely to get contacted or mobilized in the first place and thats a big issue. Its one thing that Political Science literature has also shown is that mobilization is important and its crucial. Some people are intrinsically motivated to vote and others are intrinsic factors and others asked you to do so. Sometimes its a party, a neighbor, a teacher, an employer, its a political candidate. But nonvoters are simply not being asked to vote, in part because of their history of nonvoting and that just kind of cascades into this, you know, selffulfilling situation of chronic nonvoting and i would also point out that in context that there is no one size fits all mode of voter mobilization. The types of things that work for low propensity voters are not necessarily the types of things that are going to work as effectively for higher propensity voters and its important to keep assessing that, keep figuring that out. We have some knowledge about that from studies and other tests that have been done, but if youre expecting that one approach is going to mobilize voters across the board, including low propensity voters who were going to try to reach out to, we may be mistaken. Mr. Canellos what do you think is the solution to that, though. Does the government need to do more . Should there be more foundations like knight 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 . Dr. Panagopoulos im not sure what the governmental role would be for this. I think this is a role for Political Parties and other activists and organizations, for campaigns to take up on the mobilization end of things, and i think the more we know about some of these nuances and details, the more effectively campaigns can do their job. And i think that this is an area in which the Political Science literature has made an enormous contribution over the pass 20, 25 years in part through randomized experiments. Which test different approaches and methods, we have really good information about what kinds of things can effectively mobilize voters and i think the more and more research thats done to explore the nuances of that, of those approaches and the types of people theyre likely to be effective on, i think the better campaigns will be able to do their job of stimulating these voters, reaching out to them in a way that actually works. Ms. Bye i think just quickly, to get back to the insurgent candidate question, i think when i was speaking before about where nonvoters or the two sects that they fall into it, we have low information and those that are high information that think but think the system is broken. I think one thing that we see answered by insurgent candidates is the system is broken, and we see this on both sides. So we have donald trump and President Trump saying, drain the swamp. We have bernie sanders, senator sanders, saying the system is rigged. Its actually the same message and in some ways it is speaking to the nonvoter for both sides of the party. So in terms of bringing people into the fold, i do think insurgent candidates might have an advantage. I dont necessarily think that it means that theyre going to win at large, whether that means winning the Electoral College or the popular vote, but i think that you bring people into the fold with messaging that speaks to the system being spoken and needing change because those people that are nonvoters that dont think the system is working dont want to hear that. Mr. Canellos and caroline, you have independent perspectives here, and representatives of the Republican Party and representatives of the democratic movement. You have an academic who has suggested theyre misserving the public to some degree by targeting voters, trying to rally the base rather than appealing to nonvoters. If you are advising them, do they have anything to gain by reaching out to nonvoters or does it seem like rallying the base is really going to win . Ms. Bye there are two answers, i dont think its that simple you have to choose one or the other. I think its a multipronged approach where you have people that are trying to rally the base and you have messages that rally the base, but you at the same time targeting those nonvoters in the hopes that they turn out. Obviously we do see greater investment in the those who we know. From a strategy perspective, and youre batting a thousand on those people, right . But from a nonvoter perspective, the investment is a little more risky because you dont know if theyre going to turn out. You can invest and hope they will. The difference between strategy and whats going to win versus whats better for democracy at large, i dont think i would advise either party to go against whats going to make them win in november, but obviously there it is troubling that we invest so much in the base as a whole. Mr. Canellos but just to sketch out the sort of magnitude of the problem. Its an astonishing fact that you have 100 Million People who could vote that are know the 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 the spin, too, right . Because those 75,000 votes flipped, we wouldnt be talking about Donald Trumps issues, we wouldnt be talking about the border. We wouldnt be talking about the same thing. I mean entirely different conversation yet, there are 100 Million People who exempted themselves from the process. What does that say about american democracy . Ms. Bye yeah, and i think that chronic nonvoters are different than, say, nonvoters who voted for obama in 2012 and then didnt vote in 16 or folks who voted for donald trump in 2016 and didnt vote in 2018. And i think that if you look at those margins. If you look at michigan, if you look at wisconsin, if you look at pennsylvania, 4 in each of those states voted for obama in 2012 and then didnt vote in 2016 and similarly, we saw really high turnout among working class blue collar white voters for trump in 2016 who didnt turn out again in 2018. And so, 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, just thinking about detroit, 75,000 people in detroit voted for obama in 2012 and then did not vote in 2016. So mr. Canellos now, having sketched out the sort of enormity of the nonvoting problem, there are people like the commentator george will has written many, many times, if voters dont feel fully informed, we dont really want them to participate. I mean, i can tell from your earlier comment that your view is very, very different than that. Come on, if people are guessing based on Party Affiliation and like the sound of somebodys name. Why does that help democracy to have these people out there . And the parties have obviously made a choice to try to target people who actually do have a chance to come out to vote. They, you know, theyre in it to win, you know, theres nothing wrong with that. So, how much should we care about people who are sort of willfully absenting themselves from the process . Well, i thinkos we should care at least to the extent that if we can give people reasons to vote and give them 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, right . Thats not necessarily such a great thing for democracy. There are places that do that, right . We could have voter turnout, you know, 75, 80 voter turnout as they have in australia and other places that have compulsory voting if we wanted to compel people to go to the polls. Im not so sure that its such a better system. Its something that even barack obama at one point suggested we should think about in this country if thats something we want. Mr. Canellos thats compulsory registration, not compulsory voting. Youre not dragging people bye people well, inopoulos australia they do have compulsory voting or pay a fine. Mr. Canellos really . Dr. Panagopoulos and other countries in the world where voting is not a choice, you have to go vote and theres no guarantee that those individuals are going to make wise choices. They may even cause outcomes to occur that are less desirable for whatever reason. And i think one thing to acknowledge, and i do believe we should get as many people as possible to vote and im committed to that as an individual and as a scholar trying to think about this and study it, right . But i think its 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 kind of views that are out there, the kinds of issues that politicians will support, et cetera, could look very, very different and in some ways, maybe not in necessarily in the ways that we expect, and i think thats partly what the knight findings show is that these nonvoters may not look like we think they look like. This data dispels a lot of myths and one could be that we could be making Public Policy move in a more conservative direction on some issues, liberal direction on other issues, et cetera. And if we all made all 100 million vote in the next election, the kinds of people that would get elected and things they support could look very different than what we currently have. Mr. Canellos i want to remind the audience that we will be taking questions from you in about two or three minutes. So please send your questions in or we can also add a couple of people if you want to raise your hands in a couple of minutes, ill signal for you to do so. One final question for the whole panel to discuss here, in terms of the whole sort of getting people to the polls cacophony will be thetion, one thing you would do that you think would most meaningfully increased turnout . And the caveat, people seem to dwell inordinately on rules and only a negligible amount of people cited voting rules. What is one thing that you think would increase turnout starting with caroline . Ms. Bye so this is a much longer, broader strategy, but i think i would start in education. I think that it comes down to making sure we have civicallyminded and engaged voters. I think it comes down to making sure that students are able to news and want to parse through news and create a culture of civic education. Thats longterm strategy. I dont have the conundrum of needing to turn people out in a few months here, but i think for me its a broader societal strategy. Mr. Dailer fill the ballot and every line that has a republican up for election, make sure that spot is filled. Make sure the campaign has resources to let people know they are running. And i think you see a swell of Ground Support because of local support which affects the whole ticket. So fill ballots. Ms. Knight i think we have to lower the barrier for people to go to the ballot. So my suggestion would be to make election day a holiday. That way we give every single american who wants access to vote the opportunity to vote. We remove any barriers of, you know, work or family or any of the things that are competing interests in one day to vote if we make election day a holiday. Dr. Panagopoulos i will give you one is a rule or set of two, rules, that is to focus on registration, that anything, either automatic registration or election day, same day registration, we know that one of the Biggest Barriers to voting is this twostep requirement of having to be registered in order to do so. But i also think it would help to recruit better candidates and one of the things weve seen in, not necessarily more candidates, but better candidates, right . Whatever your definition is, i mean, one of the reasons why barack obama was able to lift turnout so much in 2008 is because he inspired people. He inspired people with his message, but also, who he was as an individual, the kind of vision that he could put forth for the country that spoke to voters who were not necessarily voting. We need candidates who are able to do that on both sides of the aisle, to be able to show people that voting is not just if youre talented and skilled, et cetera, you dont necessarily go into politics these days in our society. It used to be a very respected profession and its becoming increasingly less respected, maybe even dangerous for some of these people. And thats not a good place to be if were losing talent to the private sector and to other areas when they could be Public Servants who are properly compensated, properly respected and rewarded and elevated as being contributors in this way. Mr. Canellos we have 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 . Any thoughts . Do you have any interest in the voters in the middle . [laughter] ms. Knight i think we care about all of our voters. Again, it goes back to messaging. We have to meet voters where they are. Priorities. We have a great job creating and putting out digital ads, so on the Previous Panels, one of the gentlemen talked about gamer sites. That is a place that has a high volume of traffic of people not engaged in the civic process. Votersre targeting our where they are on social media, youtube, those see high volumes and traffic daily. So if we are meeting voters in the middle wherever they dwell in their lives then we are , able to grow that base of support. Yeah. 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. Mr. Canellos do you have questions from the audience . I think someone can bring you a microphone, somewhere. There we are. I was just wondering, the daytona 500 spectacle a couple of days ago, do yall, the rnc, have people there registering people to vote . Mr. Dailer in all of our target states, one of the main focus is es right now 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, getting people to sign petitions, whether to get people on the ballot or just general data collection, so yes, registering voters everywhere. Mr. Canellos one more question from twitter, relating to a topic we talked about a few minutes ago. Can we speak to the breakdown between chronic nonvoters and voters who vote sporadically . Are there know were the differences between the groups . That is actually a question more for knight, but having studied the knight numbers, it tends to be the very disengaged voters are more likely to be chronic nonvoters. The people who are casual nonvoters tend to be more people who have distrust in the system. Does that ring true to your experiences . Ms. Bye yes. Mr. Dailer yes. [laughter] mr. Canellos to add a comment to that, if people are really disengaged, i think it will take registering them to get them out to the polls. One more question. This i know this came from quinton bradley, who is putting together a group to deal with this. 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. Voting as 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 . Mr. Panagopoulos 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 in one day at one time or do it through mail and ballots are or absentee ballots. Mr. Canellos question right there. Yeah. You did not mention the influence of money in the election, and some people think of 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 it is Mike Bloombergs enormous spending or just the sheer unlimited spending that goes to super pacs and things wouldnt , the best antidote be a higher turnout and participation . Is that something you feel . The more people vote, the more the power of money is diminished . Mr. Panagopoulos that might be true but im not so sure that that will diminish our need for money. Campaigns are expensive, especially national campaigns. Candidates need money and resources, so unless we are going to think about Something Like public funding of campaigns or some way of providing these 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 sorry to say it but 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. I happen to be cochair of a commission that started in massachusetts by Ballot Initiative in november of to put 2018 some language together and to cooperate with other states that are pursuing this, to try to do exactly that, to create a constitutional amendment that allows money to be regulated in elections and that thinks about the proper rights that corporations and other artificial entities should have in the space. Mr. Canellos this is a good question as a final question. The actual question here is, 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 . The solution this person suggests is that we to invest in communities way before and way after elections. That goes to the question, is the disengagement partly a result of local communities breaking down and local politics breaking down, it is not alienation from the national level, it is the community that is breaking down . What have you all seen . You can each take a shot. Mr. Dailer i think definitely, all politics is local and if you cannot if you are trying to get a stop sign put up on your street and your local elected official will not answer your emails or letters, why would you be inspired to get involved in politics at all . Mr. Panagopoulos i think that is right. Lets think about how this happens in practice in the u. S. We have these elections every so often. These 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. Poor reach out to them. There is no consistent contact, communication, relationship with voters. That campaigns or candidates develop a part from say 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. Mr. Canellos where you and i are from, we have the old town meeting system. Has that diminished . Mr. Panagopoulos i think so, but i think we are seeing a resurgence of that. Mr. Canellos that is a good, hopeful note. It looks like we are out of time. I want to thank our panel, and also thank the Knight Foundation for making this wonderful event possible. I want to thank all of you for coming, everybody in the audience. Lee stay tuned to political life for more information on events, and have a great day. Thank you so much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] and some news about nonvoters. A new Knight Foundation poll interviewed 12,000 people who said they dont vote. The findings were reported and include the nonvoters that they are less educated or younger and more likely to be women than those who do vote. Lean nonvoters slightly democratic overall but favor President Trump in some key states. The poll shows it is possible some of these nonvoters will vote in 2020, but many say the main reason they vote is because they feel disengaged. Read more at fivethirtyeight. Com. We have more from camping 2020 today with President Trump. He is holding a Campaign Rally in las vegas. We will see that life today at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. We will have that for you on cspan and on cspan. Org or listen live with the free cspan radio app. Some Upcoming Campaign events to tell you about. The nevada caucus is tomorrow