Good morning. Please welcome to the stage politico editor at large peter canellos. [applause] 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 States rests in those voters. These nonvoters span every demographic, and the 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 night study that is finally being released today, and 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, hashtag politico elections. 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 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. Who are these 100 million americans . They are as diverse as of this country, as different as 100 Million People can be. Many nonvoters lack basic faith in our democratic system. 38 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. 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 make up onethird of nonvoters. Half of response reported an unfavorable view of President Trump 40 favorable and the rest undecided. Emerging electorate, 1824yearolds, are less informed, less interested in politics, less likely to vote in 2020 nonvoters overall. I was losing a generation of voters . Im not informed than anything so 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 the the 100 million. Org. Please welcome to the stage Senior Vice President and chief Program Officer of the Knight Foundation, sam gill. [applause] 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. The Knight Foundation is focused on supporting a stronger democracy through more informed engage communities, and so led by our director 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 the markers is about engaging the many. To kick things off today im really delighted to be able to lead conversation first with fernand amandi who led the project who runs bendixenamandi which is a legendary south floridabased survey firm. 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 large voting bloc. Fernand, like to start with you. Whats the biggest thing that jumps out to you about who the nonvoter is or isnt based on the cervix . 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 overwhelming of this. What we found in the study with the data reveals is they are like everyone in america. In the sense 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 leaning perhaps a little more minority, little more under educated but nonetheless these are groups of people that feel the same way that voters do. In a lot of respects take information consumption peace. 82 of voters said that they are following news and information about politics very closely. One would think from hypothesis level but nonvoters are probably in the 20 percentile range. Granted they are logan lookingd for 62 in her 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 reason for why some 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. As a political scientist thinking about what we learned about this group through really one of the largest studies ever come whats political scientist and talking for decades about why people do or dont engage in industrialized democracies. So what conventional wisdom was offended by the survey . One of the tremendous benefits of the survey is that often when we talk to people we asked them to selfreport, whether their voters are nonvoters, people have great incentive misrepresent what theyre doing. A great benefit of this study is that we knew in advance how often his 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 site 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 okay. 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. That is a result that holds regardless of a demographic differences, regardless of education, your job, gender, pretty much everything, how you get the 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 have, 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. But well hear later from some of the folks who are focused on issue of persuasion. In a in a world where the stakee incredibly high, when it comes to focusing on the few people who are not just bumping into news 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 comes 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 probably favors one party over another. That if one party were just too overwhelming 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 which my call and 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 dont have the resources to engage this segment of the electorate. What i think the study revealed is there is a first mover advantage for this campaigns, whoever gets to them first might actually enhance the 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 beliefs and strongly held beliefs about. 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 election, 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 would have a good lifetime value. Its the 64 million caution. Campaign to like the nfl. Whenever theres an innovation in the nfl, all 31 other teams copy. The First Campaign with us 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 to effect the 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 mention one of the key vectors is whether you actively encounter news or bump into. We used to have a model where you would to both called the newspaper. Its that is economically viable as it used to be. Obviously working on intensely at the Knight Foundation. In the information five and we live in one in which we are all increasing bumping into information more, what are soe of the more promising levers, areas of behavior that you think campaigns or others information or anything that folks should be focused on based on the survey . One of the things that emerges in Political Science research the people are more likely to vote when their networks vote, family, friends, people they work with. 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. To activate these people its not necessarily treating them as individuals but approaching whole communities, engaging whole communities and suggesting to whole community is that of often been disengaged for decades there something worthwhile about their voices. Once you get people within a community to encourage each other, that would lead to these networks that political scientist talk of work people encourage each other 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. 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 i think that would be the most promising avenue for increasing both interest and dissipation. 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 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 a spouse. This about how you associate with them, since this act is being voucherize 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 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 . Research suggests that we dont need bob putnam style building links to great connections and to create networks. Networks exist all around us. They exist in our families. A still exist in religious communities and certainly online. Theres Research Suggests if you are your online friends report that you put your 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 the 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 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 swing state of florida, Puerto Ricans or maybe cubans, small target pool of voters. These are 100 million americans, con street in every state. This isnt a some fringe group. What you need to see a special 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. They are not always on the traditional media websites. They are on gaming platforms. They are watching tv shows the sometime has nothing to with politics or on the phone, completely isolated from traditional needs 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. Really appreciate it. [applause] please welcome back to the stage Political Editor at large peter canellos. [applause] first of all i want to thank bread and yanna and sam furr that their insightful presentation. Also want to remind people that you can participate in the discussion my 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 were nonvoters and how the Political Parties are going to be contending with this in the 2020 election. Im very great honor to be joined starting on my left with caroline bye whos a managing director for morning consult, thats a political operation that works with politico. It doesnt outstanding survey. 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 priorith is a democratic super pac, and doctor Costas Panagopoulos from Northeastern University up in my old stomping grounds of boston. To start off i i want to ask mt the 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 exception of georgia there was a pirelli of nonvoters who actually supported tool. This was very surprising because those of us who followed follos 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 United States 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 that may not be voting. How are you going to continue with that at the rnc . First of all not surprise there all supporting President Trump. But with that, i mean, its very interesting i put 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 so its like our super bowl. Thinking that people who didnt vote and why whitey did not vo, right . 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. Selectively 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 that 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 leftright now they are figuring out who the nominee is going to be. We are already to be able to do this at 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 and some of the state 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 e a lot of those casual voters are trump voters. Are you concerned 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 the debt the democratic registration with also much and republicans which show their gains there. Their registration is a priority. Again secretaries of state decide what they want to do but from the data perspective with a focus on these people. We Pay Attention to movers lists, endstate come 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 against. 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 with that hurt us . What would your response be . I would say it would not hurt us. We want the best Data Available to every state has a data file that shows whos registered to vote on that day. Will update that we bought 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 law voters, one of surprising results of the study was that it showed both the most dedicated voters are women also 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 . I think that statistic was very surprising, number one, t 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 be, 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. Are you concerned among Democratic Women their sort of a feeling that the court 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 . I think those issues are important to women. I also think they are important to me and. 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 a woman who is been laidf 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 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 expenses . 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 is maybe theyre 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. I think on both sides, about republican and democratic side, we have candidates who are speaking to that half of the nonvoter 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. 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 . Yeah. I think most of us in d. C. 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 letter with the fr right 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 point incessantly shows on an ideological scale most people dont exist at the one or the five. They exist at the two two or te four on the ideological skill. So speaking where people are i think is a promising prospect. 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 advertising things like that. It becomes plausible when you see all of that, the people cn be really confused. You you see all essential chargs 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 wanted 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 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 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 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 . 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. Served in the military for some its a feature and why shouldnt they vote on that piece of information or other sorts of cues that they pick up in different places that may not be viewed by experts and analyzes as a nice package of a fully vetted candidacy, but its important to those voters and that theres nothing illegitimate as using that as a basis or rationale for casting a votements in terms of the caw this, do you see that negative advertising works that thats what you want to go into a race or not . It depends, so we do our tiding based upon the issues of the state. Right now, were focused on trump accountability. It looks different in florida, looks different in michigan, wisconsin, 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 actually affected by the economy, by health care, by rising costs of prescription or whatever the issues are in those states and then speak to those issues. 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. Now, 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. 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 look at the disclaimers, who and 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. I want to go to something you said earlier, too, to the 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 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. How do you choose which voters to target. Based on enrollment . All goes back to data for the Republican National committee rate. 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. And they adjust that and use that to model and we have to go talk to these people and figure out, okay, 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 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 . 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. 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 changement 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. Democrats, they need to have an outsider nominee to get people to change their habits and get to the polls . 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 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 about 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. 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 . What ments im 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 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. 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. 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 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 wayses 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. 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 were advising this them, do they have anything to gain by reaching out to nonvoters or does it seem like rally the base is going to win . 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. 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. 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 . 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 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, he think we should care, at least i think 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. Thats compulsory registration, not compulsory voting. Youre not dragging people ments well, in australia they do have compulsory voting or pay a fine. Really . 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. 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 caw caucaphony, what would you increase that you would meaningfully increase turnout . And the caveat, people seem to dwell inordinately on rules and only so many mentioned to voting. What is one thing that you think would increase turnout starting with caroline . 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 pars through news and want to pa parse through news and education. Thats longterm strategy. I dont have the conundrum of turning them out in a few months and thats a strategy. 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 know theyre running and i think you see a swell of Ground Support because of local support which affects the whole ticket. So fill ballots. 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. Ill give you to one or one is a rule or set of 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 i mean, we dont do 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. Well, thank you, we have a few questions here from twitter. One of them is on the political spectrum, the far left is going further left. The far light is going further right. Voters in the middle, how can we engage them in such an environment . Any thoughts that people are saying for the parties . Do you have any interest on the voters in the middle or just inspiring. Got to show up that day. [laughter] yes, i think we care about all of our voters and i think we have to, again, it goes back to messaging. We have to meet voters where they are. Priorities, we do a great job, you know, creating and putting out digital ads and so, on the Previous Panel, one of the gentlemen spoke about meeting voters on gaming sites. Thats a place that has high volume of traffic of people who are engaged in the civic process, so if were targeting our voters exactly where they are, on social media, obviously, on youtube, those sites see high volumes of traffic daily. So if were meeting voters in the middle wherever they, you know, dwell in their daytoday lives then were able to grow that base of support. Yes, i mean, never take any voter for granted, right . And as we kind of talked about, we have a longer time span to like venture these voters and how we can target the voters to turn them out. I think that helps with all of this. Do we have questions from the audience there . Yes. [inaudible] i think somebody can bring you a microphone somewhere. There we are. I was just wondering, the daytona 500 spectacle a couple of days ago, do you all have people, rnc have people there registering people to vote . So, i mean, in all of our target states, one of the main focuses right now is registering voters. Our data shows that someone that we register or a new registered republican is 80 more likely to vote in the next election. So any at any Campaign Rally, event like daytona, there are volunteers out there registering voters, getting people to sign petitions, whether its to get people on the ballot or just a general data collection. So, yeah, registered voters everywhere. One more question for twitter, and we talked about a few minutes ago, can we speak to the breakdown of nonvoters in the study between chronic nonvoters and people who vote sporadically . Are there noteworthy differences between those groups . Thats actually a question more for knight, but having studied the knight numbers, the difference in the group tends to be in the numbers of people that are in that very disengaged level that the very disengaged voters are more likely to be chronic nonvoters. The people who are casual nonvoters tend to be more people who have trust in the system. Does that ring true to your experiences . Yes. [laughter] thats right. And it does speak i mean, just add a comment to that, people are really disengaged. I think its going to take more than registering them to get nem them to the polls. One more question. This i know, i know this came from probably from Quinn Bradley who is putting together a group to deal with this. Hes raised issues about 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 is a state by state proposition, but in your experience is that a is that a significant problem that states are not accommodating people with disabilities . And it may its actually a significant thing. If you think of people who have dyslexia and who transpose numbers, the ballot is an incredibly daunting thing to approach and you can easily imagine people just skipping it entirely, but you guys come across that at all in your work . Well, i do think that states have made tremendous progress in trying to expand access to voting for these types of voters and you know, its hard to cover all the bases in all jurisdictions in 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. And i think that the expansion of early voting in many states helps in that process. Theres no pressure to do that all in one day at one time or to do it through mailin ballots or absentee ballots. A question right there, yeah. You didnt 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. You know, thats an interesting well try to insert a question there. But the question would be, people are concerned about the influence of money in politics, whether its Mike Bloombergs enormous spending or sure amount that goes to super pacs and these things. Wouldnt the best antidote be a higher turnout or higher anticipation . Is that something you feel that the more people vote the power of money might be diminished . I think thats true. I dont think thats going to diminish the need for money. Campaigns are expensive and as long as athey are these days. And Something Like the funding of campaigns or some way of providing resources. The campaigns are going to have to go out and acquire these themselves. Its different pursuing advertisement for a nomination. Weve seen very dramatic shifts in the sources of money, especially in the aftermath of Citizens United which has now opened the flood gates for corporate money and sorry to say it, but super pacs and dark money, et cetera, to attract huge sums of money which was much harder to do in previous years and theres you know, its really hard to get around that in the absence of a constitutional amendment. And i happen to be cochair of a commission that was started in massachusetts by Ballot Initiative in november 2018 to put some language together and 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 this space. This is a good question i think as a final question. The actual question here is, if youre a nonvoter inspired by an outsider candidate, what happens to the voters after the election . How do we keep them engaged longterm . The solution this person suggests is we need to invest in communities way before and way after elections. And that goes to the question, is the disengagement voters feel partly as local communities breaking down, local politics breaking down . Its not alienation from the national level, its the community thats breaking down . What have you all seen . You can feel free to take a shot at it. I think definitely. Like i side already, like all politics is local and if you cant if youre trying to get a stop sign put up on your street to make that people are speeding and your local elected official ran through your emails and letters, why are you inspired to get involved in politics at all . I think thats right. Lets think how this actually happens in practice in the u. S. We have the elections every so often. Theyre going out and mobilizing, theyre identifying, recruiting voters and trying to speak to them et cetera, some win, some lose and they more or less disappear, right, until the next suite of candidates that may or may not speak to the voters. That may or may not target them or try to reach out to them. There is no consistent contact, communication, relationship with voters that campaigns or candidates develop apart from, say, incumbents. Right . But 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. And where you and i are from we have the old town meeting system. Has that diminished . I think were seeing a resurgence of that and even in National Politics. Thats a good hopeful note. It looks like were out of time and i want to thank, caroline, matt, kristal and costas. And i want to thank all of you for coming and stay tuned to politico live for information on more events and have a great day. Thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] politico wrapping up discussions how they plan to engage with nonvoters during this election cycle. If you miss any of this discussion, 8 eastern on cspan and see it online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. Tonight President Trump holds the Campaign Rally in phoenix, arizona. Watch live at 9 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. This week, were featuring book tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight starting at 8 p. M. , former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice talks about u. S. China relations in the 21st century and then a retired Career Foreign Service officer who served in the middle east for 25 years falks about u. S. Policy in the region followed by Michael Reuben and brian on instability in the middle eastment enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. Cspan2. Up next, a look into election integrity. Panelists talk about ways to protect voters online data being targeted for political commercials. This event is hosted by the georgetown Laws Institute for law and policy. [inaudible conversations] okay. Were reconvening for our fourth and final panel