Wellstone Action!

posted by Elana Wolowitz

JUNE 05, 2008

At the end of this epic primary season, as we start to flip through the calendar and count the days ‘til November, it seems like there can't possibly be anything left to be said.

We'll not provide a post-mortem here, but one "historic" dimension to this primary season is worth noting - the record numbers of new voters that have streamed into the electorate this year.

Campaigns and the press have bandied about several numbers for the newly registered voters this primary season (one estimate by the Associated Press puts the figure at 3.5 million as of early May), but one thing is for sure - a number of factors and "firsts" drove people to participate in both parties' nominating processes like never before.

This is not normal. If an exciting election year generates new voter registration, it's typically during the general election. Primary electorates have historically been comprised of the left and right poles; the core base of each party. Voter turnout is usually significantly lower than the general election.

So, voter registration is up 64 percent from the same period in the 2004 election. This doesn't happen by accident. Certainly, on the Democratic side, there were two candidates that became swept up by the tide of the dreams of generations. The very nature of their candidacies inspired interest in the election and passionate intensity from supporters.

But experienced campaigners know that in campaign terms, it is very difficult to get people who aren't registered to the polls (or, in other words, it requires too great an expenditure of resources for most campaigns to justify it). In typical campaign arithmetic, if your goal is to get 50% of the votes plus one, then you want to focus your energy talking to the people you know will vote, to make sure they vote for you. If you have time and money to register a few new people, it's just icing on the cake.

That's why, in a typical scenario, these voters are roundly ignored by campaigns. No knocks on their door, no direct mail or phone calls, no effort to get them to the polls on Election Day. This year, both the Clinton and Obama campaigns - as well as hundreds of non-profit, non-partisan civic organizations - made direct efforts at building the base and expanding the electorate. Those 3.5 million new registrations didn't just happen - those voters entered the process because they were specifically asked to do so.

For us at Wellstone Action, this trend is exciting. We teach candidates and campaign workers to set aside the traditional arithmetic and embrace a model that allows progressives to win by tapping into new pools of voters while building power in underrepresented communities. We believe it is strategic to expand the number of registered voters because it builds the progressive base for the long-term.

The question now is if this can be sustained through November and beyond. Now that those voters are on the rolls and in the voter files, how will they be engaged? Can the legacy of this grueling primary season be a lasting increase in voter turnout nationwide? And, after Inauguration Day 2009, can we as voters reclaim government and hold elected officials accountable to the promises they made?