[ad_1]
ATLANTA (AP) — Davante Jennings voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton for the first time in the 2016 presidential election. The election of Republican Donald Trump that year transformed him overnight from an idealistic college student to a jaded cynic, he says.
Mr. Jennings left the system because he believed it ignored people like him, a young black man who grew up politically conscious in Alabama but wielded no overt power. It took him nearly six years to realize that his view was self-defeating.
Now 27, Jennings isn’t just eager to cast his second presidential vote for a Democratic president. joe bidenBut he’s also committed as an activist, a top aide to Georgia state legislators, and a volunteer who regularly recruits potential voters from the bleachers as part of the nonprofit New Georgia Project.
“I thought, if it’s all rigged and it doesn’t even matter, I’m not going to vote for this,” he said in an interview. “Now we can talk to people who are being beaten down by the system and say, ‘I get it.’ Let’s talk about why this is important.”
Jennings’ trajectory focuses on the tens of millions of Americans often referred to in political campaigns as “low propensity voters,” people who never vote in general elections or only occasionally.Approximately 1 in 3 eligible Americans I didn’t vote in 2020. In 2016, it was about 4 out of 10.
Presidential elections are often decided by narrow margins in a small number of states, so these voters could decide whether Mr. Biden is re-elected. playing cards Complete your return to the White House. The Biden campaign has had a notable head start in reaching out to these voters, but both campaigns, along with various political action groups, are aiming to build a broad organizational footprint to maximize support in the fall. There is.
“It’s really important to have a real campaign where people feel like they see a part of themselves,” Roohi Rustam, Biden’s director of national organizing, said in an interview.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were each elected thanks to sporadic and disaffected voters who felt unrepresented.
Inconsistent Democrats tend to be younger and are much more likely to be non-white. In 2020, four years after Trump defeated Clinton and upset Biden, he helped Biden win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, while also winning Georgia and Arizona. added to the column.
To recreate the union, Rustum’s efforts already include more than 100 field offices, more than 300 paid staff, and had fielded approximately 385,000 calls for volunteers by the end of March. The campaign is emphasizing Biden’s policy record and believes he will win as a more empathetic and stable figure compared to Trump. But the campaign is also prioritizing a network of volunteers who advocate within their own circles, especially in areas where turnout has lagged.
“There’s no more compelling topic than someone you know in the community,” Rustum said, adding, “It’s really your pastor, your cousin, your neighbor.”
Jennings does not work directly for the Biden campaign. But his role in the New Georgia Project, which Democratic powerhouse Stacey Abrams started a decade ago to increase black voter turnout in Georgia, reflects a similar philosophy.
He argued that voters’ concerns often transcend political party and demographic boundaries more than the national debate reflects. “There’s not as much of a difference between poor people and black people and poor people and white people as people think,” he says. But messengers are still important. “When someone looks like you and is similar to you, there is a certain baseline of trust.”
Trump has increased Republican support among white voters without college degrees, and in 2016 he won several Rust Belt states where Democrat Barack Obama twice won the White House. contributed to the reversal. Trump is also aiming to increase support among black and Latino men.
he followed biden In this cycle Fundraising activities And tidy up.he is in the early stages Republican National Committee Reorganization Then launch field operations.But Republicans say The biggest attraction is Trump himself.basic organization isn’t as important to Biden as the process, and it’s less important to his overall appeal.
“President Trump is in touch with people and their grievances about the economy, borders and values,” said Josh McCoon, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. “That’s what draws people to him.”
Jennings asserted that there is merit to that argument. He said some non-white voters, like some of Trump’s white supporters, were drawn to Trump’s bombastic attacks on establishment powers they distrust. , or at least intrigued.
“Well, I’m starting to think they’ve been manipulated, fooled, and taken advantage of on the Democratic side, just as we’re expected to vote Democratic,” Trump said. Mr. Jennings said as the group tuned in. “They’ll say, ‘At least we know what we’re getting with President Trump.’ I don’t think so, but I hear that sometimes.”
Particularly in large cities and less affluent areas in rural areas, Jennings’ conversations focused primarily on basic quality of life issues: a lack of quality employment opportunities, access to fresh, affordable groceries, and more. He said it was about a lack of stores and poor access to medical care. Young voters express dissatisfaction with the criminalization of marijuana. He said older voters sometimes have doubts about Democratic policies. Focus on LGBTQ rights.
Jennings said the number one rule for convincing skeptical nonvoters is consistency.
“We’re a single mom knocking on doors and we have three kids running around. She’s stressed. And we’re like, ‘We need you to make time, this is important.’ I’m coming while saying this. Some people aren’t interested in hearing it. I understand,” Jennings said.
“But even if I knock on the door once and it doesn’t go anywhere, I’ll come back a few days later. And then again. What it starts to do now is be like, ‘Oh, you really care.’ . I said no and you keep coming back as if you really should care. ” Because I’m doing it. “
Breakthroughs usually involve telling your own story and connecting the issue to the ballot box, he added.
In a friendly conversation with another black man (older but still in the working generation) who has a job but can’t afford health insurance, Jennings said he doesn’t expect to return to politics until 2022. Ta. Georgia is one of the states run by Republicans. Medicaid has not been fully expanded Under the Democratic Party’s 2010 federal law, the Affordable Care Act.
“I started noticing that you were angry about the health care system. How do you change the system? You need to vote,” Jennings said.
At that time, US Senator Raphael Warnock Jennings, who was seeking re-election as Georgia’s first black senator, saw an invitation to a New Georgia Project event for black men. He went and immediately started volunteering, learning along the way how to get potential voters to lead the debate.
That doesn’t mean talking about Biden or Trump or any other candidate first, or at all, Jennings noted. In the end, Abrams was absent from the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, in which she became a national headliner in her bid to become the first black female governor in American history, and the 2020 Georgia gubernatorial election. Biden narrowly wins Georgia and the state Democratic Party Warnock dispatched and Jon Ossoff to the Senate.
“Of course the president is important,” Jennings said. “But sometimes the president is not the one who can solve the problem at hand.”
Ranada Robinson, director of research at the New Georgia Project, praised volunteers like Jennings and said it proves why she pushed the group not to use the label “low-propensity voters.” Ta. Instead, the group refers to “opportunity voters.”
She called the former category a “legacy of transactional politics,” an old system of political power that only emerges during elections.
The new terminology is empowering, she said. She said: “We can become a more inclusive democracy if we accept that old-fashioned methods don’t work for everyone.”
[ad_2]
Source link
