Coming soon to campus near you: NextGen commits $5.5M to 2020 Florida youth vote
After a successful 2018 effort to energize one historically unengaged Florida voter bloc, a left-leaning political action committee announced a new statewide movement focused on young voters who “hold the key to not only swinging the state but the country blue.”
NextGen America will pour a “bare minimum” of $5.5 million into stimulating election turnout for Florida voters 35 and younger ahead of the 2020 general election.
The group expects the number to triple by November 2020, as Florida will get the lion’s share of the funds for the 11 battleground states NextGen is targeting.
“We’re at a point in the United States where young people are starting to look for a transformation of politics in general, a transformation of the system, NextGen Florida Director Justin Atkins said.
The effort will also focus on three congressional districts, two state senate seats and seven state house seats. In Miami, that includes FL-26, held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Florida Senate District 39 race to replace term-limited Republican Sen. Anitere Flores and the House District 120 race to fill term-limited Republican Rep. Holly Raschein’s Miami-to-Key West seat.
NextGen America is a political committee created by California billionaire — and Democratic candidate for president — Tom Steyer, who stepped down as president when he announced his campaign.
Steyer’s campaign said he’ll spend at least $100 million on his presidential run but also said he won’t reduce his commitment to NextGen, which gets most of its funding from the hedge fund manager.
As the president of NextGen America, Steyer has invested $30 million in what he calls the largest youth vote program in history, spanning more than 30 congressional districts. Independently, Steyer pledged $1 million to register high school students to vote following the Parkland school shooting.
“[Youth] are the real advocates of the most progressive policies right now,” Atkins said. “They realize that a lot of the decisions being made will affect their lives for decades to come.”
Last year, the group poured $9.7 million into campaign ads in Florida and registered over 50,000 people across the state. There was evidence that enthusiasm by this voter bloc even helped then-Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum overcome a heavy financial disadvantage to win the primary election.
In the 2018 midterm election, 38% of Floridians under 35 voted, up from 24% in 2014. Nationwide, 40.3% of 10 million students tracked by Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education voted in 2018 — more than double the rate in the 2014 midterms.
While the high 2018 numbers set the tone for the 2020 movement, Atkins said they aren’t trying to merely replicate the results. NextGen has hired 70 full-time staff to operate the campaign, which will increase to 107 after July 2020. The staff will work on 37 campuses statewide, which will increase to 45 in July as well. That includes all four of Florida’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
In South Florida, 10 full-time staff will focus on energizing voters at Florida International University, Florida Memorial University and Broward College. The region will be getting around $1.5 million in dedicated funds from NextGen.
Topics like gun violence, climate change and the Donald Trump presidency brought students to the forefront as a crucial voting bloc in the 2020 general election, Atkins said.
“We are seeing a change in priorities in young people as they start to realize how consequential elections are,” Atkins said. “Trends of voter apathy are down and we’re starting to become more aware.”
On-campus participation and a parking problem
Atkins said the high voter turnout and registration numbers in 2018 was proof that young people are key to moving the needle on progressive politics in Florida.
“Florida is a swing state that is in danger of swinging toward becoming a red state,” Atkins said. “The statement we’re trying to make is that we’re still a purple state and young people are a huge part of what’s keeping us from being a red state.”
He said while the high turnout numbers were encouraging, NextGen organizers are aware of issues in 2018 where students were being turned away from polling stations at FIU and Florida Atlantic University for having faulty addresses. They were never given provisional ballots to change their residence to the right address, which is “something we weren’t prepared for,” he said
In 2020, NextGen is preparing to have one or two representatives at every on-campus polling site and is actively working with the supervisors of elections across the state to ensure poll workers are trained properly.
Another unexpected hurdle for voter outreach coordinators came during the 2019 legislative session.
The secretary of state outlawed early-voting sites at state universities in 2014, but a federal court deemed a 2018 ban on on-campus early voting sites was unconstitutional. Soon after, 60,000 voters cast on-campus ballots.
However in 2019, the Legislature effectively reinstated it, amending an elections law with a clause that requires all early-voting sites to offer “sufficient non-permitted parking,” a rarity on crowded campuses.
The League of Women Voters and the Andrew Goodman Foundation, a New Jersey nonprofit focused on young people’s voting rights, are challenging the parking requirements in federal court.
“SB 7066 caught us off guard,” Atkins said, referring to the elections law. “Our ask was essentially, ‘is there a way to still guarantee early voting for on campus?’ Those conversations weren’t enough.”
He said since “parking” isn’t defined in the law itself, NextGen and other groups are meeting with campus administrators to agree to provide some designated parking for voting stations.
Democrats, Republicans also target young voters
NextGen is not the only group to roll out a major 2020 outreach plan. As part of his effort to help down-ballot Democrats grow their numbers in the Capitol, Gillum is spending $50,000 on an on-the-ground voter registration effort in highly watched districts. Much of the focus and funds will be in districts where Gillum won, but are represented by Republicans in Tallahassee.
The Florida Democratic Party has launched its own effort, too, pairing up with the Democratic National Committee to funnel $1.5 million into employing more than 300 college students to organize efforts across 12 Florida campuses. The party has also spent more than $500,000 on paid media to black, Hispanic and young voters.
Florida Republicans also see the value of mobilizing young voters and are committing 180 full-time staff and “thousands of volunteers” to assemble “the largest paid ground force ever assembled,” according to state party chair and Sarasota Republican Sen. Joe Gruters.
Gruters said funds from the party’s record-breaking $3.5 million brought in at last week’s annual Statesman’s Dinner fundraiser will be used to fund voter registration efforts.
“We’re crushing the Democrats and are going to continue to crush the Democrats,” Gruters said. “The economy is a driving factor for the youth. They want an economy where they can go out and earn a living … the alternative is socialism and that will stifle employment.”
Daniel Weldon, chairman of the Florida Federation of College Republicans, said the group is already involved in door-knocking efforts and movements to bring more Republican speakers to member campuses. Weldon, a former linebacker with the University of Florida, said his group is working with the state party to register voters on campuses and plans on expanding the effort in the new year.
The group has chapters on 24 college campuses, up from around 17 in 2015, and Weldon said they are most focused on expanding the network statewide. Their fundraising is also “much better” than it was in December 2015.
“The young people are going to be the difference in 2020 in who wins and who loses,” Weldon said. “It’s just as simple as that. A lot of people underestimate youth voters, and we’re working to change that.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 7:00 AM.