WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee will spend millions of dollars to cement control of voter registration efforts that have traditionally been entrusted to nonprofit advocacy groups and individual political campaigns, a shift that party leaders hope will increase their chances in this year's midterm elections.
The initiative, being announced on Tuesday, will begin in Arizona and Nevada with at least $2 million for training organizers. It's the first step in what could become the DNC's largest-ever push to sign up new voters, with a particular focus on young people, voters of color and people without college educations. All of those demographics drifted away from Democrats in the last presidential race, which returned Republican Donald Trump to the White House.
''It's a crisis. And for our party to actually win elections, we have to actually create more Democrats,'' DNC Chair Ken Martin said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Martin added that ''we need all hands on deck, not just the outside groups,'' as the party tries to win back control of Congress and break Republicans' unified control in Washington.
Democrats have spent decades relying on advocacy organizations and civic groups to register voters, but those efforts are generally required by law to be nonpartisan. Party leaders want a more explicitly partisan approach like the one used by Republicans, who have relied less on outside groups to register and mobilize their voter base.
Martin said allied nonprofits are ''really important partners'' that have ''done amazing work to actually get people engaging in their democracy.''
"But in this moment right now, given the significant disadvantage that we have and the advantage the Republicans have, we actually have to do more,'' he said.
The DNC initiative aims to reach non-college-educated young voters by recruiting organizers from a wide array of backgrounds, like gig economy workers and young parents, who have often been overlooked in the party's grassroots efforts. Democrats hope that organizers' own perspectives and experiences will help party strategists learn how to connect with Americans in blue-collar roles who are disaffected with politics, whom the party fears it has lost touch with in recent elections.
