Vote for certain candidates. From earlier this week, this is just over an hour. Thank you for those watching by livestream. Democrats and republicans are working very hard to rally their base, and win over swing voters. But i think we all know, especially in we will see today, that by far the largest bloc of voters out there, 100 million voters, are those who do not go to the polls. That thesay enough balance of power in the United States rests in those voters. Span everyters demographic, every racial age,ratic demographic, education. Hopefully anl have enlightening panel discussion, discussing with Party Leaders how they plan to appeal to this group and get people to come to the polls. We will also discuss the interesting results of this knight study which is finally being released today, which we have all been anticipating. I want to encourage you all to follow our discussion and join the conversation on social media at politicoelctions. Quick video from our sponsors, the Knight Foundation. Thank you. Theres a crisis facing our democracy, who has the power to solve it . Is it americas voters . Or perhaps americas nonvoters . We witnessed one of the 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 the most important voice in america yet to be heard. Ae 100 million project is landmark study of 12,000 nonvoters, done at unprecedented scale and depth. So who are these 100 million americans . They are as diverse as this country, as different as 100 Million People can be. Many nonvoters lack basic faith in our democratic system. 38 of nonvoters say they are not confident that represent elections represent the will of the people. Many believe the system is rigged. We always think its a conspiracy theory. I think all things predetermined. I think its rigged. Nonvoters feel underinformed on politics. Yet many are college graduates, and over a third are middleclass or wealthier. Democrats, republicans, and independents make up a third of nonvoters. Half of respondents report an unfavorable view of President Trump. 40 favorable, the rest undecided. The emerging electorate, 18 to 24yearolds, are less informed, less interested in politics, less likely to vote in 20 than nonvoters overall. Are we losing a generation of voters . Im not informed on anything. I feel like my vote would be wasted. I feel like being young, people will judge you because youre not educated enough about the whole voting process. Increasing voter turnout is not just about politics. Its about the future of our democracy. To start the most important conversation of 2020, visit the 100 million. Org. Please welcome to the stage, Senior Vice President of the night foundation. Good morning. Thank you all for coming out. Thank you, politico, for organizing this important conversation. Thank you ed harris for taking time out to record that introduction. The jonathan and James L Knight havingion is focused on a stronger democracy received through engaged communities. So we commissioned the survey to understand the health of our democracy at a time when our political conversation is really focused on the narrowest slice of voters. While elections may ultimately be about convincing a few, our view is that democracy is about engaging the many. To kick things off, im delighted to lead a conversation with those who lead the project, he has led election polling at all levels, including for the president. Is a of Political Science leading voice on how information influences choices and decisions and democracy, she helped design the survey and do the sick to to discipline analysis. We will talk a bit about what was surprising or not about what we learned from this large voting block. , whats thestart biggest thing that jumps out to you about who the nonvoters is or is not . The amazing thing about a project like this is that so many folks, myself included, all of us, had these preconceived notions about who nonvoters are. Theres all this conventional wisdom, that they tend to be at this group and are overwhelmingly this. What we found, what the data reveals that they are like everyone. In the sense that you run the full breadth of what the american body politic looks like. Yes, there are some deviations from voting behavior, and perhaps a little more minority, a little undereducated, but nonetheless these are groups that feel the same way that voters do and in a lot of respects take the information consumption piece. They areters say following news and information about politics closely. One would think from a hypothesis level, the nonvoters are in the 20 percentile range. Lower than voters but 62 in our study say they are as versed in political issues and political news as many of the people in this room and watching on live streaming. To see that come alive in the data, and understand the reasons for why so many feel the way they do i thought was illuminating and raises a lot of questions, not just about what it means, but for what it means for democracy. Yanna, as a political scientist thinking about this group, political scientists have been talking for decades about why people do or do not engage in industrialized democracy. So what conventional wisdom was upended by this survey . One of theov tremendous benefits is that when we talk to people we ask them to selfreport, whether they are voters are nonvoters, people have a great incentive to misrepresent what they are doing. The great benefit of this study is that we knew in advance how often these people had voted. We knew exactly what they were bringing to the survey. One of the things that emerges from the study is about how people get information. A longstanding theory and Political Science is that as long as people get information, maybe not from the use, or some one in their network, from the news, but some one in the network, they will probably be ok. Of what we saw across a lot the data is that one of the greatest differences between who votes and who doesnt is whether you get your information directly from the news or whether you try to bump into it from someone else. That holds regardless of your demographic. Differences regardless of education, job, gender, everything. How you get the news matters. Potentially more than we had a thought in Political Science. Given that context, given that this has to do a lot with the sort of behaviors that , and someone whos talking a lot to campaigns and helping campaign think about how to succeed and to win, we can have highminded ideas about engaging everyone, i happen to have those ideas and mouth fed and and my foundation does. I think we will hear later for some folks really focused on the issue. In a world where the stakes are incredibly high, when we are focusing on people who are not just bumping into news, the junkies were engaged in highly persuadable. Is there anything we can do to encourage campaigns to actually think about nonvoters as being worth the time, effort, and investment . Mr. Amandi absolutely, in the theme of mist bus myth busting and the way the Data Destroys this conventional wisdom, one of the things i think a lot of people believe or inherently think about nonvoters is that it overwhelmingly favors one party over another. End of one party were to overwhelmingly cultivate this group of voters they would win every election and have a permanent majority. Thats not what we saw. Its pretty evenly split. A third of the nonvoters support the Republican Party, a third support the democratic party, and a third are what you might independent or even quasipersuadable. What has always been the challenge . Research resource limitation. News outlets say its interesting but we dont have the resources to engage this segment of the electorate. I think what the Study Reveals is that theres a first mover advantage for these campaigns. Whoever gets to them might enhance their prospects of winning, in spite of the fact that some people would say dont go after them as much because they are not likely to vote. They have shown that they have strongly held beliefs. Mr. Gill does that have to follow . Is that something we can expect from a president ial campaign or will this have to happen in municipal elections and county elections, who is going to be willing to say, im going to make a big upfront investment because i think im activating a constituency that will have a good lifetime value. Campaigns are like the nfl, all 31 other teams immediately copy, i think the first campaign, whether its a president ial campaign or whether its the culture of municipal campaign, they see that theres a chance and its worth the engagement. And they can show that it puts them over the top, it may have a force effect and changes the culture of how these voters or nonvoters are engaged. So thinking about what it would take, as a campaign or social movement, to activate these folks, who you already mentioned, one of the key vectors is really whether you actively encounter news or bump into it. We used to have a model that would do both. Viablet as economically as it used to be, it is something we are working on at the Knight Foundation. In the information environment we live in, where we are all increasingly bumping and information more, what are some andhe more promising levers areas of behavior where you think campaigns or others, about information or anything that folks should be focused on based on this survey. Dr. Krupnikov one of the things that emerges is that people are more likely to vote when their networks vote, familys friends, people they work with. And this survey reinforces these ideas, the people who are not voting file certain disengagement from their community. They are less happy in general. To activate these people, i think its not necessarily treating them as individuals, but engaging whole communities, and suggesting to whole communities that have often been disengaged that there is something worthwhile about their voices. Once you get people within communities to encourage each other, that would lead to these Network Effects of Political Science, to talk about people encouraging other to turn out to vote, to participate, and to even follow the news. In some sense, there is this privilege that you could spend a lot of time following the news that many do not. Really reinforce those Network Effects, and reinforce those kinds of connections that people might have and use those connections to encourage people to participate politically, i think thats the most promising avenue for increasing interest and participation. To go a little deeper into this, we are into the work coming back into vogue. As people face the sentiment of disconnection and disengagement, whether its with National Politics or with community, certainly that school of thought would agree with what you just said, its really about who you know and how you associate with them, that this is being done in your community. But some people say look, the places where that happens are gone. Others would say theyre just happening in places, online. How do you, in your work, should we be helpful that we can regain this networks, or is really about rebuilding institutions and communities that are, at the very least, stressed . Research says the that we do not need bob putnam style bully leagues. Networks actually exist all around us, they exist in our families and religious communities. And certainly online. There is research to suggest that if your online friends report that they vote you are more likely to do so. I think the institutions are there, its just a matter of reaching people within these communities who are pressure points who might actually suggest to their friends and neighbors and families that there is something worthwhile to you being engage with politics, that it is something you should put your time into. Mr. Gill in the last word to you, think about that through the political lunch, lens, is there a message there that a campaign can embrace that talks about this active contribution to community and democracy mr. Amandi . Mr. Amandi i take a cynical and democracy . Mr. Amandi i take a cynical and somewhat skeptical approach. I have seen a small target pool of voters in south florida, 100 million americans concentrated in every state, this is not a sub fringe group, and as was alluded to, what you see in the media fragmentation as you see younger demographics less likely to engage in traditional media. Campaigns in their culture need to do a better job of meeting nonvoters where they are. And not only on traditional media websites but gaming platforms, they are watching tv shows, they are completely isolated on the phone from those partition all traditional means of dissemination. In those campaigns that see it as an opportunity and the Value Proposition that the opportunity could lead to electoral gains, i think that could change the culture but they have to be willing to make those risks. Mr. Gill thank you for leading the study and thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. Please welcome back to the stage, editor at large, peter s. Nalis canello mr. Canellos i want to thank our first panel for that insightful presentation. I also want to remind people that you can participate in the discussion through politicoelections. And we will be taking some questions later on. About here now to talk where the metal meets the road, so to speak, here where nonvoters and how the Political Parties are going to be contending with this in the 2020 election. Joined,y honored to be starting on my left with the managing director for morning consult, a polling operation networks with politico that does an outstanding survey. And we have the deputy political director of the republican committee. The director of pac, and itic super wanted to start off asking matt a question. The numbers that came out of the study had some good news for President Trump. That was in every speech swing state with the exception of georgia there was a plurality of nonvoters who supported President Trump. This is surprising, think those of us following this issue would assume that nonvoters were skewing more liberal. In fact, nonvoters were even more than voters pro trump. So think of a state like arizona, where welltodo suburbanites were trending more towards democrats. Trucksf guys in pickup are supporting President Trump, but they may not be registered, and if they are registered they might not be voting. How do you contend with that at the rnc . First im not surprised, but its interesting. When i look back at this, i think the question of nonvoters, most of us would never understand what that would be like, we cant always wait to vote because its like our super bowl. So thinking of people who do not of thed why, if the job Republican National committee and the trunk campaign to go out there and find those voters in a state like arizona and figure out what motivates them to turn out the vote. So we are fortunate to have a huge ground again that has been on the ground, engaging people now to figure out why they wont vote, and how we can motivate them to go vote and delivering a message to turn them out. We have all this time. On the left they are dealing with figuring out who is their nominee, time is on our side which is very valuable in politics. Matt, theres been a lot of attention to republican secretaries of states in some of the states that have had voter purges of hundreds of thousands of voters who just have not voted, and as he was two of the last two elections. If you imagine the arizona comparison, could be a lot of those casual voters are trump voters. Are you concerned that the party has been adopting the wrong strategy when it comes to moving people off the rolls. A lot ofdailer secretary of states take different approaches, in West Virginia they refused to purge the roles forever because they were seeing gains there. But Voter Registration is a priority. The secretary of state can decide how they want to do. But from a data perspective we are focused on these people, we Pay Attention to people who come off the rolls, and if we know that they are republican we figure out if they are still there and how do we reregister them to get active again. Mr. Canellos imagine the conversation if one of the secretaries of states came to the rnc and they say we want to enact these voter purge laws with that hurt us . What would your response be . Mr. Dailer i would say it would not appear we want the best data available, so every state has a voter file which shows who is registered to vote on that day, and we purchase that list. So we need the best data available. The secretary of state will purge the role of inactive voters, that makes it easier to figure out who we can target to turnout. Kristal, for parties trying to motivate liberal leaning voters, it showed that the most dedicated voters are women, but 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 . Ms. Knight i think that statistic was very surprising, number one, but 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 become competing issues when i thi