Good morning. Please welcome to the stage politico editor at large peter canellos. [applause] good morning and welcome. Im peter canellos, Political Editor at large. Id like to thank you all for joining todays event, americas biggest voting bloc, nonvoters. Thanks to those watching via live stream. As a 202020 Campaign Ramps up both democrats and republicans are working very hard to rally the base. Theyre also trying to win over swing voters, but i think we all know especially we will see today that by far the largest bloc of voters out there come when hundred million voters voting ages of those who dont go to the polls. I cant say enough that the balance of power in the United States rests in those voters. These nonvoters span every demographic, and the racial demographic, age demographic, education demographic. Today were going to have i hope very enlightening Panel Discussion discussing with Party Leaders themselves how the plan to appeal to this group and get some of these people to come to the polls. Were also going to discuss the very interesting results of this night study that is finally being released today, and weve all been anticipating for a long time. I want to encourage you all as you follow our discussion to also join the conversation on social media, hashtag politico elections. And to begin the sponsored segment heres a quick video from our sponsor, the Knight Foundation. Thank you very much. Theres a crisis facing our democracy. Who has the power to solve it . Is it americas voters or perhaps its americas nonvoters . In 2016 we witness one of our countrys 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 perhaps the most important voice in american yet to be heard. The 100 million project is a landmark study of 12,000 nonvoters done at unprecedented scale. Who are these 100 million americans . They are as diverse as of this country, as different as 100 Million People can be. Many nonvoters lack basic faith in our democratic system. 38 nonvoters say theyre not confident that elections represent the will of the people. Many believe the system is rigged. Me and my sister always think theres a conspiracy theory. I think the whole thing is predetermined. I think it is rigged. Nonvoters engage less with news and feel underinformed on politics and yet many nonvoters are College Graduates and over onethird are middle class are wealthier. Democrats, republicans and independents make up onethird of nonvoters. Half of response reported an unfavorable view of President Trump 40 favorable and the rest undecided. Emerging electorate, 1824yearolds, are less informed, less interested in politics, less likely to vote in 2020 nonvoters overall. I was losing a generation of voters . Im not informed than anything so i feel like my vote would be wasted. Being young and voting people will judge you for because you are not educated enough about the whole voting process. Increasing voter turnout isnt just about politics. Its about the future of our democracy. To start the most important conversation of 2020, visit the the 100 million. Org. Please welcome to the stage Senior Vice President and chief Program Officer of the Knight Foundation, sam gill. [applause] good morning. Thank you all for coming out. Thank you, politico, for organizing this important conversation. Thank you ed harris for taking time out from apollo 14 to record that. The Knight Foundation is focused on supporting a stronger democracy through more informed engage communities, and so led by our director is here today. We commissioned the survey from bendixenamandi to understand health of our democracy at a time when our political conversation usually focus on the narrowest slice of voters. While elections may ultimately be about convincing a few, our view is that the markers is about engaging the many. To kick things off today im really delighted to be able to lead conversation first with fernand amandi who led the project who runs bendixenamandi which is a legendary south floridabased survey firm. And also Yanna Krupnikov was a professor of clinical signs at suny stony brook and a leading voice on how information influences choices and decisions within democracy. She helped design the survey, helped lead the statistical analysis. Were going to talk a bit about what was surprising or not about what we learned regarding his large voting bloc. Fernand, like to start with you. Whats the biggest thing that jumps out to you about who the nonvoter is or isnt based on the cervix . Sam, the amazing thing about a project like this is so many folks, myself included, i think all of us have these preconceived notions about who nonvoters are. Theres all this conventional wisdom that suggest they tend to be of this group and overwhelming of this. What we found in the study with the data reveals is they are like everyone in america. In the sense you run the full breadth of what the american body politic looks like. Yes, there are some deviations from voters and voting behavior in terms of leaning perhaps a little more minority, little more under educated but nonetheless these are groups of people that feel the same way that voters do. In a lot of respects take information consumption peace. 82 of voters said that they are following news and information about politics very closely. One would think from hypothesis level but nonvoters are probably in the 20 percentile range. Granted they are logan lookingd for 62 in her study say they are as first in political issues and political news ozment of the people industry and many people watching on life streaming, and to see that come alive in the data and understand the reason for why some of those feel the way do i thought was eyeopening and raises a lot of questions not just about what it means but what any for the democracy as you alluded. As a political scientist thinking about what we learned about this group through really one of the largest studies ever come whats political scientist and talking for decades about why people do or dont engage in industrialized democracies. So what conventional wisdom was offended by the survey . One of the tremendous benefits of the survey is that often when we talk to people we asked them to selfreport, whether their voters are nonvoters, people have great incentive misrepresent what theyre doing. A great benefit of this study is that we knew in advance how often his people had voted so we knew exactly what they bring to the survey. One of the things that emerges from the study is about how people get information. A longstanding theory of political site is as long as people get information maybe not from the news but from a friend or somebody in the network, they are probably going to be okay. But one of the most robust results across a lot of statistical modeling, across a lot of the data is one of the greatest differences is who votes and doesnt vote is whether to get your information directly from the news or whether you try to bump into from someone else. That is a result that holds regardless of a demographic differences, regardless of education, your job, gender, pretty much everything, how you get the seems to matter quite a lot. Potentially more than we had thought in Political Science. So given that context, given that this has to do a lot with sort of behaviors that people have, fernand, someone who is talking a lot to campaigns come helping campaigns think about how to succeed and when, we could have highminded ideas about trying to engage anyone. I happen to have those ideas. My foundation has those ideas. Hopefully they are shared. But well hear later from some of the folks who are focused on issue of persuasion. In a in a world where the stakee incredibly high, when it comes to focusing on the few people who are not just bumping into news really are junkies, highly engaged, and, therefore, highly persuadable, is there anything we can do to encourage campaigns to actually think about nonvoters as being worth the time, the effort comes investment . Absolutely. And again in the theme of myth busting, the way the Data Destroys a lot of this conventional wisdom, one of the things a lot of people believe or just inherently think about the nonvoters is that it probably favors one party over another. That if one party were just too overwhelming cultivate this group of voters they would win every election and that a permanent majority, and thats that what we saw in the data. Its pretty evenly split. A third of these nonvoters support the Republican Party. A third of these voters support the democratic party, and a third are in which my call and independent perhaps even quasipersuadable mode. What has always been the challenge with nonvoters . Resource limitations. A lot of campaigns and news organizations and outlets say look, its interesting but we dont have the resources to engage this segment of the electorate. What i think the study revealed is there is a first mover advantage for this campaigns, whoever gets to them first might actually enhance the prospects of winning in spite of the fact some people might say dont go after them as much because theyre not likely to vote. If you make an appeal to them, they have beliefs and strongly held beliefs about. Just to follow up. Is that something we can expect of a president ial campaign or is this going to have to happen in municipal election, county elections . Who is going to be willing to say im going to make a big upfront investment because i think i am activating a constituency that would have a good lifetime value. Its the 64 million caution. Campaign to like the nfl. Whenever theres an innovation in the nfl, all 31 other teams copy. The First Campaign with us a president ial campaign or becomes the culture in a local municipal campaign, they see there is a pool, properly engage in activated and sometimes its worth the engagement and they can show that puts them over the top, it might have a force to effect the changes the culture of how these voters are these nonvoters are engaged. Making this practical as a political scientist think about what it would take whether its a campaign or social movement to activate these folks, you already mention one of the key vectors is whether you actively encounter news or bump into. We used to have a model where you would to both called the newspaper. Its that is economically viable as it used to be. Obviously working on intensely at the Knight Foundation. In the information five and we live in one in which we are all increasing bumping into information more, what are soe of the more promising levers, areas of behavior that you think campaigns or others information or anything that folks should be focused on based on the survey . One of the things that emerges in Political Science research the people are more likely to vote when their networks vote, family, friends, people they work with. This survey reinforces these ideas. The people who are not voting feel a certain disengagement from their communities. They are less happy with their lives in general. To activate these people its not necessarily treating them as individuals but approaching whole communities, engaging whole communities and suggesting to whole community is that of often been disengaged for decades there something worthwhile about their voices. Once you get people within a community to encourage each other, that would lead to these networks that political scientist talk of work people encourage each other to participate and to even follow the news. There is in some sense privilege with some people to spend a lot of time following the news that many just do not. Once we really kind of reinforced Network Effects and reinforce these kind of connections that people might have and use those connections to encourage people to participate i think that would be the most promising avenue for increasing both interest and dissipation. Someone to go deeper on this, where any moment what a lot of the work that bob putnam and others lead urban social Capital Formation is coming back into vogue as people face the sentiment of disconnection and disengagement whether its with National Politics or in community. Certainly that school of thought would agree with the sentiment you just a spouse. This about how you associate with them, since this act is being voucherize in your community. Some people say look, the places where that happens are gone. Others would say they are just happening in new places, happening online, how do you in your work should we be hopeful that we can regain those that works and new places, or is this going to be about rebuilding institutions in community that are at the very least stressed . Research suggests that we dont need bob putnam style building links to great connections and to create networks. Networks exist all around us. They exist in our families. A still exist in religious communities and certainly online. Theres Research Suggests if you are your online friends report that you put your more likely to do so. So i think the institutions are there. Just a matter of reaching people who are within these communities who are Pressure Point so these communities who might actually suggest to the friends and neighbors and families that theres something worthwhile to you being engaged with politics. Its something you should put your time into. Fernand, last word to you. Think about that through sort of a cynical political lens. Is that a message . Is that a campaign can embrace about this active contribution to community and to democracy . No question. I take a cynical sometimes political perspective. Ive seen entire president ial campaigns designed around a subgroup of voters in swing state of florida, Puerto Ricans or maybe cubans, small target pool of voters. These are 100 million americans, con street in every state. This isnt a some fringe group. What you need to see a special in the media fragmentation as we see younger demographics less and less likely engage in traditional media, campaigns and the culture of campaigns need to do a better job meeting these nonvoters where they are. They are not always on the traditional media websites. They are on gaming platforms. They are watching tv shows the sometime has nothing to with politics or on the phone, completely isolated from traditional needs of dissemination of information. Those campaigns that see it more as an opportunity and the Value Proposition that the opportunity could lead to massive electoral gains, i think that might change the culture but they have to be willing to make those risks as well. Thank you for leading the study. Thank you for joining us this morning. Really appreciate it. [applause] please welcome back to the stage Political Editor at large peter canellos. [applause] first of all i want to thank bread and yanna and sam furr that their insightful presentation. Also want to remind people that you can participate in the discussion my politico elections and will be taking some questions via twitter later on. So we are here now to talk about where the metal meets the road so to speak here were nonvoters and how the Political Parties are going to be contending with this in the 2020 election. Im very great honor to be joined starting on my left with caroline bye whos a managing director for morning consult, thats a political operation that works with politico. It doesnt outstanding survey. So much. Matt dailer, the deputy political director of the Republican National committee. Thank you so much for being with us. Kristal knight, political director of priorities priorith is a democratic super pac, and doctor Costas Panagopoulos from Northeastern University up in my old stomping grounds of boston. To start off i i want to ask mt the question. The numbers that came out of the knight study had some good news for President Trump. And that was that in every swing state with exception of georgia there was a pirelli of nonvoters who actually supported tool. This was very surprising because those of us who followed follos issue for a while sort of assumed nonvoters were skewing more liberal. In fact, the nonvoters even more than the voters were actually protrump. So think of a state like arizona where welltodo suburbanites have been United States a little bit more towards the democrats. There are a lot of people along the border, a lot of guys in pickup trucks who are supporting President Trump but it turns out they may not be registered or if they are registered that may not be voting. How are you going to continue with that at the rnc . First of all not surprise there all supporting President Trump. But with that, i mean, its very interesting i put back at this i think of the question like nonvoter, most of us and never understand what that would be like. We are all about politics all the time. We always cant wait to vote so its like our super bowl. Thinking that people who didnt vote and why whitey did not vo, right . The job of the Republican National committee and the Trump Campaign to go out there and find his voters in a state like arizona and figure out what motivates them to turn out to vote. Selectively we are fortunate to have a huge ground game thats been on the ground for a long time engaging these people right now to figure out why they wont vote, and that how we can motivate them to go vote, deliver a message to them to turn them out. We have all this time to do that. On the leftri