You for all of you are watching by live stream. As the 2020 Campaign Ramps up, both democrats and republicans are working very hard to rally their base. They are also trying to win over swing voters but i think we all know and we will specially see today, that it is by far the largest bloc of voters out there, 100 million voters are the voting age adults who dont go to the polls. I cant say enough, that the balance of power in the United States rest in those voters. These nonvoters span every demographic. Every racial demographic, age demographic, education demographic. Today we are going to have, a very enlightening panel discussion, discussing with Party Leaders themselves, how they plan to appeal to this group and get some of these people to come to the polls. Were also also going to discuss the very interesting results of this night study that is being studied today. And we have 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, thats 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 witnessed 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 american support . Nobody. I am not registered to vote. I did not vote. I do not vote. I dont think im going to vote. Nearly 100 million eligible voters did not vote. This is a story perhaps the most important voice in america yet to be heard. The 100 million project is a landmark study of 12000 nonvoters, done at unprecedented scale. 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 elections represent the will of the people. Many believe the system is rigged. Mean my sister always think theres a conspiracy theory. I think the whole thing is predetermined. I think its rigged. Nonvoters engage less with news and feel underinformed on politics. And yet many nonvoters are College Graduates and over one third our middle class who are wealthier. Democrats, republicans, and independents each make up one third of nonvoters. Half of respondents reported an unfavorable view of President Trump. 40 favorable, and the rest undecided. The emerging electric, 18 to 24 yearolds, are less informed, less interested in politics, less likely to vote in 2020 then nonvoters overall. Are we losing a generation of voters . I am not informed on anything, feeling my vote is going to be wasted. Effect being young and voting, people will judge you for because you are not educated enough about the whole voting process. So increasing voter turnout isnt just about politics, its about the future of democracy. To start the most important conversation of 2020, visit the 100 million. Org. Police 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, think you politico for organizing this important conversation, thank you ed harris from working to record that direction. The Knight Foundation is focused on supporting a stronger democracy through more and formed engage communities. So led by our director comic alexanders here today we commissioned the survey to understand the health of our democracy to time when our political conversation is really focused on the narrowest slice of voters. While elections may be ultimately about convincing a few, are viewed as democracy is engaging the many. To kick things off today, im really delighted to be able to lead a conversation, with fernand amonte who led the project to runs then dixon ahmadi which is a legendary south florida base survey for firm. Shes a leading voice on how information influences choices and decisions within democracy. She helped design the survey, helped to lead the statistical analysis. We are going to talk a bit about what was surprising or not about what we learned regarding this large voting block. So i like to start with you, ferdinand what is the biggest thing that jumps out to you who the nonvoters is or isnt . Based on the survey. The amazing thing about this, myself included have these preconceived notions about who nonvoters are. Theres always conventional wisdom that suggest well, they tend to bid this group and mobile in this. But we found in the study, with the data revealed, as they are like everyone in america. In the sense that you run the full breadth of what the american body politic looks like. Yes, there are some deviations from voters and perhaps a little bit more minority, little bit more undereducated, but nonetheless these are groups of people that feel this same way voters do. They take the voter consumption piece. 82 of voters say that they are following news and information about politics very closely. One would think from the hypothesis that the nonvoters are probably the 20 percentile range. Granted, they are 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, those watching on Live Streaming into see that come live in the data and understand the reasons why so may those feel the way they do, it was very eyeopening, illuminating, and opens a lot of questions about what it means but what it means for democracy. Steam acts as a political scientist thinking about this group were the largest studies ever, what is the mythbusters. Your political scientist have been talking for decades about why people do or dont engage in industrialized democracy. So what conventional wisdom was upended by the survey . One of the tremendous benefits of the survey, often will be talked to people, we ask them to selfreport. Whether they are voters nonvoters, and people have a great incentive, the great benefit of the study is we knew in advance how often these people had voted, we know exactly what they are bringing to the survey. One of the things that emerges from the study, is about how to get information. A longstanding theory and Political Sciences as logs build information, nate from the news but from a friend or someone in their network, they are probably going to be okay. But one of the most robust results across the modeling, cross allow the data is one of the greatest differences in who votes and who doesnt vote is whether you get your information directly from the news or whether you just try to bump into it from somebody else. And that as a result that holds, regardless of your demographic. Regardless of education, your job, gender, pretty much everything. How you get the news seems to matter quite a lot. Potentially more than we had thoughts. So given that context, given this has to do a lot with behaviors that people have for someone whos talking a lot to campaigns, helping campaigns think about how to succeed and win, we can have highminded ideas about trying to engage everyone. I happen to have this idea and the foundation has us ideas. Help with a shared here. I think will hear later about those are focused on persuasion. In the world where stakes are incredibly hi, for whom only focus on the few people who arent just bumping into news who are junkies and highly engaged, therefore highly persuadable, is there anything we can do to encourage campaigns to actually think about nonvoters as being worth the time, effort, investment . Absolutely i think again in the theme of myth busting delayed the Data Destroys its conventional wisdom, one of the things i think people believe are just inherently think about, as it overwhelmingly favors one party over another. That if one party were just overwhelmingly cultivate this group of voters, they would win every election and have a permanent majority. That is not what we saw on the data. Its actually 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 what you might call an independent, perhaps quans eye persuadable mode. The challenge with nonvoters is resource limitations. A lot of campaigns and his organization say hey its interesting that we just dont have the recent sources to engage this segment of the electric. What he think their study revealed is there are the first advantage for these campaigns whoever gets to them first, might actually enhance their prospects of winning. In spite of the fact that some people might say oh dont go after them as much because are not likely to vote. If you make an appeal with them, they have shown, they have beliefs and strong held beliefs at that. Does that have to follow s at something we can expect from a president ial campaign or is this going to have to happen in municipal elections and county elections who is going to be willing to say im in and make an investment because i think im activating a constituency thats going to have a good lifetime value. If your marketing you think about lifetime value that the 64 milliondollar question. Campaigns like the nfl whenever theres in the National Football league all 31 other teams copy. Think the First Campaign whether its the president ial campaign or the culture and locally meant miscible campaign to see theres a pool here if properly engaged and activated and sometimes his work with the engagement, they can show that puts them over the top, it might have a force effect that just changes the culture of how these are engaged in the nonvoters are engaged. So. Make it is practical thinking what it would take whether its a campaign or social movement, to activate these folks who you already mentioned sort of one of the key vectors is really whether you actively encounter news or bump into it. We used to have a model, or even kinda do both is called the newspaper. We used to be economically viable and its something were on intensely the Knight Foundation. Sue and the information environment we live in, one in which frankly we are increasingly bumping and information more, what are some of the more promising levers, areas of behavior that campaigns or others about information or others that people should be focus on based on the survey. One of things that emerges is people are more likely to vote when their network and family and friends and people they work with vote. And this survey comments some ways force is that idea. The people not voting are having disengagement with their community and are less happy with their lives. To activate these people, its not necessarily treating them as individuals, but approaching whole communities, engaging whole communities and suggesting the whole communities who have often been disengaged for decades that there is something worthwhile about the voices. And one, you get people within communities to encourage each other. That would lead to these networks that political scientist talk about where people encourage each other turn out to vote, they encourage algebra to sit and even follow the news. There is, in some sense of privilege with some people have to spend a lot of time following the news that many just do not. Once we really kind of reinforced network effect, and reinforce these kinds of connections that people might have and use those connections to actually encourage people to participate politically, i think that would be the most promising avenue for increasing interest and. Some people say lets go little deeper on this, we are in a moment were a lot of the work that bob putman and others led with urban socialization is coming back into vogue. They have faced disconnection and disengagement whether its in politics or community. Certainly that school of thought would agree with the sediment you just espouse. Its about how you being valorize in your community. Some people say but look, the places where that happens are gone. Others would say theyre just happening in new places, they are happening online, through different how in your work do you think we should be hopeful that we can regain those networks in new places or is this really going to be about rebuilding institutions and communities that are at the very least stress . Research suggests that we dont need bob putnam style bowling leagues to create connections and networks. Networks exist all around us. They exist in our families, still exists in religious communities, and certainly online. There is researchers suggest that if your online friends report that theyve vote you are more likely to do so. I think the institutions are there, it is just a matter of reaching people who are within these communities, who are pressure points. Who might actually suggest to their friends and neighbors and families that theres something worthwhile to you being engage with politics. Its something you should put your time into. Last word to you, think about that through sort of a cynical political lens. Is that a message . Is there a message there is it a campaign can embrace this active contribution . No question. I take a cynical sometimes political perspective. Ive seen entire people who president ial campaigns designed around a subgroup of voters in the swing state of florida, puerto rico maybe even cubans, smart target pool of voters. These are 100 million americans concentrated in every state. This isnt some fringe group, what you need to see, especially in the media fragmentation as we see younger demographics less and less likely to engage in traditional media. Campaigns in the culture of Campaign Needs to do a better job meeting these nonvoters where they are. They are not always on the traditional media websites. They are in gaming platforms, theyre watching tv shows that sometimes have nothing to do with politics, or on their phone. They are completely isolated from the traditional means of dissemination of information. I think those campaigns at seymours and 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 both relating the study and for joining us this morning. We really appreciate it. [applause] [background noises] [background noises] please welcome back to the stage politico editor at large peter canalis. [applause] first of all i want to thank you all for that very insightful presentation, i also want to remind people that you can participate in the discussion via politico elections, and we 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. Where nonvoters, and how the Political Parties will be contending with this in the 2020 election. I am very, very honored to be joined, starting on my left with caroline by, who is the managing director for morning consult. Thats the Polling Company that works with politico and surveying. Matts daily or the deputy political director of the Republican National committee. Thank you so much for being with us. Crystal knight, political director properties usa which is a democratic super pack, and doctor kostas from Northeastern University up in mild stomping grounds of boston. To start off i want to ask matt a question. The numbers that came out of the night said it, actually had some good news for President Trump in there. And that was it in every swing state with the exception of georgia, there is a plurality of nonvoters who actually supported truck. This was very surprising because for those of us who followed this issue for a while were assuming people worse than nonvoters were skewing more illiberal. In fact the nonvoters even more than the voters were actually approach him. To think of a state like arizona where the welltodo suburbanites have been in the United States a little bit more toward the democrats. There are a lot of people along the border, a lot of guys in pickup trucks or supporting President Trump. But it turns out they may not be registered or if they are registered that they may not be voting. How are you going to continue to deal with that. First of all no surprise there is boarding President Trump. But with that i mean its very interesting i look back on this i think of a question like nonvoters most of us and never understand that we would like. We are all about politics all the time. We are always cant wait to vote so its like a super bowl. Thinking that people who dont vote and why they do not vote right . The job of the Republican National committee and the Trump Campaign is to go out there and find voters in a state like arizona and figure out what motivates them to turn out the vote. Selectively we are fortunate to have a huge ground game its been going on around for a long time engaging these people right now to figure out why they dont vote and figure out how they vote. How do we motivate them to turn them out to vote. Right now theyre trying to figure who their nominee is going to be a we are able to do this. So time is on our side which is very valuable in politics. Theres been a lot of attention in the last couple of years, to republican secretaries of state and some of the states who have had voter purges of often the hundreds of thousands of voters who just havent voted and as few as two of the last elections. Imagining the arizona comparison, it could be a lot of those casual voters are trunk voters. Are you concerned the party has been adopting the wrong strategy when it comes to moving people off the rolls . Its interesting, a lot of secretary of states take different approaches to this. Some follow the laws in the state. Im from West Virginia where they refuse to purge the roles forever because once they did that the democratic resident a giant registration would fall so much to the republicans would gain the