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 peoe. 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 than nonvoters overall. Are we 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 a 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 piece. 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 lower than voters 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 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 stakes are 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. In a in a world where the stakes are 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. Not 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 question. 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 which we live in one in which we are all increasing bumping into information more, what are some 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 about where 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 is that a message there this talk to community and democracy, no question i take a cynical and sometimes different perspective ive seen president ial campaigns that have to do with a swing state of florida or maybe the cubans of florida small target pool voters, these are hundred million americans they are concentrated in every state it is a sub fringe group its not what you need to see in the smaller fragmentation, the campaigns and the culture of campaigns need to do a better job and meeting these non voters where they are. They are not always on the traditional meaty yeah websites they are gaming platforms, watching tv shows i have nothing to do with politics their isolated from the traditional means of dissemination of information, and i think 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 take those risks as well. Thank you for joining us this morning thank you so much. I want to thank you for that lively presentation, you can also get involved with political in elections hashtag we will be taking some questions via twitter later on so we are here now to talk about where the middle meets the road so to speak where non voters and how the Political Parties are going to be contending with this in the 2020 election im honored to be joined with caroline by the managing director for Morning Consult she works with political does it standing surveying thank you. Crystal night political director of priorities usa which the super pac and doctor cost us from Northeastern University from boston to start off i wanted to ask a question the numbers that came out of the night study had some good news for President Trump in there and that is in every swing state with the exception of georgia there was a plurality of non voters that supported trump. Was surprising because many we thought as many were skewing more liberal in fact non voters more than the voters were pro trump as think of a state like arizona where theyve been trending more towards the democrats while people along the border guys and true pick up truck supporting trump but they may not be registered or they may not be voting how are you going to contend with that at the rnc. First of all i am not surprised they are supporting President Trump, with that i mean it is interesting when i look back at this i was thinking back of the question and most of us in this room would never understand what that would be like all about politics all the time, we cant wait to vote because its our super bowl by thinking of super why people vote or dont vote and the Trump Campaign to go out there and find those voters in place like arizona and figure out what motivates them to turn out to vote this. We are fortunate to have a huge ground game its been on the ground for a long time engaging these people right now to figure out why they wont vote and then how we can motivate them to go vote and turn them out we have all this time to do this figure out who their nominees are were able to do this time is on our side which is very valuable in politics do this again imagining some of the arizona comparisons, could be a lot of those casual voters are trump voters are you concerned that the party has kind of been adopting the wrong strategy when it comes to moving people off the rolls. Many 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 after that the democratic that station would fall Voter Registration is a priority, something the secretary of state to decide how they want to do it but from a deep perspective we are focused on these people we Pay Attention to movers list interstate out of state we Pay Attention to people who have come off the rolls somehow theyre there and how to register them to get active again matching in conversation much of one of them came to the rnc and said if we enact one of these voter purge laws would that hurt us what would your response be . I would say it would not hurt us we want the best Data Available we want people to show who is registered to vote on that day we need the best Data Available so the secretary of state is going to purge the role for inactive voters it makes a job easier who we can target to turn out. The crystal, at priorities usa trying to mobilize liberal leaning law voters, one of surprising results of the study was that it showed both the most dedicated voters are women also the most dedicated nonvoters are women. In the category of voters that was the most disengage, this was measured by political weve heard about women being engaged or engage they are right never been more gas narrate now, what can be done from your point of view to get those people out . I think that statistic was very surprising, but i also think that we have to speak to issues that affect women, women are just as affected by the economy, and health care at the rising cost of prescriptions, just his manner, but if a woman has competing issues, and she doesnt a state like, for where youll have one day to vote on and im a single parent, i have to think about dropping up my child, in the morning, maybe a try to go and vote in the middle of the day and the line is really long maybe after work hours have think about caring for an era elderly parent or another relative