Dear Friend,
History breaks many ways. It broke last week in D.C. with the second Senate trial of a president of the United States. It also broke locally this past November with historically large numbers of progressive volunteers turning out unprecedented numbers of Democratic voters.
You did some wonderful work in 2020 and I would like to share that work with you. With our last three postcard campaigns, which were accompanied by phone calls, we targeted young voters (18-31). We asked them to sign up to vote by mail. We contacted 2932 warm, cold and new (WCN) Democratic voters in District 14.
Almost one third (32%) of this group signed on to Vote by Mail. Eighty three percent of these young people who signed up for VBM voted. They beat the general election turnout by eight points! You contributed to that turnout. Great work, Folks!
Some of District 14 precincts were blowouts:
- 1411–49% of WCN voters signed up for VBM with 84% voting
- 1404–48% of WCN voters signed up for VBM with 89% voting
- 1407–47% of WCN voters signed up for VBM with 91% voting
- 1413–46% of WCN voters signed up for VBM with 86% voting
- 1415–41% of WCN voters signed up for VBM with 97% voting
On the other hand, some precincts hurt our numbers. Unfortunately, these are the precincts with the largest number of young registered Democratic voters:
- 1410–19% of WCN voters signed up for VBM with 76% voting
- 1401–21% of WCN voters signed up for VBM with 65% voting
Looking at all registered young (18-25) Democratic voters in District 14, sixty eight percent voted in 2020. That compares favorably against forty nine percent in 2016. Unfortunately, our registered voters for that age group dropped from 2768 voters in 2016 to 1855 voters in 2020. Although our percentages were higher, the number of actual voters was lower.
There is still plenty of work to do. I hope that our 2020 successes will give us all the courage and energy to continue the work of voter education and turnout. What do you think?
A final personal note. Since October I have been offline journeying with Tom as he dealt with cancer. He completed his last chemo at the end of January and his tests have all come back clean. Everything looks good and we are ready to get back to work. Thank you for all of your cards, emails, gifts, visits and Facebook support. It made such a difference.
Ila Rae