Remote courses and coronavirus cause unprecedented challenge in reaching young swing voters

close

Video

Democracy 2020: College voter outreach amid coronavirus

With some college campuses facing extended shutdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida’s Democratic and Republican parties are forced to find new ways to reach a quickly-rising number of young swing voters before the election. Many young swing voters may not be in the same state they are registered to vote in by November or won’t have the resources to vote by mail.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- With some college campuses facing extended shutdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida’s Democratic and Republican parties are finding new ways to reach a quickly growing number of young swing voters before the election.

In 2016, 24 percent of Florida voters registered as “No Party Affiliation [NPA],” which in Florida is its own designation. Today, that number has grown to 26.4 percent.

It might be only a couple of points, but in Florida, just one point can mean everything; in 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton here by just 1.2 percent.

COULD CORONAVIRUS DEFLATE COLLEGE STUDENT VOTE IN KEY BATTLEGROUND STATES?

The number of voters belonging to the two major parties has shrunk from 82 percent in 2000 to 72 percent as of September, according to the Florida Division of Elections. Today, almost 40 percent of voters under the age of 50 are registering as NPAs.

Political analyst Susan MacManus says campaigns are making a mistake if they focus only on The Sunshine State’s older voters.

“…The younger people are the ones leaning more independent and if they're not reached adequately and mobilized to vote, the candidate that fails to do so will probably not win Florida,” she said.

MacManus says young voters are driving the growing national independent trend, with the two youngest generations making up about one-third of the electorate in Florida. She says there are a variety of reasons this bloc is choosing the middle ground, like fear of retaliation from employers or business patrons and impatience with partisan mudslinging in the current political climate.

“This is clearly the deepest generational split that we've seen in a very long time among the Florida electorate and the national electorate. Younger people are sort of down on traditional parties. What they want is a candidate who's inspirational and talks directly to their issues,” she said.

This variety of issues makes it difficult for campaigns to target this growing bloc, especially with no in-person campaign events amid the pandemic.

Tom Nickerson, swing voter in his twenties, didn’t like his options in 2016 and doesn’t like them this time.

“I’m not there yet, I’m really not there, so I guess I’m one of those swing individuals…but I do intend to vote,” said Nickerson. “It’s disappointing. I feel like these are two men that don't necessarily represent me.”

There is no real path forward to reelection for Trump without winning Florida, but right now, he’s in an uphill battle.

(Former VP Joe Biden leads President Trump by nine points among independents nationally.)

Recent polls in the country's largest swing state with 29 electoral college votes show Trump trailing now-presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by over 6 percent. Biden is also leading by 9 points among independents nationally.

But MacManus says the word to describe Florida polls is “caution.”

“We learned from the past couple of elections that polls can be wrong in Florida…The news saturation cycle really affects what drives people to actually turn out and for whom to vote on Election Day…The worrisome problem for both candidates is that disaffected groups within their parties won't vote for their opponent, but just won't vote at all. If you look back at Hillary in Florida, she lost in 2016 because a huge group of Sanders voters just stayed at home,” MacManus said. “Turnout is critical.”

And the state’s two major parties agree.

But the days of door knocking and hanging flyers on doorknobs are gone, and the pandemic has accelerated what already was a trend of moving toward text-message blasts and targeted social media ads.

Severe limits on in-person campaigning imposed by the coronavirus pandemic have made building up energy on college campuses an impossible task.

Historically, the energy that campaigns hope for from young voters comes from college campuses. But with some facing extended shutdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and most vowing to continue offering virtual courses, Florida’s Democratic and Republican parties have been forced to find new ways to reach young independents.

“Our organizers are doing all their efforts through text messaging, phone banking, recruiting volunteers, and then we are also doing all our digital organizing through our social media. We understand that right now we cannot do the same outreach that we've been doing in the past, so we decided that it was better to keep people safe to change everything. Our idea is to make sure that the voters are still engaged, but also that that person is going to turn out to vote,” said Luisana Pérez Fernández, deputy communications director for the Florida Democratic Party.

Florida Republican Party Chairman Joe Gruters says the party made millions of voter contacts within the past week and has more than 150 staffers on the ground.

“Within 24 hours of the shutdown, we went to an all-virtual campaign…I think we're far ahead of where we need to be to…persuade the swing voters that are left, and get them out and make sure that they vote by absentee or on Election Day. It's going to come down to a very small margin here in Florida,” he added.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Florida has 13.7 million registered voters, many of whom are opting to cast ballots during early voting or vote-by-mail in order to avoid crowds and lines at polling places due to the pandemic.

According to the Florida Division of Elections, Democrats have been provided about 1.6 million vote-by-mail ballots, while Republicans have received about 1.2 million. Another 33,582 have gone to third-party voters, and 677,037 have gone to independents.

Trump does enjoy a solid base of support in Florida, but MacManus warns voters’ decisions may be out of his control.

“A lot of people believe that it's a time period when people are just looking for a calming effect, so you’ll say for sure Biden's going to win, but if you really believe that the economy drives voters, you can understand why people will say Trump's going to win,” MacManus said. “The key is these independent voters’ thinking and which way they will lean…but if COVID continues and the economy continues to really suffer, historically that means people will want somebody new for president. So the real struggle is for Trump. He has to hope that there's minimizing or at least diminishing of COVID, but also that there's an improvement in the economy.”

MacManus says Biden’s vice-presidential pick, as well as his and Trump’s presidential debate performances, will have a major influence on swing voters’ final decision.

With just over 100 days to go, Nickerson says his vote will come down to whichever candidate feels more genuine to him.

“I think it would take someone that's very real…and that would be the right person for me,” he said.