With Kamala Harris joining the presidential race, efforts to mobilize voters have kicked into high gear.
With Kamala Harris joining the presidential race, efforts to mobilize voters have kicked into high gear.
Since President Joe Biden made the astounding announcement that he was ending his bid for reelection and, only minutes later, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic nominee, there has been a seismic shift in the nation’s political landscape. Within just one week, the vice president raked in more than $200 million for her campaign coffers and garnered endorsements from major labor groups as well as key party leaders in battleground and swing states at play this November. Jus this week, the Harris campaign announced it had raised $1 billion.
Meanwhile, among organizations across the country that are working around the clock to get out the vote in their targeted communities, particularly women, the possibility of electing the first woman president in U.S. history has created an atmosphere of excitement and hope.
“The other word that I use to summarize the shift is unity,” said Erin Erenberg, president and CEO of Chamber of Mothers, a national nonpartisan nonprofit that works to “[unite] mothers as advocates to create a better America.” “We have an opportunity to look for what unites us.”
“When we picked paid family medical leave, affordable accessible childcare and improved investment in maternal health [as key issues for the chamber], that was in part because there was a 75 to 85 percent approval rating among the general populace that these are things that we all need as Americans. So being able to look at where do we all agree, where can we all unite, what is possible for this country—it is a moment of hope.”
Erenberg said her organization intends to double down this election cycle on the 52 million people it reached in June 2024 with its Vote Like a Mother campaign. She notes that with 30 state and local chapters, plus an interstate military chapter, the chamber is determined to engage a wide swath of American mothers to show up in November thoroughly educated to vote according to their interests.
“The more moms are educated and informed and can get information at their fingertips, especially because they are so time impoverished, the more that they can vote according to their own interests,” Erenberg said. “Lawmakers who are not centering the needs of mothers should be scared because we will run for office, and we will vote folks out.”
Organizations focused on a variety of demographic groups say they are seeing strong support for Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, including among the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in North Carolina. The community is spread across the state’s 100 counties, with a population representing 20 different ethnic groups and speaking around 40 different languages.
According to Chavi Koneru, executive director and cofounder of North Carolina Asian Americans Together, some 240,000 AAPI voters could completely change the political landscape in this battleground state. Since Harris entered the race, “there has been a significant increase in enthusiasm in the community. We have had more people reach out to volunteer just in the past week than in any other election cycle ever, combined,” Koneru told Ms. in late July. She said the enthusiasm is also coming from people who did not support Biden but who are now excited and engaged and want to help Harris.
“We have a large Asian American community who are resonating with the fact that this person is half Asian American—half Indian American—who grew up with similar experiences to them, and they want to be involved beyond just going to vote,” Koneru said. “They want to knock on doors for her, they want to make calls for her, and that is something we have never seen before.” And while there are differences among groups of voters, Koneru said her research shows that protecting reproductive rights, the cost of living and the economy are top among issues people care about.
This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms., which hit newsstands Sept. 24. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.
Educating voters about the candidates’ positions on issues they say are important to them in the 2024 presidential race, as well as in down-ballot races, is an immense undertaking for organizations involved in field and canvas work.
Henry Capers, state director for Rally North Carolina, a nonpartisan nonprofit that opened its doors in March 2024, is also seeing a lot of enthusiasm about the upcoming election, particularly among the young voters he said are his organization’s top priority. Rally North Carolina intends to interact with more than 100,000 college students across the state to get them registered to vote as well as get their pledge to vote.
The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement Pre-2024 Election Youth Survey from Tufts University bodes well for their turnout. The poll found that 57 percent of respondents ages 18-34 say they are “extremely likely” to vote in the 2024 presidential election, and of those who say they are “extremely likely” to vote, 51 percent prefer the Democratic candidate, while 30 percent prefer a Republican.
“We want to do everything we can to empower the more than half a million college students that touch our North Carolina campuses each year,” Capers said. “We want to empower them with the knowledge, as well as the ability, to get to the polls and to be as conscious [as possible] about what decisions they make about what is best for them.”
According to Capers, if enough young people cast their ballots in this election, it could shift the tide. “Our college students can be the difference between this old way of thinking about politics, or this new progressive movement that speaks to including everyone, bringing everyone to the table and showing, and providing, a level of respect that everyone is rightfully owed.”
If we happen to elect a pro-democracy, pro-voter Congress, changes could come very fast.
Alice Clapman, senior counsel at the Brennan Center
Like Rally North Carolina, the Feminist Majority is mobilizing on college campuses—focusing its efforts on schools in battleground states where the organization believes it can have the most impact. Madelyn Amos, the national programs associate, manages the college campus program responsible for hiring and training a team of student organizers. Amos anticipates a student turnout in 2024 like the one seen in 2020, when young people voted in record numbers.
“For this election, our theme is ‘Vote as if your life depends on it,’ and we are not even being dramatic when we say that,” she said. “Young voters really understand that this election will determine the fate of our country for decades to come. … This is the generation that these politicians will affect the most. … It is their lives that are on the line here.”
According to Amos, the Feminist Majority’s voter mobilization will be a student-led campaign. The organization is also working to make sure students know their rights, including their right to register to vote where they go to school, and that there are polling locations on many college campuses. Although college students retain their constitutional right to vote where they reside while attending an institution, that right is often hampered by election laws that make it harder to vote.
“We know that voting is a right that is under attack, especially for young people. We also know that more young people are more impacted by laws that make it harder to vote,” said Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes, vice president of policy, partnerships and organizing for Advocates for Youth, an educational organization supporting the needs and voices of young people around reproductive and sexual health and rights. “There is definitely a fear of the youth vote because young people demand change and hold their leaders accountable.”
Reaching young people nationwide, her organization is also advancing its get-out-the-vote efforts through voter registration, mobilization and voter education, with youth activists engaging their peers around issue-based campaigns that are vast, broad and intersectional.
“For example, there are a number of reproductive rights initiatives that are on the ballot in different communities, and so obviously young people are caring about issues related to reproductive health rights and justice, the right to access abortion, access to contraception, and LGBTQ health and rights,” Rhodes said. “These are rights that are under attack in their own communities and even on their campuses.”
Also under attack is their basic right to vote. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “voters in at least 21 states will face restrictions they’ve never encountered before in a presidential or midterm election.”
An omnibus election law that went into effect in North Carolina on July 1, for instance, moves the deadline for receipt of mail ballots from three days after Election Day to 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. It also allows political parties to put observers in polling sites to monitor voters.
Sara Carter, a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice voting rights program, said that while this may seem innocuous on its face, it could effectively disenfranchise thousands of North Carolina voters.
“In the 2020 presidential election, more than 11,600 ballots sent by Election Day arrived at election offices in the three days following, which means those ballots would not be counted under the new law that will be in place this year,” Carter said.
Although Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill, the Legislature successfully overrode his veto. In a scathing veto statement, Cooper said the legislation was all about securing power and disenfranchising vulnerable voters:
“In working to erect new barriers for younger and nonwhite voters, many of whom use early voting and absentee ballots, this bill also hurts older adults, rural voters, and people with disabilities. It requires valid votes to be tossed out if the post office delivers them even one minute after 7:30 p.m. on Election Day or if a computer rejects a signature. It encourages voter intimidation at the polls by election deniers and conspiracy believers. North Carolina has conducted secure and fair elections, but this bill will block voters and their ballots unnecessarily. Therefore, I veto this bill.”
Voting rights advocates point to Alabama as another state making it harder to cast a ballot. This year, the GOP-controlled Legislature passed a law imposing criminal penalties on anyone who turns in someone else’s vote-by-mail application—otherwise considered ordinary voting activity. Carter, the Brennan Center fellow, said that the law adds fear around voting that may scare some people away from participating, and that it disproportionately burdens elderly voters and those with disabilities who may need some assistance with voting. Although Mississippi passed similar legislation, that law has been blocked in part by a federal court for discriminating against voters with disabilities.
The restrictive election laws have not gone unchallenged. The League of Women Voters of North Carolina, along with Democracy North Carolina and the North Carolina Black Alliance, filed a lawsuit against several provisions of the North Carolina law, arguing it violates the First, 14th and 26th Amendments by subjecting voters to an undue burden on the right to vote. But Carter cautioned that the courts cannot be the only solution to remedy voter suppression.
“The problem with relying simply on the courts is that courts can move slowly, so a law might be in place impacting voters while litigation is ongoing,” she pointed out.
While many states are passing laws to make it harder to vote, several states have passed voter-protection laws. According to the Brennan Center, between Jan. 1 and May 3 at least 11 states enacted voter-expansion laws, the most notable in Kentucky, which expanded absentee voting. Twelve of these laws, including Kentucky’s, will be in effect for the general election.
Come November, voters will need to be knowledgeable about changes in election laws, including knowing where to vote and what documents they will need to have in place to cast their ballots and make their voices heard.
Alice Clapman, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s voting rights program, warned that until the right to vote is fully protected at the federal level, hopefully through passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, we can expect only incremental protections.
“If we happen to elect a pro-democracy, pro-voter Congress, changes could come very fast. Barring that, we are going to be pushing for incremental changes at the state level, and that is just going to be a continuous battle, with some wins or losses,” she said.
Georgia, considered a battleground state, is another place Republican lawmakers have passed onerous voting restrictions on its electorate, including SB 202 and SB 189. Ranada Robinson, research director for the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to engage, register and build power for what it calls the New Georgia Majority—young, Black and Latina/o voters who have been historically marginalized—contends that both laws are designed to prevent people from fully participating in the electoral process.
Robinson adds that SB 202, in particular, targets voters of color.
“On each of the barriers alone, it does not seem like a lot, but as a package, it really does impact voters and the ease [with] which they can vote,” she said. “For example, no longer can we provide water when the lines are super long. And so that impacts folks. If you are an elderly person or if you are a single mom who has been working all day, you might not be willing on this particular day to stand in the line [when] nobody is out there to give you some relief. They also cut down on the number of dropboxes and took the drop boxes back inside and during business hours only.
“Research has shown,” Robinson continued, “that it is the majority-Black districts where you see the longest lines. It is the majority-Black districts where you see polling places are closing or being consolidated into other areas. And so it is our communities that have been disproportionately impacted.”
Robinson is keenly mindful of the impact Black women can have on the upcoming election. Black women are credited as being the deciding factor in Georgia in the 2020 election by favoring Biden.
As Black women mobilize there and around the country to support the election of Harris as president, Robinson said their enthusiasm was palpable and exciting when she joined a Zoom call of 44,000 Black women in support of the Harris campaign.
“It gave me a boost of hope that I didn’t think I needed,” Robinson said. “It definitely gave me some reassurance that even though we live in a country where Black women are not always valued, this [election of a Black woman president] is something that can happen in 2024.”
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