College Voters
This week’s quote, courtesy of Nelson Mandela: "The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow."
These Emails: On Mondays leading to the election, I’m sending a concise suggestion for how best to deploy your democracy-protecting $’s. BlueWall Moneyball. Please forward to any friends also grappling with a deluge of campaign solicitations.
What You Shouldn’t Do: Yes, we desperately want Harris/Walz to win. Ditto for Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, and the many candidates clogging our in-boxes with ‘the sky is falling’ pleas for money. But at this late stage, your incremental dollars will go to expensive television ads that voters are sick of seeing. Most Democrats will chase these shiny pennies. You can do better.
Recap from Last Week: Democratic state parties in WI, MI, PA, AZ, and NM make effective GOTV use of your money. They boost prospects for Harris/Walz, U.S. Senate and House candidates, and state-level elected officials (who may rule on 2024 election integrity). Here’s last week’s post.
Today’s BlueWall Moneyball Recommendation: It was a slog to register college voters for a Trump/Biden rematch. How things change. Apathy has turned into election-defining energy.
Teddy Landis is a young American who gives us hope for our collective futures. Last year he produced stunning college voter turnout . . . for a special Wisconsin Supreme Court election. WI state party head Ben Wikler notes, “He’s brilliant and astonishingly effective.” Now, Landis’ Student Turnout Projects has hundreds of employees and volunteers registering college voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
With kids coming to campus, now is the perfect time to support this initiative. Their registration techniques sound quirky but work – dorm-storming, study breaks, club drop-ins, catchy stunts, tables in high-traffic plazas. Whatever it takes. They guide prospective voters through ID and registration requirements. They hold hands, from cheerful first encounters through ‘I Voted’ stickers.
The youth vote will decide this election, as it did in 2020. It will lift pro-democracy candidates up and down the ballot. Your dollars go to a pooled fund that’s immediately allocated to high-leverage opportunities. And you’ll support a wave of young patriotic Americans who regain faith in our political processes — like Teddy Landis. BlueWall Moneyball.
Donate online here, or contact Polly Pfeiffer Schleicher at polly@thesvf.org for other ways to donate. Also, this group is hiring. Young adults fired up to create a better America can apply here for a life-changing experience.
Thanks,
Ted
tdintersmith@gmail.com