An internal memo showing panic within the Democratic Party over its ‘nonpartisan’ voter registration efforts potentially helping former President Trump is drawing criticism from those who say the registration efforts were a ‘partisan scam’ from the start.
Democrats across the country have become increasingly concerned over the amount of support Trump is pulling from usually reliable demographics and donors have been bickering over an internal memo casting doubt on whether the party should continue using nonprofits to register unregistered voters over fears it could help Trump, the Washington Post reported this week.
‘Indeed, if we were to blindly register nonvoters and get them on the rolls, we would be distinctly aiding Trump’s quest for a personal dictatorship,’ the memo explained, casting doubt on the longstanding Democrat voter registration push that typically has resulted in favorable results in previous elections.
The memo argues that Democrats should focus their registration efforts only in ‘specific, heavily pro-Biden populations’ and the Washington Post explained that ‘the rise in Trump support among nonregistered voters has run up against a long-held Democratic policy priority of growing the voter rolls.’
Some political analysts claimed the Washington Post article shows that some Democrat registration efforts that are labeled non-partisan are in fact working solely to register Democrats.
‘Left-wing strategists accidentally said the quiet part out loud: their ‘non-partisan’ left-wing voter registration efforts have always been highly partisan operations designed to help Democrats,’ Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project, told Fox News Digital.
‘This admission raises grave questions about other programs the left also claims are ‘non-partisan,’ including President Biden’s executive order using taxpayers’ money to mobilize liberal voters. The press should take note of and remember this rare moment of honesty from the left the next time they cry ‘voter suppression.”
‘Democrats donors are now getting memos telling them to stop funding voter registration nonprofits because unregistered voters lean towards Trump,’ investigative researcher Parker Thayer posted on X in response to the report.
‘It’s all a partisan scam,’ he added.
The memo comes as recent polling data suggests Biden is hemorrhaging support from key demographics that historically have been registered by Democrats and then voted for Democrats.
Gallup polling this year showed that Democrats currently hold the lowest lead they have had with Black voters over Republicans they have ever had dating back to when the polling began in 1999 and their 12-point advantage over Republicans with Hispanic voters is the lowest since 2011.
Polling also shows that young adults are supporting Democrats at their lowest level in almost two decades.
‘By 2010, young adults were the only age category giving the Democrats an edge, and their Democratic orientation remained strong until it fell to just eight points in 2023, the slimmest since 2005,’ Gallup explained.
In 2016, Gallup polling showed roughly 51% of non-registered voters identified as Democrat or lean Democrat compared to 31% who identified as Republican or lean Republican. Over the last year, that number for Democrats has sunk to 42% while the Republican number grew to 40%, WaPo reported.
Some Democrats pushed back in the WaPo story on the idea that registration efforts need to be re-tooled due to Trump’s strong polling numbers with reliable Democratic voters.
‘If you’d ask me what keeps me up at night, it’s not that young people of color are going to defect to the Republican camp. My worst case scenario is that memos like this create a disinvestment — and that makes our job very hard,’ Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, said, adding that the memo shows ‘implicit bias that the mainstream folks have internalized’ and that it ‘does a disservice because it’s trying to pit communities against each other in ways that are not helpful.’
‘From a nonpartisan perspective, we should help close the turnout gap, which means if Latinos, Blacks and Asian Americans are registered at lower rates, then we need to increase registration,’ Biden pollster Matt Barreto told the Washington Post.
‘The unregistered people of color are still leaning Democratic. They might need more of a push. But they are not leaning in the opposite direction.’
