One of the little-noticed but potentially powerful voter-turnout outfits at the Democratic National Convention this week is one designed to identify and then get to the polls the estimated 3.6 million "inconsistent Democratic voters."
"We're going for the Americans who just don't vote, and there are millions out there," Alex Morgan, executive director of the 9-year-old Progressive Turnout Project, told Newsmax on Monday.
Morgan, whose organization had a booth at the DNC in Chicago, explained that the Progressive Turnout Project was designed to focus on turning out voters in swing states who haven't consistently voted. Specifically, he said, this means Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — all of which Donald Trump won narrowly in 2016.
The loss of these states to the Republicans, Morgan believes, was largely due "to a much lower turnout of Democratic-leaning voters from 2012, which is part was because of not having Barack Obama leading the ticket again."
The Harris campaign and state Democratic organizations, according to Morgan, "will be focusing on these states as well. But where their emphasis will be on big cites such as Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee, ours will be on smaller population centers such as Traverse City [Michigan], Fond du Lac [Wisconsin], and Flagstaff [Arizona]."
To motivate the "inconsistent voters" in these population centers, the Progressive Turnout Project will rely heavily on in-person contact with voters through door-knocking by friends who actually know the voters who haven't been voting.
"You might not answer a stranger's knock on your door or pick up a call form an unknown number, but a message from a friend can cut throught the noise," he said.
If personal contact is difficult, Morgan added, "then contact through notes sent in the mail can also make a personal contact happen." As he spoke to Newsmax, volunteers at the Project's booth were eagerly addressing and stamping postcards to go to the targeted voters.
The estimated cost of the project is $35 million, almost all of which Morgan insisted comes from small donors. There are about six high-dollar donors, he said, "and I can't even think of their names now." He also said that Turnout's goal is to "knock on 5,303,000 doors and reach 36,767,000 voters."
Morgan and Turnout's co-founder Harry Pascal had worked on the 2014 reelection campaign of Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill. Schneider had won in his suburban Chicago district by about 2,500 votes in 2012 and lost by 5,000 in 2014.
"We realized that this was due to a drop in reliable turnout and we had to get to voters who didn't vote," Morgan said.
The Progressive Turnout Project was launched in 2015; and a year later, Schneider returned to Congress.
"When turnout is high, our side wins," said Morgan. "When turnout is low, we lose."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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