A gun control group funded by billionaire oligarch and failed 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is spending $1.5 million on a new virtual outreach program that plans on registering 100,000 young voters.
Students Demand Action is leading this program and has plans of replacing the group’s original voter registration efforts. The Wuhan Virus outbreak derailed this original plan thanks to the shutdowns.
The new program is now shifting its focus in 13 battle ground state and is the first major project the group is using for online-only outreach to get the youth to the polls.
Because of the pandemic, voter registration campaigns have been disrupted, which worries people that first-time voters will be overlooked during the 2020 election cycle.
Pew Research Center reported that Generation Z voters — those born at the end of the 1990s and the start of the 2000s — are expected to comprise 10% of 2020’s eligible voters.
“Presidential election years are the moment when we see the greatest numbers of people moving onto the registration rolls,” stated Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. On top of registration efforts at motor vehicle and social service agencies, “churches work to activate congregants, grassroots advocates knock on doors, campuses mobilize students,” she claimed. “And all of that activity has come to a grinding halt.”
Students Demand Action has about 400 chapters and about 200,000 members in its network.
In its new campaign, the group is adding 17 “virtual” organizers to mobilize young gun control activists to carry out “relational canvassing,” urging their friends, relatives, and acquaintances to register to vote.
Instead of tabling on college campuses or approaching college students outside of university facilities, these activists are using text message or video conferencing hangouts to spread their message.
The 13 states in the group’s crosshairs include Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. These states will play a crucial role in determining the outcome of the 2020 elections.
Student Demand Action belongs to the network of gun control groups under Bloomberg’s political machine. These groups include Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots wing, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. There are 6 million members in this network.
Everytown plans on spending about $60 million on federal and state races this year.
