NextGen America Announces $2 Million Youth Organizing Program in Virginia

Multi-issue program will mobilize young voters to support Ralph Northam and Democrats up and down ballot in 2017

RICHMOND — Today, NextGen America announced its statewide effort to register, motivate and persuade thousands of young voters to turn out to help elect Ralph Northam as Governor. With over 70 paid staff on the ground on 25 campuses statewide, NextGen America is the only organization that will focus solely on organizing young people both on and off campus to build a multi-issue, youth-driven movement to elect progressive candidates up and down the ballot in Virginia in 2017.

“Young people are overwhelmingly progressive, and they can make the difference this year in Virginia,” said NextGen America President Tom Steyer. “Now more than ever, we need strong and principled state leadership to stand up to Donald Trump and the GOP’s divisive and hateful actions. Virginians deserve a leader like Ralph Northam who is committed to the issues young people care about: preventing climate disaster, promoting prosperity and equality, and protecting the fundamental rights of all Virginians.”

Working with the Virginia Democratic Coordinated Campaign, NextGen America is taking the lead on mobilizing voters in their teens, 20s and 30s both on and off campus in order to increase youth turnout in this crucial election. As of 2015, there were over 1.2 million Virginians eligible to vote between the ages of 18-29, meaning even a small increase in turnout could make or break the election. This is particularly true in select down-ballot and House of Delegates races, like HD12, which contains Virginia Tech and Radford University. NextGen’s campus work will also include organizing on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Community Colleges.

Face-to-face field organizing is at the heart of NextGen America’s program, and organizers will work to reach young Virginians wherever they are, whether it’s on their phones, online, or even in their mailboxes. Furthermore, NextGen will be applying lessons from campaign tactic experiments run with young voters in 2016 — as well as running more data-driven experiments to test the efficacy of its efforts, including studying the impact of different text messages, different pieces of mail, and different combinations of contact on a young person’s likelihood to cast a ballot.

“Given our current political climate, we want to make sure young people realize how much their statewide elected officials matter to protect our rights from Trump and the GOP’s dangerous agenda. Whether they are fighting for climate justice, racial equality, reproductive rights, or any other issue — it’s young people who are going to make a difference in this election. That’s why we’re doing all we can to register them to vote and get them to the ballot box to support progressive candidates on November 7th,” said Hannah Bristol, Virginia Youth Organizing Director.

In total, NextGen America will spend $2 million in Virginia during the 2017, creating momentum with young voters to decisively swing the vote in favor of candidates like Ralph Northam who are committed to the advancement of progressive policies and standing up to Trump and GOP agenda. In addition to NextGen’s $2 million spend, For Virginia’s Future, the partnership organization between NextGen America and organized labor such as AFSCME, AFT, NEA, and the AFL-CIO, will run a seven-figure robust electoral program focused on both turning out less-likely midterm voters and building organizing infrastructure that will last in 2018 and beyond.

NextGen’s work with young voters in Virginia is part of its national youth organizing program — NextGen Rising — a 2017-2018 campaign to engage and organize thousands of young people in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and California.

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In the 2016 election cycle, NextGen conducted the largest independent youth vote program in modern campaign history. Those efforts engaged 12,828 young volunteers and registered over one million voters across the country. Young voters registered by NextGen were over 4% more likely to vote than other new registrants, and registered young voters contacted by NextGen voted at a rate 23% higher than other voters their age not contacted by NextGen.