NextGen America Brings Historic Campaign to Fight Voter Suppression, Register and Mobilize Young Voters to Arizona
Nation’s largest young-voter organization renews commitment to engaging the largest and most diverse generation in American history with new effort to mobilize voters in Arizona and seven other states
Phoenix, AZ — NextGen America, the nation’s largest organization welcoming 18-to-35 year olds into the democratic process, is launching a $32-million program to register, inform and mobilize young Americans in eight key states for the 2022 election cycle and beyond.
NextGen’s Arizona campaign begins in earnest today, with a Listening Tour event featuring NextGen President Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in Tempe.
“We aren’t sitting on the sidelines waiting for history to turn our way — we’re mobilizing the power of young Americans to bend the arc of history and set a new direction for our country,” NextGen America President Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez said. “NextGen America is organizing in the largest voter-suppression states in the country to empower the largest and most diverse generation in American history to make the change we need.”
The launch, which began earlier this month in Texas, brings NextGen’s voter-mobilization expertise to states where young voters and communities of color historically have been underrepresented in the electorate — and where these voters face ongoing suppression and discrimination at the ballot box.
“We’ve seen countless election laws passed around the country attempting to suppress the right to vote,” Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said. “That’s why it’s more important now than ever to reach out to communities who may be impacted the most. I congratulate NextGen America for their commitment to engaging young voters, especially young voters who face systematic voter suppression, and mobilizing them by giving them the tools they need to participate in their democracy.”
In 2022, NextGen will run the country’s largest youth voter-mobilization program, with outreach to young people in Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. NextGen has set a 2022 election cycle goal of registering more than 288,000 voters and targeting more than 9 million young people. That commitment will continue into 2024.
“Young people are turning out like never before to reject a status quo that refuses to work for them,” Tzintzún Ramirez said. “We can build a democracy that represents all of us — but demographics aren’t destiny, and change won’t come easy. It requires the hard work of organizing, registering and mobilizing young people to overcome the toughest vote-suppression laws in America. That’s exactly what NextGen is built to do.”
In 2020, NextGen helped mobilize one in every nine young voters, contributing to the largest youth-voter turnout in U.S. history.
NextGen will hold additional launch events in North Carolina and Pennsylvania in November. Throughout September and October, NextGen is sending voter-registration mail to more than 99,000 young voters and texting and calling 1.4 million more. From February through August of this year, NextGen contacted more than 1.5 million young people.
The program launched this week demonstrates NextGen’s evolution as the nation’s leading young-voter mobilization organization, underscoring its renewed commitment to reaching voters at every phase of life between 18 and 35, and recognizing the vast racial and economic diversity of America’s youngest generations.
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About NextGen America
Supportive Statements on 2022 NextGen America Program
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About NextGen America
NextGen America is the leading national organization for engaging young people through voter education, registration and mobilization. We invite 18-to-35 year olds — the largest and most diverse generation in American history — into our democracy to ensure our government works for them and to find new solutions to the dire challenges facing our society and the world. Since 2013, NextGen America has registered more than 1.4 million young voters and educated many millions more, delivering more than the margin of victory for progressives in key races and building an electorate that will lead American politics for decades to come.