NextGen America Trains Over 350 Youth Organizers Ahead of Midterm Push

NextGen America President Tom Steyer Visits Detroit, Organizers Make Over 40,000 Calls

DETROIT, MI — Over the weekend in Detroit, NextGen America trained over 350 youth organizers from 11 states — including students from 113 high schools and colleges — as part of NextGen Rising — its  groundbreaking push to mobilize and turnout young voters this November. Building off its success organizing young voters in Virginia in 2017, NextGen is preparing for an unprecedented campaign to organize young voters in the 2018 midterm elections, where young voters are expected to play a pivotal role in taking back the House of Representatives and electing progressives up-and-down the ballot across the country.

“Young people are fired up like never before — and they’re ready to organize and make sure our government stops ignoring them,” said NextGen America President Tom Steyer.“Republicans in Washington and statehouses across the country have ignored the demands of young people for years, but this November, young voters will turn out in droves at the polls to elect leaders who will stand up and fight for their progressive values.”

Over the weekend, NextGen staff began training youth organizers in cutting-edge methods of political organizing, including voter registration, community engagement, and digital organizing. On Saturday, organizers put their new skills to the test, engaging and registering voters across Detroit and in MI-11. In just three hours, NextGen’s youth army made nearly 40,000 calls to voters in states with upcoming primaries like California, Iowa, Virginia, and Nevada.

NextGen America’s $32 million youth organizing program is the most robust in American history, mobilizing young voters across eleven states — Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. NextGen’s program aims to contact half a million young voters, register a 250,000 young voters, and train over 2,000 volunteer student leaders on campuses across the country.

Young voters are showing a greater interest in politics than ever before, and in a new poll released last week, an increasing number of young people say that they feel politically empowered ahead of the midterms. This November, NextGen will prove that the youth vote is here to stay as a decisive and powerful force in American politics.