Democrats launch major campaign to drive turnout in midterms

Democrats are committing $50 million this year to drive turnout for this fall's midterm elections.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced a new campaign on Thursday called "Raise Your Voice," an effort they say is an unprecedented bid to make sure key Democratic constituencies show up to the polls this fall.

The campaign uses offline and online tools to register and encourage voters, grounded by a sense among Democrats that if it can work to prevent a drop in turnout from the 2008 elections, then it will help Democratic candidates across the country at the margins in their races.

"To be clear, this isn’t a panacea for all races, we understand the historical headwind we are facing, but if we can also turn a fraction of these first-time and drop-off voters, we can help at the margins in competitive races," said a DNC official.

The cornerstone of the effort is a new website, RaiseYourVoice.com, which Democrats acclaimed as a first-ever comprehensive hub for voting registration and information that also makes it easy for users to help friends register.

Among the constituencies targeted by the effort are African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, young voters and single women. To that end, Democrats will look to engage social networking tools to engage those voters online as well as offline.

Volunteers in Organizing for America, President Barack Obama's political operation within the DNC, will target voters in African-American and Hispanic communities and potential new voters on college campuses — among other targeted demographics — through organized efforts to register voters.

A drop in turnout between 2004 and 2006 — an election cycle in which Democrats wrested control of the House and the Senate away from Republicans — among targeted demographics is driving Democrats' sense for why Raise Your Voice is needed.

Turnout among white voters fell from 66 percent to 44 percent from 2004 to 2006, from 65 percent to 37 percent among African-Americans, and from 61 percent to 35 percent among Hispanics.

The campaign also doubles the highest amount the DNC had spent previously on similar efforts. Democrats spent $17 million on these efforts for the 2006 midterm elections, and $25 million in 2002, which was the election cycle before the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law took effect.