Registering the Rising American Electorate: Now is the Time

September 28, 2015

2016 Election

As part of our year-round voter registration program, the Voter Participation Center is helping to register unmarried women, people of color, and young voters—the groups that make up the Rising American Electorate (RAE)—for the 2016 election. VPC is mailing voter registration forms to 1.4 million RAE members in 8 states. (You can read more about our mail program here.)

The chart below shows the huge number of unregistered members of the RAE—particularly unmarried women—and the opportunity to reshape the electorate in these eight states.

	Rising American Electorate					Unmarried Women
State	% of VEP	Registered	%	Unreg.	%	% of VEP	Registered	%	Unreg.	%
Colorado	49%	1,149,895	62%	695,784	38%	22%	546,725	66%	283,499	34%
Florida	58%	4,818,782	60%	3,269,845	40%	26%	2,184,986	60%	1,452,963	40%
Iowa	45%	601,659	59%	413,038	41%	23%	325,929	62%	198,167	38%
North Carolina	56%	2,439,168	63%	1,406,290	37%	26%	1,147,794	64%	656,032	36%
Nevada	62%	616,901	53%	543,057	47%	26%	266,875	55%	215,404	45%
Pennsylvania	47%	2,531,540	57%	1,947,017	43%	24%	1,404,064	61%	892,563	39%
Virginia	56%	1,941,775	59%	1,328,439	41%	24%	831,891	59%	568,104	41%
Wisconsin	45%	1,137,583	60%	759,954	40%	24%	637,094	63%	370,210	37%

(VEP: Vote-Eligible Population)

Data Source: Current Population Survey: Voting and Registration Supplement, 2014. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

What We're Reading

U.S. Census: Unmarried and Single Americans Week

To commemorate Unmarried and Single Americans Week (September 17-23), the U.S. Census has produced a “Facts for Features” profile (PDF) of 2016 census data about unmarried Americans. Here are some of the highlights:

There are 110.6 unmarried people 18 or older in America, making up 45.2% of the U.S. adult population.
35.4 million Americans lived alone in 2016, representing 28.1% of all US households — up from 17.1% in 1970.
Despite unmarried people being 45.2% of the U.S. adult population, only 39.6% of voters in the 2016 presidential election were unmarried.

Read the rest of the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Facts for Features” profile (PDF) on unmarried Americans.

Millennials to pass baby boomers as largest voter-eligible age group, and what it means

For the first time, millennials next year will pass baby boomers as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote.

By Ronald Brownstein, CNN Senior Political Analyst

July 25, 2017

(CNN)In 2018, the American electorate will cross a historic threshold that could reshape the political balance of power-or leave Democrats fuming in frustration at continued Republican dominance of Washington.

For the first time, millennials next year will pass baby boomers as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote, according to the well-respected demographic forecasts from the States of Change project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group. That transition will end a remarkable four decades of dominance for the baby boomers, who have been the largest generation of eligible voters since 1978, when they surpassed what’s been popularly referred to as the Greatest Generation (or G.I. Generation) raised during the Depression. Read more here.

How Votes Have Shifted: Changes in Partisan Performance 2000-2016

Demographic change is slowly, but inevitably, moving Western states to the left.

By Reid Wilson

The 11th story in The Hill’s Changing America series, in which they investigate the demographic and economic trends shaping the nation’s politics. Nevada’s booming growth underscores the two trends working most in Democrats’ favor: the rising power of cities that are acting more reliably liberal, and the expanding influence of Hispanic-Americans who are becoming the nation’s largest minority community. Read more here.

Registering the Rising American Electorate: Now is the Time

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