In the 2016 election, for the first time ever, unmarried women will make up the majority of voting-eligible women.
That’s just one of the many data points in “Gearing Up for 2016: How Population and Electoral Trends Among the RAE Inform the 2016 Cycle,” the newest report from The Voter Participation Center and Lake Research Partners.
The trend is impossible to ignore: the Rising American Electorate continues to increase in numbers and proportion of the total voting-eligible population, making their needs and concerns more and more difficult for elected officials, candidates, and political parties to ignore.
Update September 25, 2015: This report has been updated with new Census 2014 data.
This is National Unmarried and Single Americans Week and all week we will be highlighting new U.S. Census Bureau data documenting the size and power of this fast-growing demographic group—focusing particularly on unmarried women. The number of people living alone has close to doubled in less than two generations.
Number of U.S. residents 18+ who lived alone in 2014. They comprised 28% of all households, up from 17% in 1970.
Number of U.S. unmarried-partner households in 2013. Of this number, 573,530 were same-sex households.
Number of U.S. unmarried opposite-sex couples living with children under 18 as of 2014, up from 1 million in 1996.
Data Sources:
1. U.S. Census Bureau: America’s Families and Living Arrangements 2014, Table A2
2. U.S. Census Bureau: 2013 American Community Survey, Table B11009
3. US Census Bureau: Unmarried Couples of the Opposite Sex
See our previous Unmarried and Single Americans Week posts:
Monday: Some Stunning Stats
Wednesday: Singlehood is Becoming the New Norm for American Households
This is National Unmarried and Single Americans Week and all week we will be highlighting new U.S. Census Bureau data documenting the size and power of this fast-growing demographic group—focusing particularly on unmarried women. Almost half the households in America are headed by single people.
Number of U.S. households maintained by unmarried men and women in 2014, which is 47% of households nationwide.
Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau: America’s Families and Living Arrangements 2014, Table A2
See our previous Unmarried and Single Americans Week posts:
Monday: Some Stunning Stats
Today is National Voter Registration Day, and perhaps the most important National Voter Registration Day ever because of the decisive role the Rising American Electorate (RAE)—unmarried women, people of color, and millennials—will have in the 2016 election.
In 2016, the RAE will make up 57% of Americans eligible to vote and they’re poised to make up the majority of the electorate. That’s why many now call them the New American Majority. But that can only happen if they’re registered to vote—and as this map we posted a few weeks ago makes clear, there are a lot of states where huge numbers of the RAE aren’t registered to vote, including in states key to the outcome of the 2016 presidential election:
Data Source: Current Population Survey: Voting and Registration Supplement, 2014. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
That’s why our ongoing mail and online registration programs, which focus on the Rising American Electorate, are such an important part of our mission—because we believe our nation is stronger when every eligible American can cast a ballot and make their voice heard on Election Day.
And if you’re not registered to vote yet, make sure you’re registered!
This is National Unmarried and Single Americans Week and all week we will be highlighting new U.S. Census Bureau data documenting the size and power of this fast-growing demographic group —focusing particularly on unmarried women. In 2016, for the first time ever there will be more unmarried women than married women eligible to vote.
Number of U.S. residents 18 and older who were unmarried in 2014, which is 45% of the total U.S. population 18 and older.
Percentage of 2014 unmarried U.S. residents 18 and older who are women.
Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau: America’s Families and Living Arrangements 2014, Table A1
Highlights from the most recent U.S. Census figures illustrate the decisive role unmarried women and the rest of the Rising American Electorate will play in the 2016 elections.
The video of our September 16 webinar features VPC president and founder Page Gardner and nationally-prominent pollster Celinda Lake, discussing how population and electoral trends among theRising American Electorate in 2014 inform the 2016 cycle .
To view the slide deck from the webinar, click here (PDF).
By November 2016, for the first time more unmarried women than married women will be eligible to vote—meaning they could decide the election.
But only if they register and vote—and as of 2014, 22.4 million unmarried women (almost 40%) weren’t registered, including almost 10 million unmarried women under the age of 30.
Here’s a race/ethnicity and age breakdown of unregistered unmarried women:
| Group | # Unregistered |
| Unmarried White Women | 13,145,524 |
| Unmarried African-American Women | 3,913,991 |
| Unmarried Latinas | 3,722,100 |
| Unmarried Women 18-30 | 9,875,219 |
| Unmarried Women 30-50 | 5,405,848 |
| Unmarried Women 50+ | 7,155,603 |
As Pennsylvania becomes the 23rd state to allow online voter registration (OVR) our friends at Project Vote have prepared an updated list, not only of those states that currently offer OVR, but states where OVR is approved, but not yet implemented.
From ProjectVote.org:
Over the past several years, online registration has made steady progress in reforming voter registration in the states. At this writing, 29 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or made administrative changes to enable individuals to register to vote completely electronically.
Does your state offer OVR yet? Find out in Project Vote’s report (PDF).
In our last post, we focused on the massive numbers of unmarried women who are not registered to vote in key 2016 states. But unmarried women are just one part of the Rising American Electorate (RAE), which also includes people of color and Millennials. Together they make up well over the majority—close to 57 percent—of the U.S. population eligible to vote, but in the 2014 general election they only cast 44% of the votes.
As this interactive map makes very clear, if even a small percentage of unregistered RAE voters register and vote in 2016, it would have an enormous impact on national, state and local elections.
Data Source: Current Population Survey: Voting and Registration Supplement, 2014. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
At least 11 percent of adult American citizens are “unlisted” and do not appear on voter registration lists or consumer data lists, according to a new study (PDF) by the Stanford University political science department. The study reports that about 20 percent of African Americans and Hispanics are unlisted, compared to just 8 percent of whites. “A sizable proportion of the U.S. citizen population does not appear on these lists, making them invisible to list-based campaigns and research,” the study finds.
The consequence? The absence of these unlisted voters leads to a whiter, older, more conservative electorate that does not reflect the true America. “We find that if unregistered and unlisted people voted at comparable rates to registered people with the same level of interest in politics, both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections would have been won by Democrats,” authors Simon Jackman and Bradley Spahn write. “The unlisted earn less income and are less likely to have health insurance or own their own home than the listed population [and] have markedly lower levels of political engagement.”
For the past decade, the Voter Participation Center has been dedicated to identifying and registering members of the Rising American Electorate—many of the same “unlisted” Americans identified in the survey. While we have been successful in helping more than 2.6 million Americans register to vote, the study makes clear that we need to continue to embrace novel techniques to reach these “invisible” Americans.
VPC has been a pioneer in the use of sophisticated research and tools to increase the participation of unmarried women and other historically underrepresented groups. We will continue to locate these unlisted Americans, using address-based outreach to people whom we cannot individually target and other unique tools, to make sure that no one is left standing on the sidelines of our democracy.
To read the full study, please click here (PDF).
