The Rising American Electorate in 2024
While we moved the needle almost everywhere, the new American electorate (young folks, people of color, and women) really turned out.
Overview
Our program works almost everywhere we targeted. Across ages, races, genders, and regions, we saw real lift in registration and turnout. Not evenly, but consistently.
As we’ve begun to lean more into the new American electorate, we’ve noticed that these demographics are excited and eager to show out on Election Day. Our programs, while successful almost everywhere, saw insane levels of turnout with young voters, especially.
When all was said and done, our programs reached and engaged people in every demographic we targeted.
Demographic Deep Dive
Massive Margins Across All Age Groups
18-30 years old
The GOATs. They showed the biggest lift. Make voting easy and exciting, and they’ll show up.
30-70+ years old
Also moved the needle! Civitech’s approach isn’t just for the youngins, it works across age groups.
(Don’t worry, we have the receipts. We saw positive lift across all age brackets, even Baby Boomers.)
Registration and Vote Lift by Age Groups
Youth Voter Turnout 2024
Youth voters are infamous for being extremely difficult to get registered and voting. That’s why we were absolutely blown away when they were our most impacted age group by far.
Pre-filled voter registration mailers broke down barriers to taking action, removing the friction that dampens youth turnout. Postcards also did overwhelmingly well with young voters.
They turned out so well, the cost per Democratic vote was only $187.45.
For such a notoriously difficult demographic, it turns out that they want to engage, many just need information.
Culturally Smart Outreach Matters
Black, Latinx, Asian, White, and Multiracial voters came out in droves, which is a promising indicator that targeted, culturally relevant outreach actually matters.
Who would have thought that considering potential barriers to voting and working to remove them would lead to more votes? The easier you make registration, the more people can register, and the more votes you’ll get in the election.
With Middle Eastern and Native American voters, the data was inconclusive due to insufficient sample size.
Registration & Vote Lift by Race
Women Win Elections
As we all could have predicted, women got things done.
Highest lift overall.
Especially powerful among young women and women of color.
Men and gender-unknown folks also lifted significantly, but women were the MVPs of democracy in 2024.
Non-binary impact wasn’t statistically significant, but we suspect they were already politically activated (ya know, because of everything in the world right now).
Lift % by Gender
Small Town Vibes, Big City Politics
One of our more interesting findings, the scale of urbanicity played a part in how effective our programs were.
Believe it or not, small towns had the largest lift overall.
In urban and large town locales, our programs showed major lifts against the control group.
As anticipated, programs in rural areas underperformed compared to our other programs. We believe that’s likely due to infrastructure gaps and, let’s be real, political dynamics. That said, these programs still worked better in these areas than canvassing and other traditional methods typically do. It’s a lot harder to go doorknocking when neighbors are a mile+ apart.
In Summary
Strongest gains
Young voters, people of color, women. We’re hitting every major demo in the new American electorate.
Consistent lift
With some outliers, lift over control groups was consistently high.
What we confirmed
Inclusive, targeted, rigorously tested outreach moved Democratic votes across almost all demos.
Did you know?
Voter registration programs are extra effective in urban centers, because they are often Democratic strongholds and have the highest amount of movers.
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