Playing catchup to Republicans, Democrats launch 'largest-ever' partisan national voter registration campaign

Acknowledging that “we’ve been getting our butts kicked for years now by the Republicans on voter registration,” Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin on Tuesday announced the DNC will spend millions of dollars to get “back in the game.”

Martin said that the newly created “When We Count” initiative, which he described as the party’s “largest ever voter registration effort … will train hundreds of fellows throughout the country to register tens of thousands of new voters in communities across the country.”

The announcement by the DNC, in what Martin called an “all hands on deck moment,” comes in the wake of massive voter registration gains by Republicans in recent years and ahead of November’s midterms, when Democrats aim to win back majorities in the House and Senate and a whopping 36 states hold elections for governor.

“For too long, Democrats have ceded ground to Republicans on registering voters,” Martin pointed out. “Between 2020 and ’24 alone, our party lost a combined 2.1 million registered voters. Meanwhile, Republicans gained 2.4 million voters.”

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The latest example is North Carolina, where new State Board of Elections data indicated that Republicans officially surpassed Democrats in voter registration for the first time in the crucial southeastern battleground state’s history.

Martin said a key reason for the Democrats’ deficit is that “Republicans have invested heavily in targeted partisan registration” to mobilize and grow their base of voters.

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But he lamented that “on the left” voter registration for decades has largely been led by nonpartisan advocacy organizations and civic “which limits their ability to engage in partisan conversations about registering as a Democrat.”

Martin said the new effort “is going to require everyone,” including the national, state and local parties, as well as outside groups and political campaigns, “participating in this critical work.”

Pointing to the sweeping ballot box successes by President Donald Trump and the GOP in the 2024 elections, when Republicans won back the White House and Senate and held onto their House majority, Martin said “we can’t just assume that certain demographics, whether they be young voters, voters of color or otherwise, will automatically support the Democratic Party. We have to earn every registration so that we can earn every vote.”

The DNC’s seven-figure initiative, which Martin said would kick off in the western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, “puts our national party and local parties back in the game. When we count, we’ll begin to chip away at the Republican advantage as we prepare to organize everywhere and win everywhere in 2026.”

The DNC, as it ramps up to this year’s midterm elections, also faces a formidable fundraising deficit compared to the rival Republican National Committee (RNC).

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RNC Communications Director Zach Parkinson, pointing to the DNC’s campaign cash problems, charged in a statement to Fox News Digital that “Ken Martin has driven the DNC into debt, overseen anemic fundraising.”

“We at the RNC think he’s the perfect person to oversee Democrats voter registration efforts,” Parkinson added, in a shot at the DNC chair.