NYT: Dems Face Voter Registration Crisis

“I think it should be an alarm” for the party, Democratic strategist Eddie Vale. “I think it’s a real problem.”

Vale noted a span of voters, including people of different races and ages, were abandoning the party, according to the Times reporting.

He said his worry is that all of these different kinds of voters feel like the Democratic Party left them.

They “all shared the broader fact that they are working class and not feeling like we were talking to them or actually going to help them, so that needs to be fixed,” he said.

Another Democratic strategist found the report disheartening at a time when Democrats are feeling rudderless and leaderless and lacking a coherent message for voters.

“Two things need to happen for Trump’s political movement to fail: Trump and MAGA popularity plummets, and Democrats’ brand popularity rises,” the strategist said. “The former is happening, but not the latter.”

“You have to have something clear to offer an alternative vision,” the strategist added. “The voter registration lag is directly related to this because the Democratic brand is flat. It’s one of the reasons why the most successful Democrats in this environment run against both parties.”

The drop in voter registration for Democrats “matches what we see in the polls,” said Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, who does not support Trump. “People are unsatisfied with what the Democrats are offering.”

“It shows how Democrats took things for granted and got outhustled by Republicans, and I don’t say that with glee or anything else,” Del Percio added. “But the numbers are there, and this is proof in the pudding.”

A major Democratic donor was more scathing: “Our party sucks. Our leadership sucks. Our message sucks. Why would anyone want to be a Democrat?”

“We’re completely out of touch,” the donor said.

Steve Schale, the veteran Democratic strategist, said the only voter registration that has “really moved the needle in the last 20 years has been centered around the party and candidates” and that Democrats should return to that model.

“Not only does party-based voter registration accomplish the rote goal of registering voters, it also requires the kind of outreach in key communities that we have long rightly been criticized for abandoning,” Schale said. “But to this, donors have to be willing to support the DNC [Democratic National Committee] and state parties.”

At the same time, Vale cautioned that the Democratic Party should not simply mend what’s broken. It has to be forward-looking.

“We need to make sure that while we fix it, we don’t only fight the last war and not be attuned to things possibly changing again,” Vale said. “Because we have already seen in a lot of polling that younger people, Latino and African American men are souring on Trump, and that can be something that can be the leading edge of winning them back registration-wise.”

In the end, Democratic strategist Anthony Coley said, the numbers amount to trust with voters and “a larger problem with the Democratic brand.”

“Voters have run away from the party for a variety of reasons, but trust — or the lack of it — tops the list,” Coley said. “Too many voters just don’t trust the Democratic Party to deliver on issues they care about.”