Wisconsin Youth Vote: How Campus Organizers Drove Turnout

The 2020 election came down to close races in several key states. In Wisconsin, determined student campus organizers for both the Republican and Democratic Parties helped drive record youth voter registration, and potentially record youth voter turnout.

According to the Chairwoman of UWM College Republicans, Jena Frett, across the state the Republican Party was able to make inroads with a lot of youth voters. However, the Chairwoman of College Democrats at UWM, Rachel Otto, said the youth vote is what made the difference for democrats in Wisconsin.

“If you look at the outcome of 2016 to 2020, I think the state democratic party investing in youth helped a lot,” said Otto.

Otto might be right. In the 2016 presidential election, 310,656 voters between the ages of 18-24 were registered to vote, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. In the 2020 presidential election, that number grew to 346,498 registered voters, according to the WEC. The swing state of Wisconsin had a margin of 20,427 votes in Joe Biden’s favor, according to news organizations who have called the race. The extra 35,842 votes, from youth voters may have made the difference.

“I think a lot of young people are starting to see how the world could be,” said Otto.

According to Otto, a lot of youth voters that she talked to were concerned with loss of protections for the LGBTQ community. Youth voters that Otto talked with were also concerned with racial equality and police brutality, the pandemic and student debt.

Frett said she heard a different set of concerns from the students that she talked to.

“Besides the pandemic, a lot of youth voters cared about free speech on campus,” said Frett. “Also, [the position of being] Pro-Life is very important to republican youth voters.”

Another member of UWM College Republicans, Treasurer Quinn Anderson, said that a recurring issue brought up by voters was the economy. Similar to Otto, Anderson talked to many students who were concerned about their student debt. Specifically, students were worried about their ability to get a job to pay off student debt after graduating.

Many of the issues that worried youth voters, outside of the Covid-19 pandemic, are similar to past elections. However, the ways that organizations could reach out to voters was altered due to the pandemic.

Otto and Frett both did as much as they could on campus to talk with students outside, but could only do so a handful of times. They primarily had to rely on phone and text banking to reach youth voters because of social distancing concerns related to the pandemic.

According to Frett, this really hurt her organization’s ability to reach voters since going out and canvassing in the campus area has been their strength in the past. For Otto it was a different story.

“Our biggest asset wasn’t something we tried to do,” said Otto. “We actually got a campus organizer named, Emiliana and she was just incredible.”

According to Otto, Emiliana was sent to them by the state Democratic Party and had several resources at her disposal to help with phone and text banking, and other virtual activities. Activities included watch parties for the election, debates and the Democratic National Convention. The DNC was supposed to come to Milwaukee before changing to a virtually based format.

“Instead of everyone dressing up and going to a convention we got to get dressed up and sit together in a zoom room,” said Otto. “At least there was something we could do together.”

Anderson, who also co-chairs Students for Trump at UWM, decided spending as much time as he could on campus to talk with students was best. But his goal was more than about just talking policy with students directly. It was about representation.

“My goal was trying to make sure that the Republican side of opinion was still apparent,” said Anderson. “That people didn’t have to hide in the shadows.”

Anderson said he had heard estimates that about 75% of the student body was liberal as opposed to being conservative at UWM. With the hyper-polarization of politics nowadays Anderson said he just wanted to make sure “no hostility took place” on campus.

President and Chairman of the Turning Point USA UWM chapter, Aidan Shank, had similar goals to Anderson. According to Shank, it was important to bring conservatives together on campus and empower them so their voices could be heard. Despite strict rules for tabling on campus and low foot traffic, Turning Point was still able to grow its chapter at UWM.

“We are always trying to grow our own base and gain energy and momentum behind conservative ideals,” said Shank.

For Otto her main goal when reaching out to youth voters wasn’t to necessarily promote her organizations agenda and the Biden-Harris ticket. According to Otto, her main goal was just to make sure everyone she talked to was registered to vote so their voice would be heard, similar to Shank.

“I think everyone went into this election knowing who they would vote,” said Otto.

Anderson echoed similar sentiments to Otto.

“[People] were either on the side that Trump was a very negative connotation or you loved the guy,” said Anderson.

All four of these organizational leaders did everything in their power to persuade voters, despite a feeling that people had already determined who they were voting for.

For Otto, Frett, Anderson and Shank election night was a night to celebrate a job well done by their organizations, regardless of what party won the election.

Otto, Frett and Anderson were all satisfied with their efforts over the past year, knowing they did what they could to help their respective political parties win Wisconsin. According to Shank, however, you can never be satisfied.

“If the candidate you want wins you can say that you played a part in it,” said Shank. “But, if you truly believe what you believe, and you actually are passionate about the cause, you’ll never do enough.”