One of the questions we get most frequently from Vote Forward volunteers is how and why we pick the voters we’ll write letters to each year. Determining exactly where this community’s letter writing efforts are best focused is a big part of our work before campaigns launch each year—and continues as we evaluate the need for more letters.
Our letter writing campaigns fall into two main categories: Social and Political. This year, both of these categories are focused on reaching surge voters—those who do not always vote consistently, but have shown up to vote in at least one recent major election —in states and districts holding critical elections at multiple levels of the ballot in 2024.
Most of our efforts serve Vote Forward’s core social mission of increasing civic participation. In practice, this means that through our nonpartisan Social campaigns, we’re writing letters to voters who belong to groups that have historically been underrepresented in the electorate compared to their share of the population. This year, we’re writing to voters aged 35 or younger. These younger voters will inherit the future that is being shaped by our elected officials today, and yet do not consistently vote at the same levels as their older counterparts.
Vote Forward is also permitted to do some partisan work, and we do that by running Political campaigns that target voters who our data suggests are likely to vote for Democrats when they cast their ballot. Critically, our focus is on using personal, heartfelt messaging to encourage these Democratic-leaning voters to turn out, rather than partisan talking points. We know that these voters already receive plenty of political mail, and we believe that the authenticity of Vote Forward letters helps our messages stand out. When choosing specific states and districts for our Political campaigns, we work closely with the political experts at our affiliate organization, Swing Left.
If you haven’t started writing with us yet this year, or if you’ve just finished up your last batch of letters and are ready to download more, head over to your Vote Forward dashboard, pick a campaign, and adopt voters: |
