With just a week to go before election day, Texas Rising Action has been been engaged in one of the largest get-out-the-vote operations focused on young Texans of color. That’s helping fuel a surge of young, progressive voters in early voting across the state. Check out our press release.
Texas Rising Action Reaches Out to Every Contactable Young Voter of Color in Texas
With One Week to Go, Texas Rising Action Leads One of the Largest Turnout Operations Focused on the Young Voters Making Texas a True Battleground
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 27, 2020
AUSTIN – Texas Rising Action, the Texas Freedom Network’s youth organizing program, today announced it has reached out to more than 1.5 million young voters, including more than 1 million young voters of color, to get them to the polls ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
The figures mean that every young voter of color in the state with a known cell phone has or will receive at least one get-out-the-vote message from Texas Rising Action by Election Day.
It is part of a youth voter turnout effort that could reach more than 2 million people by Nov. 3, making it one of the largest mobilization programs exclusively focused on young voters in the largest battleground state in the country.
Texas Rising Action works to register and turnout voters under the age of 30.
“The 2018 elections showed what a rising generation of young voters in Texas is capable of,” said Val Benavidez, chief program officer and incoming president of the Texas Freedom Network. “But there is still so much more untapped potential. It was absolutely critical to invest in ensuring that this, the most diverse generation of Texas voters ever, is seen and heard at the polls. We are proud to see Texas Rising Action and the young people who run our program lead the way and support progressive candidates up and down the ballot.”
The result of these efforts is already being reflected in early voting totals.
Figures this week from the data firm TargetSmart show that at least 800,000 under-30 voters have already cast a ballot in Texas. With the rest of this week of early voting and Election Day to go, that number represents nearly two-thirds of the more than 1.2 million under-30 voters Tufts University researchers say cast a ballot in 2016 in Texas.
As a percentage of the overall early voting turnout, younger voters have also increased their share. TargetSmart figures show that voters under the age of 30 thus far account for 11.5 percent of the early vote in Texas this year, compared to 8.8 percent at this point in 2016.
“We are seeing clear signs that when the votes are counted, a big story line for this election in Texas will be perhaps unprecedented participation by young voters of color in particular and young voters in general,” said Texas Rising Action Director Rae Martinez. “I truly believe we’re about to see some records fall and maybe even crushed when all the results are in.”
Texas Rising Action, a project of the Texas Freedom Network, builds the power of a rising generation of young Texans, with an emphasis on communities of color, by advocating for change in the cities and towns where they live and at the ballot box.
