Democrats get out the vote in Columbia
Published Nov. 3, 2008
In Missouri, the Democratic Party is attempting to use enthusiasm for the presidential race among young voters to attract interest for races that are lower on the ballot.
Democratic candidates from several of this year’s races were in Columbia on Sunday to rally voters before Election Day.
“Just looking at those raw numbers, it is very encouraging.” said Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who is running for re-election.
In order to capitalize on the youth vote, the Young Democrats of Missouri and the campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pushed registration drives on college campuses, as well as targeting potential young voters that weren’t registered.
In 2008, Missouri has seen 340,000 new voter registrations, 150,000 of which were youth voters.
Since the deadline for new voter registration, the Democrats have turned to "get out the vote" operations.
“We know that first-time voters overwhelmingly trend towards Democratic candidates,” said Rick Puig, president of the Young Democrats of Missouri. “So our registration efforts were aimed at expanding that electorate effort and our GOTV is designed to turn out those voters.”
Puig, along with several other leaders of Democratic student organizations, have said that they are impressed with the Obama campaign’s organization in central Missouri.
“The Obama campaign this cycle makes any other campaign I’ve worked on look like a bunch of disorganized guerilla warfare,” Puig said. “The apparatus they’ve built in mid-Missouri is phenomenal.”
Democrats have largely been following the blueprint of Claire McCaskill’s successful 2006 Senate campaign.
“She taught the Democratic Party how to win statewide as a Democrat,” Puig said. “We have to not win rural voters by overwhelming margins, but we have to show up in a legitimate way.”
The candidates said their enthusiasm and volunteer numbers have not been fully matched by the Republicans.
Attorney General Jay Nixon, the Democratic candidate for governor, who was in attendance at the rally, said face-to-face contact with voters “makes a huge difference.”
“One thing we haven’t found while we are out knocking on doors is that the other side doesn’t really have a ground game,” Nixon said.
The candidates encouraged supporters at the rally to vote for every Democrat on the ballot. This year, Missouri voters will not have the option to vote a straight party, and thus each race will have to be filled in individually on the ballot.
“I’d like to think I’d vote for the person who is the most qualified,” MU senior Jared Reilly said. “But in this election, it seems like the Democrats are the ones that are the more qualified.”
At the rally, state Rep. Judy Baker, who is running for the 9th Congressional District, discussed her campaign’s plans for the coming days. The Baker campaign has said that she could help Obama in the more rural areas of the 9th District.
“Senator Obama is going to help us pull out every last vote in the Columbia area,” Baker spokesman Paul Tencher said. “But we are going to help Senator Obama in the northern part of the district. In places like Kirksville, she is well known and trusted there.”
The campaign has unveiled its 48 Hours in America tour, in which they are traveling to 15 different cities in 12 counties around the district.
“This is a grassroots campaign that is going to seal the deal for us,” Baker said.
As most of the electorate, the economic downturn has dominated the focus of some younger voters.
“I showed up because I have interests,” MU freshman Lauren Olson said. “I think the things that are going on in the economy do matter to people my age.”