DNC Launches Massive Voter Registration Effort Ahead Of Midterms After GOP Makes Gains

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Jan. 13 announced a new voter registration initiative it said will be its largest financial investment in registration, launching first in Arizona and Nevada as Democrats look ahead to the 2026 midterm elections.

The program, called “When We Count,” is built around a paid, part-time youth fellowship and a series of national voter registration pushes.

The DNC said it will train hundreds of young supporters to register tens of thousands of new voters, with early work focused on what it called priority congressional districts in the two states. The committee described the effort as a seven-figure investment but did not specify the exact amount in its announcement.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin framed the launch as an early move to shape the midterm landscape and expand the party’s organizing pipeline.

“The midterms are here, and at the DNC, we refuse to let anybody else dictate this election season—we’re setting the tone,” Martin said.

He said young people have told him they want to be involved and want leaders “who actually show up for them when it counts.”

The DNC is pitching the initiative as both an electoral program and an organizing training effort. In its announcement, the committee said it is making voter registration a top nationwide priority this cycle and argued that “partisan efforts are essential to reversing recent registration trends, winning in upcoming cycles, and training the next generation of Democratic organizers.”

Martin’s statement also cast the initiative as a response to Republican success in the field of voter registration.

“Our answer is simple: We’re going to register voters, train organizers, empower young people, and make sure they have the tools to shape their future.”

Party officials on a press call Tuesday also referenced their growing gap in partisan voter registration nationally, noting states like Florida, which had about 1 million more registered Republicans than Democrats in 2024, and Pennsylvania, where Democrats’ registration advantage has shrunk from about 1.2 million in 2008 to fewer than 200,000.

The DNC said the new program is “specifically targeting non-college youth,” calling that population “historically overlooked by traditional voter registration efforts.” The committee said it found that nearly 60 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are not enrolled in college and said the new focus is meant to register young supporters “where they live and work.”

The committee also tied the decision to start in Arizona and Nevada to both competitiveness and demographics. It said the program will begin in battleground congressional districts in the two states, saying that closing registration gaps there “could determine control of the House in 2026.”

The DNC pointed to “fast-growing populations of Latino, Black, and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] voters” in Arizona and Nevada and described that as an opportunity to engage voters the party said it “lost ground with in 2024.”

The DNC said the fellowship will be the core of its 2026 strategy. Under the plan, fellows will receive weekly training and support from the DNC’s national organizing program and will be tasked with registering Democrats in targeted House districts. The first cohorts are expected to begin in spring 2026 in Arizona and Nevada. The committee said it plans to train more than 100 fellows across the two states to register tens of thousands of new voters.

The party also said it will run four national voter registration weeks of action in 2026—across the spring, summer, and fall—leading up to the midterms. Those pushes are expected to involve fellows, state parties, coordinated campaigns, student Democratic groups, and volunteers. The DNC said it will provide toolkits, training, merchandise, and surrogates, and plans to promote friendly competitions between states.

The committee described the Arizona and Nevada rollout as a starting point it hopes to expand. It said the initial work will lay a foundation to scale the effort and register hundreds of thousands of voters nationally “in 2026 and beyond.”

In late September 2025, Martin announced the national party was shifting more resources into year-round organizing and partisan voter registration while increasing monthly support for every state party.

In a Sept. 30, 2025, recorded conversation with former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, Martin said the party had launched a partisan registration drive in which Democrats had stepped back from direct voter registration for roughly two decades after the 2002 McCain–Feingold campaign finance law.

That law meant national parties could no longer use unlimited donations to pay for voter registration or other party-building, according to Cornell law. Parties could still run registration drives, but they had to pay with money raised under the normal per-donor limits and publicly report the spending.

Martin and Harrison said limits on how national parties can fund party-building work pushed more registration activity to nonpartisan nonprofits that can register voters but cannot promote a party or candidate. Martin said the DNC has since developed a strategy that allows party staff and volunteers to register voters while also talking about Democratic candidates—a strategy it is now putting to use with this week’s announcement.