Nearly two-thirds of unregistered Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan want to register in time to vote in November.
A new survey by Campaign Now finds that there is a large pool of right-leaning unregistered voters, 25% of whom want help registering.
“The fact that 62% of respondents said they would be interested in getting involved in 2024 indicates that there is an opportunity for engagement, and the fact that nearly a quarter of respondents said they would like to help indicates that this should be a priority for conservative campaigns, the Republican Party and like-minded public policy organizations,” said John Connors of Campaign Now.
According to the study, “the top five swing states in the presidential election have a pool of approximately 3 million unregistered citizens who may be Republican.”
This includes 311,206 unregistered Republican voters in Wisconsin and 581,173 unregistered Republican voters in Michigan.
Those are more than enough voters to tip Wisconsin and Michigan to former President Trump this year.
Trump lost to President Biden by just over 22,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020. He also lost to Biden in Michigan by about 154,000 votes.
Connors said most unregistered Republicans are too busy with work or family commitments, but a significant number simply trust their local election officials.
“This may be the hardest group of citizens I’ve ever seen to reach,” Connor said.
“With high levels of apathy and distrust towards politics and the electoral process, and deeply turned inward to family and work priorities, it is no surprise that this group is not going to register to vote, much less take part in elections.”
Despite some distrust and voter apathy, the survey found that 62% said they would want to vote in the 2024 presidential election.
However, 62% of voters also said they had little or no interest in getting help registering.
Connors said that while it’s a problem, Republicans and conservative grassroots organizations shouldn’t give up on these unregistered voters.
“In my experience working with top organizations focused on activating these types of non-voters, when an organization realistically measures their total expenses including labor, marketing and advertising and allocates them to measurable new voters, it can cost anywhere between $150-$200 per new voter,” Connors explained.
“But once citizens are registered, the rate is over 93 percent, so this is really a great investment.”
Campaign Now acknowledged that the survey was small: Connors said it attempted to contact about 15,000 unregistered non-voters in Wisconsin and Michigan.
They received 300 completed surveys, with only a subset of 162 samples admitting to being unenrolled.
