The 2024 Presidential primaries are already beginning. On January 15, Iowa held the Republican presidential caucus. New Hampshire’s presidential primary was just a few days ago.
But what is going on in Illinois? Or more specifically, In the Chicagoland region? Here are a few things to know:
Number one – On March 19, Illinois residents will be voting in the presidential primary.
Number two – From August 19 to the 22, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago.
Number three – Political organizations, both grassroot and party-affiliated, are taking on mobilization efforts.
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CANDACE DAVIS: For the primary, basically, what we’re trying to do is focus on getting people registered. That’s one of our main areas because we know that if we can get young people registered, they generally vote Democratic because they support all the issues the Democrats support.
That was Candace Davis, a leadership team member of Indivisible Evanston. Indivisible Evanston is a national grassroots organization, with chapters across the country. The Evanston branch reaches about 1,700 inboxes each week through their newsletter. And the primary agenda?
DAVIS: – is really to fight Trumpism and the Trump agenda.
Davis and the other four members of the leadership team for Indivisible Evanston are beginning to mobilize for this upcoming election cycle. From canvassing door to door, to creating informational postcards, a lot of the focus is on a younger demographic.
DAVIS: Our biggest concern is that the Democrats don’t win, is getting Joe Biden reelected. I think we’re very optimistic that we’re going to be able to do that. But we all recognize that it’s going to take a huge grassroots effort to make sure that what we want is to win the trifecta. What we’re probably most worried about is a lot of young people turn off the politics, they hate the rhetoric, they hate the people screaming at each other. And somehow I think a lot of people think that their vote doesn’t matter. And so a lot of we’re really trying to get people registered.
Also working to register young voters is Northwestern University’s NU Votes.According to their website, NU Votes is a non-partisan initiative from Northwestern’s Center for Civic engagement “designed to provide the NU community with accessible and understandable information about voter registration and voting procedures. “
SESP third year Imani Billups is a fellow at the Center for Civic Engagement, with a specific concentration in the NUVotes program. He said getting people out to the primaries is his biggest concern too.
IMANI BILLUPS: Especially because it’s not as uniform as like the general election will be where it’s just, you know, it’s just the one day in November. Here there’s a bunch of different days with all types of different like states have a bunch of different rules for how they you how they run their elections, and that applies to general but especially for primaries.
Students involved with NUVotes must know about voting rules in different states, as Northwestern students come from all across the country. Billups said that NUVotes talks to students about –
BILLUPS: – going through like the different reasons for why you may want to vote at home or here. We kind of talked about you know, where are you more connected to the politics? Where are you more concerned about the issues at hand? Where do you feel your vote might have the most impact? And then also, what is your preferred method of voting?
And all of these questions are important for voting. But Billups said that mail-in voting is especially prevalent.
BILLUPS: I feel like that is the emphasis has risen, since like the 2020 elections, since you know, COVID. And that’s really how a very even larger amount of people began voting through and I think that kind of normalize voting by mail a lot more and so that’s kind of an even bigger part of what we try to do with students now.
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Outside of Northwestern and Evanston, Indivisible’s focus has turned to the swing state of Winsconsin. Just north of the Illinois border, Davis said their hope is to get the younger voters Billups mentioned to mobilize for the election cycle.
DAVIS: We support an effort in Wisconsin to register people with the Department of Motor Vehicles because people have to come in there and spend an hour or so getting their licenses and that’s a great place to say to people ‘are you registered to vote? Here’s a form we can help you get registered to vote’. So it’s those kinds of things. And then also voter registration events at schools.
Although not a grassroots organization, the Democratic Party of Evanston has a similar goal to Indivisible Evanston of mobilizing residents. Rachel Ruttenberg, the board president for the Democratic Party of Evanston shared that –
RACHEL RUTTENBERG: – anytime that we are reelecting our democratic president, it is always a little harder to get people out and to get people energized. You know, when you vote for a presidential candidate for the first time, often you see like a swell of volunteer energy and dollars coming in to support that candidate.
And Evanston Democrats are especially cognizant of the upcoming election cycle, as Former President Donald Trump has already won the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary.
RUTTENBERG: Unfortunately, we are here yet again, like sort of staring down at this like, again, the most important election of our lifetime. I mean, it almost feels cliche now to say that because we’ve said it so many times, but as our democracy gets sort of closer and closer to being threatened, like we saw on January 6, just you know, two years ago, we we again have to just say like we cannot, you know, stand by and sit at home, the elections. But the threats are just as authentic.
Ruttenberg said that Evanston’s Democratic party plans to send a lot of volunteers beyond the state of Illinois to canvas, in hopes of influencing the election results there. This effort is in partnership with other political organizations in Evanston, like Indivisible Evanston and Personal PAC.
RUTTENBERG: We will likely work together in the coming months to do some buses to Wisconsin to make sure we can get folks out canvassing and knocking doors in swing states. That’s really a focus of ours and we’ve got the money to the Wisconsin border.
In addition to traditional door-to-door advocacy, Evanston Democrats became heavily involved across the country via phone calls in 2020.
RUTTENBERG; When Biden was elected for the first time, we were one of the leading Midwest, local democratic parties running the Biden election dialer program. So it’s their phone banking program over Zoom, and so we were able to organize hundreds and hundreds of people in the weeks leading up to the election to be able to go out and vote. So we anticipate being part of that phone banking program again, and have lots of opportunities for Evanston folks and folks in surrounding areas.
Volunteers even made it as far as Georgia!
RUTTENBERG: We were calling into Georgia to cure it to help folks cure ballots long after the election, you know, election day because they had you know, they were still counting in Georgia. And so there was still work to be done. And our folks were still on the phones, getting those ballots, helping to get those ballots cured and make sure the numbers were were good in Georgia.
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As local Evanston and Northwestern organizations take action, Davis believes political organizations will have an impact on the election cycle.
DAVIS: I think people need to realize that there is something they can do, even if it’s just picking up the phone and calling their representatives. Even, you know, a lot of people say, ‘Well, we’re in Evanston. And we have good Democratic senators and representatives. People don’t realize how much power they have. And I think that’s our message is people who say, ‘Oh, my God, this is awful.’ You need to get out there and do something and there’s something you can do and it will make a difference.
As you begin to cast those votes, maybe look to local political groups for some help.
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From WNUR News, I’m Erica Schmitt.
