➤ ANXIOUS? DO THIS, from p.11
Trump carried the state by just
over 20,000 votes, A CBS News-
YouGov poll released on September
6 showed Joe Biden leading Trump
by six points, with four percent
undecided and two percent voting
for someone else. A Morning Consult
poll released on the same day
found Biden eight points ahead of
Trump
The team at Fair Wisconsin,
which is dedicated to advancing
and achieving equality for queer
residents of the state, is spending
a great deal of time assisting folks
in the process of ensuring they are
registered to vote and helping them
obtain absentee ballots.
Megin McDonell, Fair Wisconsin’s
executive director, painted a
bright picture of the state’s voter
outreach efforts, saying that nonprofi
ts and political organizations
alike are working collaboratively
to reach potential voters, and Fair
Wisconsin has been able to bridge
different kinds of groups together
under one coalition.
While her organization is marshaling
statewide effort on voter
turnout, McDonell said Milwaukee
County and Dane County, home to
the capital city of Madison, a progressive
enclave that also includes
the enormous University of Wisconsin
campus, are of particular
importance in the get-out-the-vote
campaign because they are the
state’s two major metropolitan areas
with diverse populations that
could pile up large enough Biden
majorities to counteract Trump’s
vote in smaller towns and rural
areas.
McDonell talked about the protests
against police brutality and
racism that fi rst emerged in the
wake of the murder of George Floyd
by police in Minneapolis and were
refueled following the police shooting
of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, in
the state’s southeastern corner,
last month.
“We want to recognize the historic
nature of this moment,” Mc-
Donell said. “Racial justice is an
LGBTQ issue, and we’re not going
to have LGBTQ liberation until
we have Black liberation and for
people of color. I think the groups
in Wisconsin are all recognizing
that and following the lead of our
amazing people of color-led organizations
that are doing that work on
the ground.”
Those who would like to help out
in Wisconsin can send an email
to Fair Wisconsin at info@fairwisconsin.
com.
Among the more hard fought
states in the 2020 race, however,
is Florida, which Trump carried by
just over 100,000 votes in 2016.
An NBC News/ Marist poll released
on September 8 had Trump
and Biden tied at 48 percent, while
a Quinnipiac University poll this
month gave a small three-point advantage
for Biden. There are signs
that Biden is struggling to gain
the support he hopes for among
Latinx voters there: A poll released
this month by Equis Research, a
Democratic Latinx research fi rm,
showed Biden leading Trump
among Hispanic voters 55 percent
to 37 percent, which is 11 points
tighter than Clinton’s vote share in
2016 among that voting bloc.
Wes Davis, the fi eld director at
Equality Florida, said his team is
focusing on Miami-Dade County
and central Florida cities like
Tampa and Orlando, where he said
there has been an infl ux of Puerto
Rican residents displaced by hurricanes.
Equality Florida is welcoming
virtual volunteers who would like
to make phone calls and send text
messages, as well as donations
from those who can afford to contribute.
Ahead of last month’s primary
election, the organization received
volunteer help from folks in
California, upstate New York, and
other areas, he said.
In four volunteer days of action so
far, the group has texted 156,000
“pro-equality voters” and trained
more than 60 volunteers across
the state. It is crucial to reach voters
everywhere since every county
has its own policy regarding voting
by mail, Davis explained.
“It is no unknown factor to
Americans that Florida is the pathway
forward,” Davis said. “Donald
Trump understands he needs
Florida to win.”
Volunteers can plug into Equality
Florida’s Virtual Days of Action
at eqfl .org/equality-fl orida-actionpac
launches-virtual-days-action-
2020-election.
Among other groups helping out
in battleground states include the
Human Rights Campaign (HRC),
which has boots on the ground in
key locales and launched a campaign
called “Operation Swing
State,” which asks volunteers to
make remote voter outreach calls
every Tuesday until the election in
battleground states. On Labor Day
weekend, HRC joined forces with
Equality Florida and texted over
24,000 voters.
Sign up for the HRC operation is
at mobilize.us/hrc/event/263252.
Another group working the
phones on a broader level is National
Equality Action Team (NEAT),
which works on queer causes and
is currently busy with non-partisan
voter registration efforts as
well as census outreach.
“We’re calling folks, helping to
make sure they’re registered, their
registration is the right address,
and making sure they haven’t been
purged from the voter rolls,” Brain
Silva, NEAT’s executive director,
said. “Anyone anywhere that has
access to a computer and a phone
can help get voters registered to
vote,” Silva said. “We’d love to have
organizations and individuals sign
up to male calls. The website for
that is theneat.org/vote.”
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