POLITICS
Anxious About Nov. 3? Here’s How You Can Help
LGBTQ groups in swing states busy boosting turnout to prevent repeat of 2016 nightmare
The LGBT Detroit team with Wayne County Commissioner Monique Baker McCormick last year.
BY MATT TRACY
Judging purely by the state
of national polls, Democratic
Presidential nominee
Joe Biden is maintaining
a steady lead over President
Donald Trump with less than two
months to go until election day.
But four years after former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton lost
despite winning the popular vote by
nearly three million votes, it is more
clear than ever that battleground
states — not the nationwide tally
— will determine the winner of an
election that has shaped up to be
much more of a referendum on the
president’s past four years than a
typical head-to-head matchup for
the White House.
The LGBTQ community — which
overwhelmingly went for Clinton
in 2016 and is expected to again
back this cycle’s Democratic nominee
in large numbers — is playing
a critical role in the campaign to
prevent a repeat of the disastrous
2016 result that triggered a painful
four-year stretch during which the
Trump administration wreaked
havoc on the nation’s queer community,
particularly transgender
Megin McDonell, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, said the group’s voter mobilization efforts are
statewide but put particular focus on Milwaukee and Madison.
and non-binary Americans. And
communities of color, especially
Black Americans, are ready to fi re
a commander-in-chief who has
consistently displayed overt racism
and refused to rise to the challenge
of eradicating bigotry, instead often
encouraging it with more than just
a wink and a nod.
Trump drew the majority of
white voters in 2016 and only a
fraction of Black voters, but turnout
was an issue for Democrats
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in key swing states. Compared to
2012, turnout among Black voters
in 2016 dropped slightly in
Michigan and Pennsylvania, but
saw more profound dips in Florida,
North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin,
according to researchers
at the Brookings Institution. Nationwide,
the share of the total vote
represented by African-Americans
decreased from 12.9 percent during
the Obama-Romney election to
11.9 percent in 2016.
There were differences seen
among other racial voting blocs.
Voter turnout for Asian-Americans
actually increased by almost two
percent, while Latinx voter turnout
decreased by less than half a
percentage point.
Robust efforts are underway to
make sure 2016 does not repeat itself
in 2020. LGBTQ organizations
in swing states have kicked their
election outreach into gear, complete
with unique state-specifi c
strategies to ensure turnout numbers
are as strong as they can be
during an election year that has
been marred by the coronavirus
pandemic and unprecedented political
interference by the White
House in the US Postal Service.
Those groups are welcoming any
help they can get from New Yorkers
and residents of other states
where the election outcome is not
in doubt.
This kind of volunteering can
come in different forms, depending
on the state. Kathleen Warnock,
a Gay City News contributor
who felt compelled to get involved
in the special election race to put
Alabama Democrat Doug Jones
into Jeff Session’s former US Senate
seat in 2017, was mindful that
she doesn’t sound like a local in
Montgomery or Tuscaloosa when
she jumped in to help in a race that
was decided by less than two percentage
points.
“I didn’t get on the phone banking
but I did help with social media,
suggesting ways to promote
things, doing things like raising
money for buses to take voters to
the polls, and sending pizza to
people doing parties,” said Warnock,
who also helped in organizing
rallies in Montgomery, where
she once lived and went to school
as a teenager.
New Yorkers and others now
have additional opportunities to
get involved during an election
cycle that is highly dependent on
virtual organizing and get-out-thevote
efforts.
In Michigan, Jerron Totten,
➤ ANXIOUS? DO THIS, continued on p.11
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