I meant to comment on this election sooner. As it happens sometimes reality is more real than what we mean to do. I got a note from Gail of the Montgomery County Democrats, asking for thoughts about the election.
It is pretty clear that the women and young people were the biggest increase in actual voters and influence in this election. The attack on health care for women of all ages by the Supreme Court and Republican Leadership drove much of this increase.
For young people the increase in voter turnout was up considerably from past elections. The biggest issues for younger Democratic Voters were; accessible abortion and affordable health care (includes ongoing attack on the LGBT issues around health care) etc, inflation, climate change, gun violence prevention, abortion, discrimination and racism, and affordable education. This was pretty similar among young Democrats and young Independents.
Democracy and Voting Rights are also a bigger issue in some states. Still only about half of young voters under 24 were contacted before the election.
Some of the polling and exit polling suggests that outreach to younger voters substantially increased turnout. Personal, online through Social Media, and in person outreach all helped drive turnout.
The Democratic Women groups were very apparent in the updates from online social media and in the regular media and very active in the bigger towns and University cities
My suggestion for the upcoming election cycle for 2024 is to start a Democratic Youth group for each county or region in the state. Even if it is just a Facebook or a Twitter group in each area. Once up and running it can be handed over to a couple of local moderators to add posts or drive engagement. People in each county or region also have many local issues that are more important to them, and will relate to local issues that might not be so important in other places. Local forums to relate to people in there own area helps people stay involved. BB