Democrats launch push to add overseas votes in effort to pad swing state support

Democrats will invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in registering and turning out voters living abroad to help the party win crucial swing state elections in November, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced Monday.

The $300,000 investment is earmarked for an organization called Democrats Abroad, which works to mobilize members of the Democratic Party living in foreign countries to vote and engage in liberal activism, according to the DNC. Democrats say this is the first time in a presidential election that they have funded voter outreach to the millions of Americans living abroad, only 8% of whom the DNC claims are registered to vote.

“This election will be won on the margins, and every single vote counts,” DNC Deputy Executive Director Roger Lau said in the press release. “With the largest investment in Democrats Abroad this cycle, we’re going to win this election by engaging voters inside and outside the U.S., and this investment shows our commitment to leaving no stone left unturned.”

The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a tight race, with Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump by just one point as of August 12 in The New York Times average of polls. Harris and Trump are also neck and neck in polls covering key swing states.

The Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s inquiry on whether or not it had a similar plan in the works to mobilize conservatives living abroad. Republicans Overseas is a group that works to engage conservatives living in other countries, though it is unclear if it is as well funded as Democrats Abroad.

“After all the years the Democrats abroad have been out here … the Republican Party still doesn’t have an equal body,” Democrats Abroad Global Press Secretary Sharon Manitta told the DCNF.

Manitta said that she suspects the majority of Americans abroad may be Democrats, but stated that there’s “no way to definitively prove” if citizens living overseas tilt one way or another with regard to political party.

The DNC’s press release claims that there are approximately 1,625,136 people living abroad from the key states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. About 44,000 votes across Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin were responsible for deciding the 2020 election, according to NPR.

A State Department estimate produced in 2020 claimed that about 9 million Americans were living overseas, the same amount the DNC claims in its press release. The department discontinued providing such estimates in 2020, citing the difficulty in collecting accurate data, Axios reported.

The Association of Americans Resident Overseas, an organization that advocates for U.S. expats, pointed out that the State Department included tourists in its estimate and instead estimated that at least 5.4 million Americans were living abroad as of 2023.

“We’re thrilled to have received the DNC’s support at this time in the cycle,” Democrats Abroad Chair Martha McDevitt-Pugh said in the DNC press release. “It’s a powerful affirmation of our work and the importance of the overseas electorate, who vote back in their home state and have been the margin of victory in numerous pivotal races, such as delivering Georgia in 2020.”

Georgia counted 18,475 abroad ballots in the 2020 election, according to a government report. While the total number of overseas ballots exceeds President Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state, the partisan breakdown of those overseas ballots is unknown.

The DNC did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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