A New Face and Program at the DNC

Lorenza Ramirez and Partisan Voter Registration

By Steve Schear

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is moving forward this month with new partisan voter registration and organizing programs to remedy years of lagging efforts to register Democrats to vote. There’s also dynamic new staff to implement these promising programs.

Lorenza Ramirez, the DNC’s new Organizing Director is from Oaxaca, Mexico and her personal history has fueled her passion for organizing. “A lot of my family migrated to the U.S. from Mexico. I’m the first in my family to go to college, ” Ramirez said. “I was in college at Tufts in Massachusetts in 2016. And the morning after the 2016 election, things were really scary for my family. I realized I needed to dedicate all of my energy to defeating Donald Trump and helping the people who would be most affected by his policies.”

Ramirez soon started working as an intern for Senator Elizabeth Warren and then took leadership roles in field organizing for Warren’s 2018 Senate campaign and her 2020 presidential primary campaign. She also ran field operations for Mark Kelly’s 2022 Senate Campaign and the Arizona Coordinated Campaign as their Statewide Organizing Director.

Tacking Democrats’ Voter Registration Crisis.

Between the 2020 and 2024 elections, Republicans gained 2.4 million registered voters, while Democrats lost 2.1 million. “Democrats are facing a voter registration crisis,” Ramirez said. “We have not prioritized voter registration, especially on our presidential and coordinated campaigns.”

Ramirez now leads one of the DNC’s most important new organizing efforts. “Under Chair Ken Martin’s leadership, we are centering our national organizing strategy on partisan registration,” she said. “We are having partisan conversations about the Democratic Party when registering new voters and inviting people into the party.”

How Volunteers Can Help Register Voters

On March 27, the DNC will kick off the first of four “National Weeks of Action” when volunteers from all over the country will engage in voter registration. “We have almost 100 voter registration drives already planned across the country including college Democrats, county parties and volunteers,” Ramirez said. The second National Week of Action will be in June.

People can sign up to receive registration merchandise and materials from the DNC. It will provide a toolkit on how to conduct a voter registration drive and a training deck. “We’re also going to host recurring trainings and weekly office hours to provide guidance and support to those doing voter registration and who need targeting, information on best practices, or coaching,” Ramirez added.

The DNC’s registration efforts will include traditional methods of meeting voters where they are, including big concerts and community events. The DNC is also prioritizing community colleges, which are often overlooked by Democratic campaigns. “We are trying to augment work that candidate campaigns and local people are already doing,” Ramirez said. “We’re minimizing duplicative work as much as possible.”

The DNC’s voter registration will also use the Reach App. Reach, Ramirez noted, “is up-to-date and has an excellent voter registration functionality that allows you to check if everyone in your network is registered to vote and to ask them to register if they are not.”

Follow-Up After Registration

Like Beto O’Rourke’s Texas group Powered by People, the DNC’s program will follow up with new registered voters to make sure they vote. O’Rourke was a mentor to Ramirez and his work inspired hers. “The Reach App allows you to build a relationship with that new voter you registered and keep in touch with them over the course of the cycle,” Ramirez said. “That’s such a big part of how to make this program effective. We want to register lots of new Democrats, but what ultimately matters is these people turning out to vote.”

The goal, Ramirez said, is to “make sure new people feel invited into the party but are not constantly bombarded with texts, cultivating a relationship with voters so by the time we get to election day, they’re not surprised to hear from the person who registered them six months ago asking if they have a plan to vote and if they have reminded friends to vote.”

Paying Young Volunteers to Register Voters

The DNC also has a new When We Count program recruiting volunteers aged 18 to 29 to work ten hours a week registering voters in purple districts for $20 an hour. Individuals can apply to become a When We Count fellow.

Registering new Democratic voters is essential to creating a stronger party that can not only win elections but also grow and sustain those victories over time. The DNC’s hire of Ramirez as its Organizing Director and its focus on partisan voter registration speaks well for its commitment to a new era of DNC organizing.

Steve Schear is an organizer from Oakland, California.