Posted November 17, 2018 10:07:50 The Lincoln Project has achieved its first goal of reaching the 50 percent threshold of its goal of getting black and brown voters to the polls.
The effort to recruit African American and Latino voters to support Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and other Democratic candidates is aiming to raise the percentage of eligible voters who would cast a ballot for Sanders during the 2020 midterm elections.
The campaign was launched last week, and is now trying to reach 100 percent of its target.
The nonprofit, run by former Vice President Joe Biden, has been working to recruit and train volunteers in the communities where African American, Latino and other communities are most likely to vote.
The Lincoln Project aims to reach people of all races and ethnicities in the U.S. in the fall and early 2020, but African American voters are more likely to participate than other racial groups.
For more than a decade, the Lincoln campaign has been looking to increase participation among African Americans and Latinos by increasing outreach efforts, recruiting volunteers and expanding voter registration.
It is the first time the group has approached its goal without a large investment of time, money and energy, said Sarah Luebke, president and co-founder of the nonprofit.
“We are still working on that,” Luebske told MTV News.
“We are not at 100 percent.
There is a lot of work to do.”
In recent years, the organization has had success recruiting African Americans to its website and in the mailboxes of churches and other groups in cities.
The group’s website lists more than 5 million eligible voters in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. That is not nearly enough, though, to ensure that the 1 million-plus registered voters that it needs to reach the goal of registering 10 percent of eligible Americans will actually vote in the presidential election.
The goal of the Lincoln project has been to recruit volunteers who are more engaged in getting voters to vote, Lueberke said.
That effort will be more successful if African American women, as a group, are less likely to be motivated to vote in a midterm election.
Lueberkke said the group is focused on increasing voter registration rates among African American communities, but also on expanding voter turnout among Latinos and other racial and ethnic groups.
In addition, the group’s focus will be on reaching more African American churches, mosques, libraries and other places of worship.
Lueberske said that the group will also work to increase the number of registered voters by encouraging people to register online and to participate in community outreach programs.
The nonprofit is not planning to make any big changes to the campaign.
The goal is to get people out to the ballot box and the effort will go forward as long as people of faith continue to register, Luedebke said.
“If you can get 10 percent to 20 percent of the eligible voters, then you are going to get 10,000 to 20,000 people out in 2020 and 2020, and that is where the numbers are going,” she said.
Luesberke added that she is confident that the campaign will do better than its first milestone, but that she thinks that there is still work to be done.
The group has reached its goal and will continue to improve the process of getting people out and voting in 2020, she said, but “I don’t see any reason to believe that we will never get there.”
For more on the 2020 election, visit MTVNews.com.