More Money Urgently Needed to Reach Younger and Minority Voters, Organizers Warn Harris Donors

Two national Democratic groups leading digital turnout operations in battleground states warned in a memo on Tuesday that the grass-roots organizations working to reach young Black and Latino voters were critically underfunded.

The memo by the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA and the progressive advocacy organization ProgressNow, obtained by The New York Times, argues that though Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy has reinvigorated the Democratic base, she has not yet completely consolidated support of the voters of color who receive much of their information online and will decide close elections.

It points to ProgressNow data that suggests Ms. Harris is trailing President Biden’s levels of support with Black, Latino and young voters in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2020 — and notes that the diverse coalitions Mr. Biden assembled were critical to his slim margins of victory.

“We cannot tolerate any loss of support and hope to win,” the memo reads. “Without an immediate investment in communication to these groups that is commensurate with their power in the electorate, electing Harris in November will become harder.”

The memo, which organizers said was distributed to Democratic donors, is the latest in a series of escalations from the organizations that helped push voters to the polls four years ago. The groups’ frustrations with the party’s donor class have been brewing for months, as leaders of voter mobilization organizations bemoan a lack of investment in their work in the presidential campaign’s final weeks.