A new campaign is betting that people who rent their homes instead of owning them can swing the election toward Vice President Kamala Harris.
Why it matters: More than 45 million Americans rent their house or apartment, yet renters are significantly less likely to vote than homeowners.
- Housing affordability is a top issue for voters as costs have soared over the past decade.
Driving the news: The Center for Popular Democracy Action on Wednesday launched an initiative targeting renters in key swing states.
- The campaign aims to specifically target Latino and Black voters who cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election but haven’t voted since.
- It plans to reach voters through direct calls, texts, mail and digital and social media, working with local affiliates in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
What they’re saying: For voters — particularly in swing states — “the thing that keeps them up at night the most is housing insecurity, housing and affordability” along with the “precariousness” that comes with being a renter, says Analilia Mejia, co-executive director for the Center for Popular Democracy Action.
- “It is also the thing that they hear the least about” from politicians, Mejia adds.
By the numbers: Nearly 26% of U.S. renters spend more than half their income on housing, according to Census data.
- Latinos and Black Americans are significantly more likely to be renters and to be low-income renters as well, per research.
- That’s largely due to disparities in homeownership rates between white Americans and people of color.
Zoom in: Both Harris and former President Trump have zeroed in on housing affordability as key voting issue, though they have offered different approaches to how they would tackle it.
- Trump says he would limit the ability of undocumented immigrants to buy or rent, slash mortgage rates and ease regulations to allow more construction.
- Harris blames a supply shortage and pledges to build more units through tax breaks and incentives for builders and to provide down payment assistance for first-time buyers.
Zoom out: Renters tend to lean left. They favored President Biden in the 2020 election by 36.5 percentage points, according to the National Apartment Association.
- Mejia says that if even a fraction of the millions of renters who are eligible to vote cast a ballot, they can swing the election in Harris’ favor.
- “We are trying to correct a problem that is going to motivate people into the polling booth and we’re going to continue to engage these people so that we get real policy change,” Mejia says.
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