00:00Today is National Voter Registration Day, and in many states, you only have a few weeks left to
00:04get signed up to vote in November's election, with Vice President Kamala Harris and former
00:08President Donald Trump nearly tied in many of the polls. Both campaigns are closely watching
00:14registration numbers here. For example, when Taylor Swift endorsed Harris last week,
00:19more than 400,000 people visited vote.gov to register to vote.
00:24News Nation's Ryan Bass is keeping an eye on registration numbers for us this morning.
00:28Ryan, how much of an increase have we seen here?
00:33A pretty significant one, Markie. Look, and it's not just Swifties rushing to register here.
00:38This could turn out to be one of the most engaging elections in recent memory,
00:42and Millennials and Gen Z, they could be the ones that could actually decide this thing.
00:46Now, today will be the single biggest day in terms of voter registration push that we will see
00:51this election cycle with both political parties trying to get people out to register to vote. So
00:57that way, they can hopefully see more increases in this election. Voter registration platform
01:01Vote.org said that they have registered more than 1 million new voters during this election cycle.
01:08Nearly one-fifth of that 1 million-plus are from swing states, with Georgia leading the way,
01:14with 43,000 registered. Pennsylvania has 37,000. North Carolina and Michigan
01:19were both north of 20K. Vote.org actually says 376,000 new voters
01:24registered after President Biden dropped out. An overwhelming majority of them, Markie, 35
01:30and under, and newly eligible 18-year-old voters as well. More than half of all the new registrants
01:36are women. Obviously, these are key demographics that both of these campaigns
01:40are trying to capture at the ballot box. And Ryan, I mean, the numbers that you bring up,
01:45pretty remarkable. Does voter registration numbers, does that benefit either party
01:49specifically right now, especially in those key swing states?
01:54You know, Markie, we've seen Republicans actually gain ground in terms of registrants and even
01:58catch up and surpass Democrats in a lot of key swing states. But since Kamala Harris,
02:03the vice president, entered the race, it has become a whole new ballgame. We're seeing a big,
02:08big surge, especially in these swing states, in terms of Democrats getting people out to register
02:13to vote. The president dropped out on July 21st. And I want to show you the numbers here from those
02:18swing states. Since then, Democrats have outpaced the GOP in terms of registrants in many different
02:22battleground states. We're talking Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona. In terms of
02:28some of the others, like Georgia, they show an overall number, not just broken down by party,
02:32in terms of registrants. The Keystone State, by the way, obviously the key prize here,
02:36with 19 electoral votes. It is also the home state, of course, of Taylor Swift.
02:41And since that post-debate endorsement of the Harris-Waltz ticket, as you mentioned,
02:46that drove hundreds of thousands of people to the vote.gov website, encouraging people
02:50to go sign up to vote. As for the Harris campaign, they will kick off a week-long
02:54youth vote campaign today with Governor Walz, that's going to be on the campaign trail. Former
02:59President Trump will be hosting a rally in Flint, Michigan. Marky? A lot of people making sure they
03:03don't miss their chance to go cast their ballot in November. Okay, Ryan Bass, thank you so much.
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