Media

In our recent research exploring the impacts of Oregon’s new Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) system in the 2016 election, we find that new voters who registered using AVR were more diverse than non-AVR voters. We also find that the individuals who were registered with AVR (including both individuals who voted in 2016 and those who did not) were more diverse than the non-AVR electorate.

Voting rights advocates fear that counties carrying out aggressive purges under legal duress will push officials to purge eligible voters.

"In a lot of these settlements, the push to remove people from the rolls may result in a lot of mistakes," Cameron Bell, an attorney for the liberal think tank Demos, said after fighting a lawsuit in Broward County, Florida. "That’s why Demos got involved, to make sure the parties weren’t reaching settlements that would lead to mistakes that would disenfranchise eligible voters."

A year ago this week, a white man named Garry from North Carolina called C-SPAN to talk to a black guest about his racial prejudices. He confessed that he feared black people and wondered aloud how he might change. The guest, Heather McGhee, the president of Demos, a progressive public policy organization that advocates for equality, listened thoughtfully, nodding slowly.

One year ago, a North Carolina white man named Garry Civitello called into C-SPAN. A black woman, Demos president Heather McGhee, was on the air. [...]

McGhee believes that Civitello's journey over the past year has assisted in reversing some of his long-held racial stereotypes, and has made him a more empathetic person.

New York, NY – In response to Donald Trump’s pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Demos Vice President of External Affairs Tori O'Neal-McElrath released the following statement:

"Tonight Donald Trump has doubled down on his bigoted and hateful rhetoric with his pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been found guilty of racial profiling of Latinos. Trump has again sided with white supremacists who seek to divide our nation with racism. 

Trump has again sided with white supremacists who seek to divide our nation with racism.

New York, NY – Today, in response to Donald Trump’s visit to Phoenix, Arizona, Demos Vice President of External Affairs Tori O'Neal-McElrath released the following statement:

“At Donald Trump’s disastrous rally in Phoenix tonight, we saw more of the same bigoted, hateful rhetoric from President Trump that continues to tear our nation apart. With every speech, and every action, we see more of who Donald Trump truly is: our divider-in-chief.

After 9/11, George W. Bush turned immigration into a national security issue. He created the ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, folding them both into the Department of Homeland Security. It was based “on the myth that our country would be more safe if we cracked down on immigration,” Katherine Culliton-González, a senior counsel for the left-leaning think tank Demos, told the New Republic. “ICE became part of this national security agency.”

The share of student loan borrowers who entered repayment owing $20,000 or more doubled — from 20% to 40% — between 2002 and 2014, according to a report published Wednesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What’s more, the share of borrowers entering repayment with $50,000 or more in debt tripled during the same period, the CFPB report found, jumping from 5% to 16%.

“Class has always been racially determined in this country,” Heather McGhee, president of the left-leaning public policy group Demos, told me. “In a country where you can have a credo of equality and social mobility and the ability of any man to rise as far as his talents and drive can take him, that has always had to be put in relative terms.” [...]