Organize and Energize: How Student Leaders Bolster Democratic Turnout

As the 2026 midterms rapidly approach, Democrats are optimistic about the possibility for a historically large blue wave. Their odds of success, however, will hinge largely on their ability to turn out voters, particularly among the coveted youth demographic.

College-age voters are a crucial constituency that typically swings for Democrats; they are also the demographic with the lowest turn-out, especially for midterm elections. However, young voters are not a monolith. Their reasons for not turning out vary greatly, from cynicism to state-level voter registration requirements. To get a sense of how state laws and political dynamics impact the strategies used to encourage turnout, I interviewed two student organizers who work to increase turnout within their respective communities.

A Tale of Two States

For both of the young activists I interviewed, the factors that facilitate low turnout among their peers are informed by the political circumstances of their respective communities.

Adit Raha is the President of the University Democrats (UDems) at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). His home state of Texas is a notorious Republican stronghold in which no Democrat has won state-wide office since 1994. UT Austin’s Travis County, on the other hand, is the bluest county in the state, electing Democrats with an average margin of 41.87 percentage points since 2018. At the heart of that Democratic bubble is UT, where—according to Raha—97% of student voters participated in the Democratic, rather than the Republican, primary this year.

Tyler Morgan, meanwhile, is the President of the Young Democrats at Virginia Tech (VT). Though his home state of Virginia typically swings for the Democrats due to liberal North Virginia,VT is located in the heart of rural, Republican Southwest Virginia. The university itself, according to Morgan, is more right-leaning than many campus environments, as its popular engineering major (32.5% enrollment) generally skews conservative. In general, though, VT is neither “overwhelmingly Democrat or overwhelmingly Republican.”

Looking beyond party affiliation, these two communities also differ significantly in their voter registration and turnout rates. Within the 18-24 age bracket specifically, Texas is far below average. In 2022, the state ranked 41st among the 50 states in youth turnout, and 35th in youth voter registration. Virginia, by contrast, is slightly above average, ranked 17th in youth voter registration and 23rd in youth turnout during that same midterm election. Despite that above-average civic participation, Montgomery County (where Virginia Tech is located) underperforms the state average, registering only 20% of its 18-year-olds compared to the state’s 55%. This is comparable to 18% in Travis County, relative to Texas’ 29%.

Unsurprisingly, then, Raha and Morgan pointed to different root causes for their respective struggles with voter turnout. When prompted, Raha provided a veritable laundry list of state-level policies that make it more difficult for students to register and vote in Texas, starting with the lack of online and same-day voter registration.

“You don’t know how many people I talk to,” he said, “who are like, ‘oh, I want to go vote, but I forgot to register before the deadline.’” Same-day registration, he argued, would open the door for countless people to go out and vote who wouldn’t otherwise.

Even for people who do remember to register before the deadline, however, Raha claimed that the state makes it “very difficult to find someone who is able to register you to vote.” In order to help other people register, the Texas Election Code requires a person to be certified as a Volunteer Deputy Registrar (VDR), a process which involves both a training course and an exam. Even then, the certification only applies in the county in which the exam was taken, so Raha and his fellow volunteers aren’t able to help students from other parts of the state unless those students re-register in Travis County. Those in favor of these stringent requirements argue that they prevent voter fraud. However, evidence makes clear that they impose considerable burdens that make it harder for young voters to navigate the registration process.

The process of registering in Travis County can come with further challenges as well, since student IDs are not a valid form of photo identification for Texas voter registration. Instead, students need either a Texas driver’s license, a state ID, a local handgun certification, a military ID, or a passport in order to register and vote. Raha explained that—at least in Travis County—there is a process for students to use their out-of-state driver’s licenses as well, but doing so requires separate proof of address and additional paperwork. Raha explained: if Texas accepted student IDs, as many other states do, “that would make things significantly easier,” making the policy yet another impediment to youth turnout.

Furthermore, successful voter registration is not necessarily enough to overcome the obstacles to voting in Texas. Even on Election Day, Raha claimed that voting times are “heavily restricted,” which presents a major challenge for the busy schedules of full-time students. When people do arrive in time to vote, they may find themselves caught up in one of Texas’ frequent voter purges, in which previously registered voters are surprised to find themselves removed from voter rolls when they go to vote, “and by then, it’s too late.”

The considerable obstacles Raha has encountered in Texas contrast sharply with the situation in Virginia. In general, Morgan was complimentary of the state’s approach to voter registration. As he explained it—unlike Texas’ strict VDR requirements—the majority of Young Democrats were easily able to get certified with the Board of Elections and help other students register.

Similarly, Morgan had a lot of praise for Virginia’s online registration system, which he argued “is a phenomenal way to get people who are worried about giving their information down on a piece of paper.” Virginia has also had same-day voter registration since 2022, and accepts a wide variety of photo identification to register (including high school and college student IDs).

The only registration-related problem Morgan noted was the Board of Elections’ lack of a mechanism to return voter registration forms that have been filled out incorrectly after they’ve been submitted physically. This creates a situation where students mistakenly believe they’re registered but have their registration declined without knowing.

In contrast to Raha, Morgan generally pointed to obstacles that revolved less around state-level policy and more around local and regional dynamics. While Virginia as a whole is “more politically inclined,” Morgan noted that, “we are in Southwest Virginia and so . . . turnout is very low because it is more rural,” as rural areas often have less access to civic infrastructure. Though it’s unclear what role these issues play on campus, Morgan highlighted that compared to other Virginia universities, VT has historically been “horrendous at getting students to register.”

The challenge at Virginia Tech is not simply a lack of resources in a rural area; it’s connected to a broader issue of political engagement. As Morgan emphasized, Southwest Virginia—like much of the state—tends to be dominated by institutional politicians who face little competition, making it difficult to keep people politically engaged, a problem only worsened by the state’s off-year elections. In 2023, for example, 46 of the state’s 100 races were uncontested and only one incumbent lost his re-election bid, after running as an Independent. Of those uncontested races, six were in the ten Southwest districts.

That said, while Raha and Morgan each face challenges in communities known for relatively low turnout, both have found success during their time as student organizers.

During the 2026 primary, UT Austin saw its highest primary turnout since 1994—incidentally the last time a Democrat won state office in Texas. Similarly, according to Morgan, during the 2025 House of Delegates election, Virginia Tech achieved a 400% increase in turnout compared to the prior election in 2023, as their district elected Democrat Lily Franklin with a margin of more than 2,000 votes.

Putting in the Work

Despite the different obstacles they face, when asked about the strategies they employ that contributed to those successes, Raha and Morgan put forward largely similar narratives, emphasizing the importance of intent localized outreach. As Raha asserted, when asked about how UDems navigates the challenges in Texas, “the only way to combat it and to fight back against it is to show up and outwork.” This work includes daily voter registration drives, door knocking, phone and text banking, poll greeting, larger events and more.

In particular, Raha highlighted the importance of those daily voter registration drives. During election years, UDems has an in-person presence on campus every weekday for at least 5 to 6 hours each day, setting up a 10-foot table with 8-foot long signs where they help their fellow students fill out registration paperwork. They persist in this daily mobilization even after registration deadlines are done, so that they can continue to raise awareness about the election and answer any questions. As Raha explained, this is to ensure that “if students want to register, there’s no excuse not to, because we will be there to help them throughout the whole process.”

That effort to bring visibility and attention to upcoming elections is further bolstered by ads on Instagram, TV, and even in newspapers, which are disseminated within a set radius around campus. Using these strategies, UDems tries to ensure that student voters are given all of the information they need about when and how to vote. Their goal: “there’s literally not a single person who lives in or around campus who doesn’t know about the election.”

UDems also works to make sure that the people they register actually turn out. For example, using the app Reach, they can send check-in texts to all the people who registered for Election Day reminders, also responding in real-time to people’s questions and concerns.

The work done by the Virginia Tech Young Democrats likewise focuses on spreading awareness about elections and ways to participate. Morgan therefore emphasized the importance of having a committed force of volunteers. “In order to get students out to vote, you need a base of students that are willing to let other students know it’s happening.”

As both Morgan and Raha make clear, while digital resources like Reach and Instagram are important tools, there is simply no substitute for a robust in-person presence and the human connection that comes with it. When asked about the increased turnout during Lily Franklin’s recent election in 2025, Morgan stressed that “I think the primary reason we saw a fantastic turnout is because…there were Young Dems on campus almost every single day,” making sure their peers were both aware of and felt invested in the upcoming election.

It is somewhat notable, however, that—in contrast to Raha and UT’s UDems—Morgan’s Young Dems nonetheless experienced diminishing energy as Election Day approached. Unlike Raha’s emphasis on UDems’ continued activity well past voter registration deadlines, Morgan reported that their registration drives, for example, “kind of died down over time.”

This seemed to be the clearest impact of the differing circumstances in their respective states on strategies chosen to increase turnout. Morgan explained that the reason they shifted away from active voter registration drives was because the Young Dems found it easier to simply direct students to the online registration system, an option that student organizers in Texas do not have. In other words, an active in-person presence is crucial to improving turnout in any environment, but becomes all the more so in a state that actively restricts voter registration.

Candidates are Key

The localized outreach of student organizers can only go so far without candidates who can energize the community.

While apathy is an often overstated reason for low youth turnout, both Morgan and Raha referenced a cynical sentiment among their peers—their votes just do not seem to matter. In Morgan’s case, this was closely tied to the dominance of “institutional politicians” in Southwest Virginia, which he argued makes voting feel less important to people, because they don’t believe that they “really have a shot at changing the status quo.”

Raha, meanwhile, pointed to the pessimism his peers have as members of a Democratic bubble in a deeply Republican state. “There’s also just the sense,” he remarked, that “Texas is a red state, [so] there’s no point in me going and voting in the first place.” Combating this cynicism seems to be where good candidates become crucial, providing young voters with the hope that their votes can not only sway an election, but also lead to meaningful change.

In his discussion of the 2025 House of Delegates election, Morgan stressed—in addition to the activism of VT’s Young Dems—the fact that Lily Franklin was an effective candidate “a lot younger than our run-of-the-mill Virginia delegates,” giving her increased ability to connect with students on a human level. She capitalized on that through frequent on-campus appearances, which made her feel like a real person to students, rather than a distant institutional politician.

Raha, meanwhile, stressed the importance of moving away from the narrative among young progressives that “Republicans make things worse and Democrats maintain the status quo.” Pointing to Zohran Mamdani in New York and James Talarico in Texas, Raha argued that, “Democrats who actually want to do something, who want to change and who want to push for better policy and actual substance are winning, and so I feel like that’s helping shift young people back towards Democrats.”

While Morgan was concerned that his district’s 2026 congressional candidate may have “a little bit more [trouble] trying to resonate with the younger college students,” Raha pointed to signs of hope in deeply Republican Texas. “I feel like more and more people are believing,” he expressed, “like, hold on, maybe we can win, maybe it’ll be close.”

In either case, the comments of these two student leaders underscores the importance of candidates who can conjure a feeling of hope in young Americans, not only that their votes will make a difference, but also that the candidates they elect will actually bring change to a system that young voters are increasingly losing faith in.

The image featured in this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 International license. No changes were made to the original image, which is attributed to James Willamor. The photo can be found here.