MENDOCINO CO., 2/5/25 — On Sunday afternoon, the ninth iteration of the Grassroots Institute’s election series, held at the Mendocino Community Center and on Zoom, drew around 40 people, 28 of them attending online. Headlined “Is the Party Over?” the group tried to make sense of what moderator Jess Green called “a pretty traumatic week.” Agencies and government groups that depend upon federal funding and grants were still reeling from the funding freeze and then the rescission of the freeze. Fire districts, health care districts, transit agencies, social service networks, Meals on Wheels and many more had no idea if they would receive funding or if they were about to be cast into an unfunded ocean, to sink or swim.
Longtime political activist Karen Bowers noted that the event’s title came from a 1981 speech Democratic heavyweight Willie Brown gave after the election of Ronald Reagan. There was more about Reagan and Reagan Democrats, but the focus of the meeting was an examination of voting trends within Mendocino County. Both Susan Savage, vice chair of the Mendocino County Democratic Club Central Committee, and KZYX lead news reporter Elise Cox had tallied up voter statistics.
Said Cox, “What surprised me was that it quickly became clear that one out of six Democrats who voted in 2020 did not vote in 2024…. Who stayed home? But what the data doesn’t tell you is why they stayed home.”
Savage said that the demographic data is all public information—that is, “Who voted, not who you voted for.” In Mendocino County, 62,651 voters are registered to go to the polls. Of these, 25,483 are registered Democrat, 12,577 Republican, and 22,688 people cite no choice or decline to state. That last is the fastest growing group, in the county and statewide.
In 2024, 5,892 county residents who voted in 2020 did not turn in a ballot in the last election. Who are these people? According to Savage’s research, those who live in what are termed purely Democratic households (meaning everyone in the household is a registered Democrat) was the biggest group. Voters are also classified as to when they vote, with late voters those who vote or mail in their ballots during the last week before Election Day. Most who did not vote in 2024 had voted in that final week in the past.
More surprises: if one breaks down the almost 6,000 non-voters, most are young white women in purely Democratic households who vote late in the cycle. Concluded Savage about the stay-at-home voters: “More women than men, they’re white, they’re young, they vote late. In Mendocino, the non-voters are a little older than in Fort Bragg. Inland, they’re younger than people on the coast. But it’s the same pattern countywide. The urgency of talking to some of these people and finding out what’s going on is vital.”
Audience members supplied theories: Gaza soured voters, many younger people lack engagement with politics in general. Said Bowers, “I believe that the motivating factor in our politics now is based on fear… There’s a belief among liberal Democrats that people vote their self-interest. I would argue that people vote their self-preservation… In 2024, the drill was that democracy was at stake. Both sides were motivated by fear… The MAGA movement was predicated by fear of the border, fear that one’s `rightful place’ is taken away by DEI. Political repression and demonology have been instrumental in our democracy… I’m not sure that an actual entrenched political party can counter the MAGA movement.”
Democracy needs participation to succeed, and most suggestions from the speakers and the audience were not Party-related. Cox felt there was a connection between not reporting local news and a lack of engagement. “When people don’t have access to news and they get their news from social media, they’re more fearful. We have a crisis of news.”
An audience member pointed out that 36% of the nation’s registered voters did not vote. “You’re not going to reach young people with phone calls. You reach them through Tik-Tok…. You need to find some use for it in their lives. I understand why those people didn’t vote.”
One man said that people want to know what they can support, not what they must fight. “What are five things that we’ve done on a local level that youth should be excited about? I can’t think of five.”
Said Bowers, “You can’t have politics or political discourse unless people are past the point of struggling to put food on the table or get healthcare. Politics seems like a very thin layer on top of what people see as survival. We haven’t personalized the dread about climate change here. We haven’t figured out a way to convey that personally.”
View the meeting at https://www.grassroots-institute.org/courses/elections2024 along with earlier workshops. All data from Savage’s presentation come from Political Data Inc., which Savage describes as a “massive database” that the county Democratic clubs have access to through the Party. “You can slice and dice the data,” Savage explained in an interview following the meeting. “I ran searches and then made the PowerPoint slides for the GRI presentation.”
Shame on everyone who did not vote. There is never a good excuse for this lazy approach to democracy. Voting is a privilege and a responsibility of citizenship. So you people brought us the current debacle. We are all paying for your laziness and failure to educate yourselves.
I was was evicted from a senior apartment complex for complaining about mold on all 38 units. When the sheriff locked me out I was deprived of my ballot that I’d already filled out. I too have lived here in FB for over 50 years. So, lighten up on your across the board judgements.
This is exactly right
I didn’t vote (lefty in the past)
Because I no longer believe voting matters. It’s an antiquated technology and process. All the beautiful people in the U.S and we get to choose between Trump and Kamala? No thanks. I’m gonna focus on learning how to survive and staying healthy.
There was huge variation in what the 2 candidates were offering. Now we live in a circus run by a clown.
From a statistical standpoint it would be nice to see the comparison of other voter types and whether they showed up, voted late, or not at all. What kind of households are they from if they did not vote. Statistics are interesting and revealing, especially when done thoroughly. The reactions of purely democrat households might be not that different from republican or other voter types. Cherry picking details makes for good click bait, but doesn’t have enough substance to be a revealing analysis. Next time, take a step back to see if the headline still matches the article. I for one would like to see the rest of the story.
The democratic party abandoned me and the values that kept me a registered democrat. Spineless money grubbing weasels that have allowed this country to be taken over by the extreme far right. As soon as they grow the courage to defend a woman’s right to choose, free health care and student loan forgiveness I will happily vote for them again.