Kadida Kenner and the New Pennsylvania Project are hoping to copy how Stacey Abrams saved democracy in Georgia by finding lots of new voters.
by Will Bunch | Columnist
Published Jul 22, 2021
The next high-profile elections aren’t until next year. And when the first few fellows from a brand-new voting group called the New Pennsylvania Project started knocking on doors in places like Norristown or lower Bucks County this summer, they weren’t pushing a candidate — merely asking unregistered or infrequent voters what’s on their mind. No wonder executive director Kadida Kenner says the main reaction so far has been “surprise.”
“We can talk about [federal COVID-19] funding not being used [by Pennsylvania], or economic justice and raising the minimum wage, or education justice and the large spending gaps between schools,” Kenner said of the group’s early door-knocking efforts. “These are the ideas and issues that engage low-participation voters, or those who have not registered to engage in the political process. We have to overcome all these barriers to entice certain folks to go out and register.”
Only in existence since early May, the for-now Harrisburg-based New Pennsylvania Project — if the name sounds familiar, it’s a riff on the wildly successful New Georgia Project launched by Stacey Abrams in the 2010s — is on the cutting edge of what’s emerging as the Democrats’ main strategy for 2022 and beyond to fight GOP intransigence on voting rights and outright suppression laws enacted in some Republican-controlled states. Read the full article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Original Article: https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/new-pennsylvania-project-kadida-kenner-pennsylvania-democracy-20210722.html