While Democrats Abroad campaigns to get as many US ex-pats to the ballot box as possible, Republicans Overseas’ chair Greg Swenson admits that he hopes for a depressed voter turnout
“Both focus on the elections,” he concedes, “but we do events for the 4th of July, Veterans Day, D-Day – you know, we do stuff that’s pro-American with a little military flavour. Their events are like Pride Month, LGBT Diversity Week. It’s right out of the stereotype.”
Whether his statement is exaggerated or not, Swenson is right to stress the difference between the organisations representing the US two-party system to citizens residing overseas. Democrats Abroad enjoys the same funding and benefits as the Democratic National Committee’s 50 state and 6 territory parties; whereas Republicans Overseas functions as a political action committee, or PAC in American terms. It is essentially a social club, part of the Republican Party’s apparatus only in name.
But Margo Miller, London-based ex-chair of Democrats Abroad and founder of the non-partisan votefromabroad.org, explains that the most important difference lies in what these two groups want: “Republicans Overseas is not interested in getting Americans to vote. They know full well that the more expats you get registered to vote, the likelihood is they’ll vote Democrat. We win elections by getting up the vote, they win elections by suppressing it.”
Swenson agrees. “My instinct is that the majority of Americans abroad would not vote Republican,” he admits. Most American professionals tend to vote Democrat, and those that live abroad tend to be professionals. Indeed many regular attendees of Republican Overseas events are not Americans but Europeans with an appetite for conservatism.
“If I was being really cynical, I would want a depressed turnout in the UK,” he adds.
Miller says that expats tend to lean Democrat because “the entire mainstream political establishment in [the UK] would be firmly on the Democrat side of the American one. Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative all have policies that align with the Democrats.” She cites the NHS as an example.
According to Miller, there’s a second reason too. Americans abroad have watched first-hand how quickly an authoritarian regime can take hold, and are subsequently more wary of democratic backsliding under Trump.
“Democrats Abroad are very active in Hungary,” she explains. “Many Americans settled there after the fall of the Iron Curtain – for progressive reasons as well as business reasons – and they have watched how quickly this progress can be reversed.”
American expats may well be natural Democrats, but they are certainly not natural voters. In the 2022 midterm elections, only 3.4 per cent of overseas voters returned a ballot compared to 62.6 per cent of domestic voters. In the 2020 presidential election, only 7.8 per cent did.
Fortunately for Democrats Abroad, not many need to vote for the Democrats to succeed. It’s about how many diasporic votes are cast in certain swing states, as opposed to how many votes are cast in total. Absentee votes in 2020 won Biden both Arizona and Georgia.
Sharon Manitta, London-based global communications lead for Democrats Abroad, says that in light of this, the organisation is “working really hard trying to get people to realise that their vote counts. We know all too well how close elections are these days.”
Democrats Abroad have gone a long way to simplify the absentee voting process for the diaspora, as well as help Americans navigate the remaining complexities of a process which is part postal, part electronic, and different for every state. The challenge they face is bolstered by the fact that little data is available on how many Americans live abroad and where.
For this year’s presidential election, Democrats Abroad are targeting young voters in the UK by establishing extra chapters up and down the country in university towns like Oxford and Cambridge.
Mae Dobbs, a voter registration volunteer during the last presidential election, reported that this demographic had been neglected in 2020. “We set up in car boot sales and community events and at large corporate offices where we knew people were likely to vote – usually people aged 35+,” she explains.
Laurie Laird, American expat in London and US political commentator, outlines that of her four children, only her eldest votes. “She is 24, and takes it fairly seriously,” Laird says, adding, “my younger three could not give a toss”.
Miller thinks this is because “there is a lot of evidence that if you vote in the first election you can, then you will vote for the rest of your life”.
“I came over in my 30s and had voted in many elections already – I figured out how to get my ballot because voting was already important to me,” she adds.
With increasing numbers of Americans moving abroad as digital nomads, the likelihood that US elections will be decided beyond America’s borders increases. Swenson knows this too. In the future, he would like to use data-driven political targeting of the diaspora to identify likely Republican votes in the UK and encourage them to register to vote. The challenge? Convincing Trump, should he be back in the White House, to make Republicans Overseas an official wing of the Republican Party like Democrats Abroad.
Swenson may not be playing “cynical” politics much longer.
If you are an American overseas and trying to work out how to vote in the US elections go to votefromabroad.org.
Feature image: Republican Chair Greg Swenson with other members of the political action committee. Photo credit: Republicans Overseas.