The Democratic National Committee is utilizing the world’s biggest sporting event to register new voters via World Cup watch parties.
The massive voter registration effort will deploy volunteers, organizers and campaign staff to spend the weekend registering voters outside FIFA Fan Zones, sports bars, restaurants, parks and community watch parties.
The highly anticipated soccer showdown is at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at 3 p.m. Eastern time Sunday.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin said the Democratic Party will “spend the weekend registering thousands of new Democrats and having conversations about how we win races up and down the ballot.”
“While Republicans make it clear that they don’t care about American families by jacking up grocery prices and making their lives more expensive, Democrats throughout the country continue to organize on the ground, register our neighbors at community events, and meet voters where they are,” he said in a statement.
The goal is to register more than 3,000 Democratic voters, Politico reported.
Two dozen states, including battlegrounds such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, will be targeted in the weekend voter roundup. In Arizona, registration efforts will focus on Phoenix, Chandler, Tempe, Tucson and Yuma, according to the outlet.
Other events hosted by state parties or coordinated campaigns will be in Florida, Missouri and Washington.
The DNC’s latest initiative ties into its largest-ever voter registration effort, “When We Count,” to engage young voters ahead of November’s midterm elections by training their peers to register new voters.
“When We Count” is described by the DNC as the largest financial investment the party has ever made in voter registration, launched first in Arizona and Nevada battleground congressional districts to close registration gaps that could determine control of the House.
A four-part national exercise aims to train more than 1,500 people to run partisan voter registration drives.
“When We Count” fellows will be sent to sports bars, restaurants, block parties, parks, grocery stores, discount stores, dollar stores and food courts to register young voters in Spanish and English.
One-third of the people in the program speak Spanish.
Sunday’s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina features two Spanish-speaking countries, and watch parties are expected to draw a large presence from the Hispanic community.
Sporting events have become some of the more visible venues for voter registration efforts in recent U.S. election cycles.
Republicans have leaned hardest into motorsports — with NASCAR a signature target for decades — while Democrats have tapped into college campus sports culture, especially football at historically Black colleges and universities.
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