We may have been surprised on Election night when, for example, Florida was called for Trump. If we were, we shouldn't have been. More Floridians registered to vote as Republicans than as Democrats in the last four years (619,000 to 426,000). The Trump campaign had a lot more field organizers knocking on doors and directing volunteers than we did from more offices. Trump participated in 15 official rallies in the state as well as more than a handful of unofficial events.
The rallies were gold mines -- data gold mines for them -- and in a normal year we would have been collecting in-person data as well. Covid-19 suppressed the typical Democratic efforts to expand the electorate (the key to winning). I don't think anyone would argue that this was not the correct response, given our (as well as Independent/NPA) voters' attitudes about knocking on their doors. We didn't think it was a hoax and we respected voters' health concerns. We did the right thing.
But it hurt our ground game.
How much was made evident to me by several subscribers who happened to be working for the Trump campaign. Since 2017, I have been doing a presidential campaign news email, mostly for my fellow Obama staffers (who requested that I recreate a daily news brief that I did back in Feb-Mar 2007), but which I opened up to the public. I have to admit that I was surprised when I saw my first subscriber from a Trump campaign email address, but given the purpose, I was flattered. And I interact with subscribers (when they initiate a conversation) -- including 3 who admitted they were Trump campaign people.
Sometimes those particular conversations were started with a brag. But you can learn a lot when people feel confident. And the Trump campaign was very confident in their data (well, at least until Parscale got demoted) and their approach to victory. They were copying (you could argue, cut and pasting) "Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America, " even making staffers read the book, marrying digital and ground into a single structure.
But what I found interesting was their contact counts. One person claimed that the Trump campaign was averaging 19 "opened" GOTV messages to its designated "new" voters, and around a hundred for those who used their app. This would mean that not only were they registering people but they were also tracking them, and designing messages specifically for voters who didn't have the history of voting (or voting for Trump).
Democrats have done this before. If you moved into the 13th Ward in Chicago a decade or so ago, you would have been sent a welcome basket and received a follow-up visit by a precinct captain. Constant Voter Contact works. Precinct captains in that Ward had contact goals of 4 personal contacts with voters in an election year and 2 personal contacts in a non-election year. Needless to say, voter turnout in that Ward is high. But it is more important for new voters (however you choose to define that) than for habitual voters. New voters need more contact than habitual voters -- and more reassurance as well.
You aren't born with a habitual voter gene. The habit is developed. You need to learn were the polling place is, and feel comfortable with considering more than just the particular race in which you want to vote. Voting involves contact with people you don't know, and trusting people you don't know. It becomes a habit when you get comfortable. Television commercials won't make you comfortable (and a lot of them are designed to make you afraid). The best way to achieve this in person-to-person contact and a voter contact strategy that understands the goal is to motivate (then mobilize) you to vote.
We can't let Republicans steal this best practice without a response. Yes, Covid-19 changed our plans, and the Biden presidential campaign was internally and externally consistent. Props to them.
But this is Georgia. This is Georgia where people have already been exhausted by months of campaign commercials and were hoping for that post-election reprieve. We can't abandon our ground game even though the pandemic has gotten worse. These seats are just too important.
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Alums because field organizing was the cornerstone of our success. Face to face interactions, even masked and socially distanced, are critical. They are so critical that the RNC sent 600 experienced campaign staffers to Georgia at the request of Mitch McConnell. Karl Rove is leading the fund-raising .
We have assets on our side, as well. The Biden and the Senate campaigns around Georgia have shed their field organizers and voter contact specialists and employing them in Georgia will greatly enhance our chances of success. Whether detailing them to the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns (with whom we reached out for buy in before beginning), or connecting them to the numerous local civil and voting rights organizations in Georgia, or putting them on college campaigns -- especially the HBCU campuses -- all make victory possible.
Obviously, we need your help. To send field organizers to Georgia costs between $12-15k per organizer (salary, taxes, benefits & expenses).
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopefield
Most of the money that is flowing into Georgia is going into media. Overwhelming percentage. If you live in a swing state or even a non-swing state that has a number of highly contested races, you know how quickly people avoid campaign commercials, but you have to do that, too. Reach people when they are ready to listen. That was key to the Obama contact strategy, to reach people when they were ready to listen -- in all forms of voter contact, messaging and mobilization. Field was just as important as media. Doors was just as important as calls. Having experienced campaign organizers on the ground is just as important as having advertising on the tv.
Please support Hope Springs from Field PAC in its efforts to put experienced campaign organizers on the ground in Georgia.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopefield