After doing hours of phone banking the last 3 days in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, contrary to recent polls which have Bernie Sanders down 8 to 11 points in Pennsylvania and 2 to 5 points in Connecticut, I encountered overwhelming support for Bernie in both states.
I spent 3 hours phone banking each day in Pennsylvania and about 70 to 80% of the people I spoke to said they were voting for Bernie. The response was even greater in Connecticut. Although I spent less time phone banking there (an hour each day), about 90 to 95% of the people said that they were voting for Sanders.
I’ve been doing phone banking for Bernie since Iowa and I’ve never experienced this kind of overwhelming response. In most of the other states including New York, there was either a small group saying they’d vote for him or people split between him and Hillary. I called many different areas of Connecticut and Pennsylvania and spoke to what seemed like an equal mix of women and men of all ages. In Pennsylvania I tended to speak to people who were 40 or older, and even encountered a number of people in their 90s who enthusiastically affirmed that they would be voting for Bernie. It was common to hear people say that their spouse and children would also be voting for him. A few even said that their entire neighborhood was voting for Bernie. Others told me that they too had been phone banking or canvasing for weeks.
These calls are not vetted for people who had previously said they would be voting for Bernie. I got the usual share of hang-ups, refusals to engage, Independents who can’t vote, and Republicans. This was a random mix of people on the official Bernie Sanders phone banking list who, one after another, said they would be voting for Bernie.
Voters didn’t seem at all deterred by Bernie’s deficit in delegates or by his recent loss in New York. These were die-hard fans who were just as steadfast in their loyalty to voting for their chosen candidate. There was an interesting sense of camaraderie and even a feeling of community, as I – who am all the way in California – called these complete strangers to encourage them to vote. When the person I had called said they’d be voting for Bernie, I would always let out an excited, “Yay!” which was met by laughter and a corresponding, “Yay!” or “Yah, I’m Feelin’ the Bern!” We all seemed to understand that Bernie is a once in a lifetime candidate that we can’t let slip through our fingers. When I ended the conversation by emphasizing the importance of getting to the polls, people often became solemn and expressed that they realized the gravity of their vote and were determined to do what they could to get Bernie into office.
However, there were a number of people who expressed deep concerns about election fraud and wondered if their vote would be counted. Many asked what was being done and I encouraged them to get involved with the group Election Justice which has launched a lawsuit in New York over the 125,000 voters purged in Brooklyn. More than feeling that Bernie couldn’t win because he is an avowed “democratic socialist” or that he won’t be able to beat Trump, there was a lurking question about whether the powers that be would let Bernie win. Will the system be rigged against him?
One woman in her 70s asked me what I was going to do when the election was over. Was I going to be part of a revolution? We both vowed that we would and exchanged phone numbers. It was clear from the bond that’s been created amongst so many that want a different kind of political system that Bernie’s revolution has already begun.