It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a Saturday diary of Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
As I noted a few weeks ago, in the new year, we’re moving on to our next project with this series, but to close out this year, I’m going through the email I receive about Nuts & Bolts, and what topics readers want to see addressed. Last week, I talked about some of the biggest mistakes in the 2018 election. This week, we’re going to take some time and talk about the best ideas that came out of 2018.
Every election cycle, we try hard to get better. Democratic consultants, campaign managers, executive directors, and others make mistakes. Candidates look at ways they can improve from cycle to cycle. While we look at ways to avoid bad ideas, the other approach is to look at good ideas from campaigns and outside partners and make them part of our ongoing efforts.
Ready to see strategies I thought were some of the best ideas for 2018?
Hugs, Love, and Letters: How Vote Forward made old-school new again
During a campaign, a lot of us come home to glossy print mailers supporting or attacking a candidate. This last fall, millions of Americans came home to something else: personal letters, many handwritten by fellow Americans, urging them to vote. Vote Forward had a simple idea: They would let people talk to each other.
While the website provided letter templates, many letter-writers wrote deeply personal, sometimes moving testimonials about why the election would matter. With three voters in my household, my oldest son received a personal letter (the first one he has ever received in his life, actually), urging him to vote with a story of what being able to vote meant to a woman whose grandmother had fought for that right for women.
The letter was powerful, personal, and direct; letters just like it went out to Democratic voters all over the country. Not only did the program create connections with new voters, but it also personalized the election. It gave people who struggle to volunteer due to age, disability, or the lack of time an opportunity to feel themselves to be an important part of the election efforts.
The effort helped energize potential new voters, voters who normally don’t turn out, as well as the volunteers, who cheered each other on in social media posts.
According to our Activism team here at Daily Kos, few programs were as successful, with such a high rate of signups, as Vote Forward. Instead of Republican billionaires, it was people with a pen and a piece of paper that brought in votes, one pen pal at a time.
P.S. We wrote a letter back to the person who wrote us, and thanked them for everything they were doing.
Mobilize America gets it right
Organizing volunteers and making events work the way you need them to are time-consuming tasks for campaigns. While there have been a lot of different tools available in the past, none made it quite as easy as Mobilize America, which allowed organizations to list volunteer opportunities. This marketplace for volunteers streamlined the entire process and made it easier for those who wanted to be active to find something to do, almost any time, almost anywhere in the nation, for most candidates.
While the platform is still young, the attention put into simplifying connections should have ongoing positive results for campaigns.
2017
The best thing to happen for 2018 was, in fact, 2017. In 2017, Democratic efforts nationwide made a priority of taking back our government, from the lowest level all the way up. Nationally, Democratic efforts to win local elections for city governments, school boards, water boards, township clerks, and more led to the party having better research. We knew the activists who had put together efforts in 2017, and we met more local donors and community volunteers.
Going into 2018, beyond wins in Virginia and New Jersey, nationally, we had more locally elected officials who could create good policy for their communities, and they provided more voices of support for our candidates. Republicans had long relied on the idea that they could line their local elected officials up behind a congressional candidate or a candidate for governor to provide testimonials. Thanks to efforts in a lot of places, more Democratic candidates had elected officials in offices around them that could advocate for their election.
Finally: you
You know what really made 2018 great? It wasn't consultants or a high-tech program—those are important tools, and they were important and played into our success. But they would also be meaningless if they were lacking one other thing: you.
The Democratic effort is about the willingness of people to knuckle down and do the work. The party has struggled with this before. But in 2018, more people, all over the country, made every effort possible to change government for the better.
Money is nice. Time is limited. Great tools can make our life easier. But nothing, absolutely nothing, replaces the power of one individual determined to do the right thing. As I look back through the election results, and precinct results nationally, I am awed by the determination of, well, you. Democratic voters who didn't just vote. You volunteered and got involved at a higher rate than we've seen in a long time. That's even more astonishing considering that many of the states most in contention, states where there was a U.S. Senate race, were red states.
You. People who read Daily Kos, go to Indivisible or PSN meetings, attend party functions, donate to candidates, walk a precinct, write letters. YOU are the giant of the 2018 election: voters who became activists—you are the difference.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: Grab bag