For all of us who fear the Repubs are planning some devastating October Surprise, we can relax. This is because the Obama campaign and the Dems have created a GIANT political surprise that is called "the ground game," much touted on the "538" site. Here's proof of its effect, from today's Sacramento Bee (9/28):
Democrats are outpacing Republicans in the drive to recruit new voters in the Sacramento region ahead of the November general election....Since the two parties largely settled on presidential nominees in April, voter rolls have increased by roughly 19,500 – or 2 percent – in Placer, El Dorado, Sacramento and Yolo counties, according to new figures from the California secretary of state's office. Democrats accounted for 10,500 of those new voters. Just 2,400 were Republicans. Most of the others declined to state an allegiance.
The regional numbers mirror a statewide trend. California's Democratic voter rolls have increased by 181,118 since April while the number of Republicans grew by 6,823. Republicans saw a net loss of registered voters in 25 counties, including a loss of more than 15,000 in conservative Orange County. Similar trends are playing out nationally, in several battleground states.
Read that last number again! 181,118 new Democrats to 6,823 new Republicans. What is that, a ratio of 26 to 1? PLUS, the Repugs saw a net loss of voters in 25 counties in California. The Bee mentions that "similar trends are playing out nationally, in several battleground states," and that in California, where Obama is a lock, this is important to the outcomes in congressional races in formerly solid red districts.
The Sacramento Bee also published a very powerful story a few days ago showing the importance of the "ground game." The article, entitled "Personal touch gets people to polls, study finds" (9/24), reported the results of a nonpartisan voter contact study aimed solely an increasing voter turnout, without regard to party or candidate. Here are the results:
By knocking on voters' doors a month before election day – or even closer – organizers in Sacramento and other California cities significantly boosted turnout in areas where voters habitually don't show up at the polls, a new voter study says.
The study, released Tuesday, examined the results of nonpartisan get-out-the-vote drives over the last two years in north and south Sacramento, the town of Winters in Yolo County, sections of Los Angeles and areas in the Central Valley. In Sacramento, two weekends before the February primary election, groups of youths, including a girls' basketball team, visited 2,807 addresses, and spoke with 732 registered voters. The youths reminded the adults to vote, and gave them cards with the addresses of where to go on election day.
After the election, researchers at Yale University and California State University of the East Bay compared who voted in canvassed areas against a control group that was not canvassed. Researchers found the voter drive increased turnout by nearly 15 percent.
The article reported that in Winters, a semi-rural town near Sacramento, Spanish-speaking residents with lists of voters with Spanish surnames knocked on 158 doors and talked to 143 voters. Their efforts boosted turnout by 13 percent.
The article quoted Jim Keddy, executive director of Sacramento Area Congregations Together, which is part of a network of religious congregations that helped organize the drives, "If someone expended that much energy to get you to vote, you'd feel bad if you didn't." Keddy had advice everyone active in the Obama campaign should hear, so they can believe their volunteer work is worth the effort. The Bee article continues:
To get people to simply show up and vote, Keddy said, it's more effective to talk to them closer to election day. Renters, research shows, are among those least likely to vote because they don't receive updated information about where to vote if their precinct is moved. Voters can reregister as close as two weeks before an election. Keddy noted that half of registered voters don't show up to vote in a typical election.
"If you could just get everyone who was registered to vote to go to the polls," he said, "think of what a difference it would make."
The Voter Initiative study also found that turnout increased if canvassers were local people, and that face-to-face contact was much more effective than mailers or fliers left on doorknobs. Live telephone reminders to vote worked best, the study concluded, if organizers first cleared rolls of outdated numbers, called people with current numbers once, and then again if they seemed receptive.
Nonpartisan high school kids got 15% voter increases in minority neighborhoods. Let's think about that.