GOTV'ing in Louisiana. What are YOU doing to win?
Senate Democrats decided to do things a little differently this time. Under the leadership of Guy Cecil, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee committed to spending over $60 million in building a presidential-like field operation. To say this was unprecedented is an understatement, and most committees are content to pay lip service to field while shoveling gazillions into crappy television ads that rarely move numbers anymore, and have long since passed the point of diminishing results.
The results of this election will go a long way to determining whether that field-heavy approach is here to stay, or whether greedy media consultants will try and grab those millions for themselves in future cycles. We'll know for sure how effective those efforts ultimately were in a week, but the early indications are impressive. The New York Times compiled field spending in several key Senate states:
In
Alaska, Democrats have 90 paid field staffers to the GOP's 11; Democrats have
90 field offices, Republicans have 14. Those kinds of numbers are replicated in every single Senate battleground state.
In Louisiana, the early vote went heavily Democratic, a sign of a strong GOTV ground game:
Approximately 52 percent of people who early voted—over 124,000 people—were registered Democrats. The Democratic Party only makes up 46 percent of all registered voters [...]Approximately 33 percent of people who early voted—79,700 people—were registered Republicans.
Now Democrats need to replicate that effort on Election Day, and then on runoff day.
In North Carolina, the early numbers look stellar.
Registered Democratic voters have submitted 50 percent of the total in-person early votes, and are 110 percent of where they were four years ago [...] Registered Republicans are 30 percent of the total in-person early votes, and are 81 percent of where they were four years ago on the same day.
In
Georgia, 183,000 new voters
registered, two-thirds of them non-Hispanic white, thus mostly Democratic. The Republican secretary of state has "lost" another 40,000 registrations. Early vote totals show a less white electorate, again important in a southern state where the black vote (and Latinos to a smaller degree) will determine the Democrats' fate.
In Iowa, Democrats have 35 field offices to the GOP's 13, but as of now, the Democrats' traditional early vote advantages have been erased by an aggressive Republican early vote effort. Democrats claim that they're getting more of their votes than in 2010 (an expanded electorate helps us) and that Republicans are merely shifting their already reliable voters from Election Day to the early vote. We'll know next week if that's true.
The Democratic field operation in Colorado hasn't been felt yet, either. Republicans lead the early vote by 9.4 percent, with 950,000 ballots returned, or about half of the 2010 electorate. This is an all-mail election, and the early ballots are disproportionately rural and from older voters. Democrats have some catching up to do.
Our own Taniel has more details on most of these states (and other non-Senate states). But note: GOTV is something we all must do. So talk to your family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances, virtual phone bank, volunteer for your local campaigns.
Republicans are also doing GOTV. We sit on the sidelines, we lose. And that doesn't have to happen.