MA-Gov: The View from the Trenches...and Good News for the Netroots

The Deval Patrick campaign for the MA Democratic gubernatorial nomination has been a true example of a grassroots/netroots campaign.  Deval has over 22,000 contributors and over 7200 volunteers.  I am a precinct captain for Deval in my town, and this is my story.  Read on for a taste of what grassroots, local level, in the trenches campaign work is like, and how it all meshes with the big picture.

My job the last two weeks has been to call a list of ~200 "super voters".  These are Democrats and independents who are known to frequently vote in primaries (independents can vote in primaries in my state).  Some friends and I, powered by coffee and Dunkin' Munchkins, have phone banked from my house in 3 two hour sessions.  We completed calling the list on Sunday.  It is amazing what you can do with a few well charged cell phones and hundreds of free minutes.  One purpose of the calls is to try and talk people into voting for Deval, but the main purpose is to identify supporters so we can make sure they vote on September 19th.  For each number called the volunteer had to note the result down on a piece of paper.  It was then my job as precinct captain to key in the results at the campaign website.  This allows the campaign to track what has been done, and how Deval is doing.
Here are our results.

Number of calls made = 182
Human beings spoken to = 95
(the rest of the calls were left message, no answer, disconnected etc.).

Voters definitely or leaning towards voting for Deval = 45%
Undecided = 45%
Voters definitely or leaning towards voting for Gabrieli = 10%
Voters definitely or leaning towards voting for Reilly = 0%
We did not identify a single Reilly voter in our precinct!

Polls two weeks ago showed the race a statistical dead heat, so these numbers are great news for the Patrick campaign.  When we added together the results for all the precincts in my town we got 43% Patrick support.  What is fascinating is that polls released just today show Deval with ~45% of the voters.  I would not normally have believed that number, but since it agrees with my own polling, it just may be true.  I have talked to several friends and neighbors the last few days who have switched from undecided or supporting Gabrieli to voting for Deval.  It really feels like things are breaking Deval's way.  The Patrick campaign may be poised to win big on September 19th.  To help, go to www.devalpatrick.com.  Keep your fingers crossed and REMEMBER TO VOTE ON SEPT. 19TH!