It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the 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. Every week I tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we discuss how to improve and build better campaigns.
We can learn new lessons from campaigns every cycle. We can also learn a lot from our mistakes. This week, I’m going to talk about one huge mistake too many campaigns can fall into—believing that the wind is behind their back and letting off the gas on campaign efforts.
Early voter turnout and voter turnout programs are key to the efforts of your campaign as well as campaigns above and below you. Even if you are confident that you will win your election, that doesn’t mean you should let up on your efforts to turn out every vote possible.
Mistakes, oh, we’ve made a few. Let’s talk about how we make them and how to fix them.
Every single vote matters. Every one.
On Election Day 2017, a candidate sat in his house making calls. He was calling voters who were scheduled to vote early via an advanced ballot, but their ballot was not listed as turned in with the local election office. This race, a local city council race, would be tight. Going through the list, he had volunteers get several voters directly to the polls to cast their ballots, including provisional ballots.
On the final canvass of his election, he won—by six votes. This margin of election was smaller than the number of provisional votes received by his opponent, meaning that if he had not turned out those voters on Election Day, his loss was guaranteed. The decision to continue working the phones until the end was the decision that made sure his campaign was successful.
This attention to detail can be critical. In statewide races, one extra voter per precinct could often be a significant difference. By working to make sure all likely Democratic voters hit the polls, you can do a lot to effect the outcome. Even if you are assured of a victory, your efforts to make sure turnout is as high as possible among likely Democratic voters helps every Democratic candidate above and below you.
Do not “rest up” knowing your race is over. Other races are not. Even if you are running unopposed, you have an obligation to help make sure that turnout in your district is as high as you can provide, to help every other candidate around you.
Early voting strategy is significant in states that support it.
If you are in a state that supports early voting, whether in person or by mail-in ballot, having a campaign plan that works to encourage more people to vote early is significant in helping to lower the amount of work your volunteers deal with on Election Day. If you know someone has already voted, they can be crossed off your list with updates, and your volunteers and organization can focus on those who are still waiting to vote.
In a blog piece for Let America Vote, the case for early voting is made clear:
Shift workers, active-duty members of the military and emergency officials like police, firefighters and EMS may have to work on Election Day. A demanding job or inflexible hours shouldn’t be a barrier to exercising the constitutional right to vote. Early vote ensures that they’re not.
Providing a wider range of options to fit the needs of a diverse community is exactly the purpose of early voting, and a lesson in how election officials can increase participation in democracy to ensure everyone’s voice is heard and represented in government.
Knowing all of this, it is baffling when campaigns decide to not integrate a plan to make sure that early voting is emphasized. Every year, however, we see campaigns with absolutely no plan to maximize early voting.
This is a campaign mistake with punishing results. Republicans are very well aware of early voting, and their campaign consultants have worked to make it a key component in their races. Democratic voters, many of whom are adversely impacted by same day only voting due to work schedules or obligations, deserve the respect of our campaigns by giving them as many opportunities as possible to turn out and vote.
Cycle after cycle, campaigns choose to charge into a campaign focused on Election Day turnout. There is a lot of privilege tied up in the assumption that all of your voters can turn out on the same day, when you have the ability to provide them better access to the ballot box. If you are in a state with advance voting and your campaign does not develop a plan and work on turning out voters through early turnout, then you are doing a real disservice to your community.
Help people vote. If they can vote early, encourage as many as possible to choose that option. You never know what can happen on Election Day. Helping voters should be an easy choice for a campaign, but lazy campaigns do not put together the plan and provide the action needed to help their voters be heard.
Advance voting? If your state supports it and it isn’t a focus of your campaign with resources behind it you are making a huge mistake.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: Election 2019 in review