As a follow up to my 2018 GOTV project, I was looking for something bold to do. I have always said, “Aim high.” In doing so, we expand our chances. Just the attempt to achieve a major target brings you more success than setting a modest one. A big goal fires the imagination. And we need a REAL big goal for 2020. Next year, we are facing the most crucial national election since 1860. Upon the outcome of this election lies the future of the United States of America, and to a lesser extent, the future of the world. A Democratic victory is absolutely essential. There is no alternative. We will have to set aside conventional ideas about what a “good” voter turnout is. We must smash all turnout records to pieces. I’m talking expanding the Democratic presidential vote by at least 20 million over 2016, going from 65,000,000 to 85,000,000. This sounds unrealistic at first, but consider this: in 2016, voter turnout (according to Pew Research) was 61.4%. This means there were over 86 million adults who did NOT vote. In 2018, voter turnout was about 50%, great for a midterm (and great for us!) but that left over 100 million potential votes on the table. I say with the stakes being what they are, we cannot take any chances. We must mount the greatest voter mobilization in American history. And what do we need to do to accomplish this?
REACH OUT PERSONALLY TO 100,000,000 AMERICANS OF VOTING AGE. NOT BY PHONE, NOT BY TEXT, NOT BY EMAIL, BUT FACE-TO-FACE. I BELIEVE WE CAN USE THESE FACE-TO-FACE CONTACTS TO ACHIEVE A RECORD-BREAKING DEMOCRATIC TURNOUT IN 2020.
All the research shows that face-to-face canvassing is the royalty among the GOTV efforts. From a Yale University study of GOTV methods, located here:
Personalized methods and messages work better. Across a number of mobilization experiments, one consistent finding is that more personalized messages are more effective in mobilizing voters. When Donald Green and Alan Gerber put forth this generalized finding in Get Out the Vote!: A Guide for Candidates and Campaigns (2004), they contended that door-to-door canvassing was the most consistently effective and efficient method of voter mobilization, and they suggested that the success of canvassing could be attributed to the personal, face-to-face delivery of the GOTV messages. In recent years, this finding has proven to be robust... [my emphasis] While it is apparent that methods other than door-to-door canvassing, such as volunteer and professional phone calls, may approach the level of effectiveness and cost-competitiveness of door-to-door canvassing, many results suggest that it is the dynamic interaction of authentic person-to-person contact that is most important in determining whether a method will successfully mobilize voters.
A study published by The University of Chicago found that even in an off-year municipal election face-to-face canvassing can increase turnout by 5%. And that’s a very modest goal.
And this study from The American Political Science Review lays it out bluntly:
We report the results of a randomized field experiment involving approximately 30,000 registered voters in New Haven, Connecticut. Nonpartisan get-out-the-vote messages were conveyed through personal canvassing, direct mail, and telephone calls shortly before the November 1998 election. A variety of substantive messages were used. Voter turnout was increased substantially by personal canvassing, slightly by direct mail, and not at all by telephone calls. These findings support our hypothesis that the long-term retrenchment in voter turnout is partly attributable to the decline in face-to-face political mobilization.
Aha! Did you see that last line? We have let the face-to-face method decline. We’re relying too much on impersonal methods (although I happen to think that personalized emails and postcards have a genuine place in our GOTV efforts). Face to face canvassing gets results. But it’s not just the number of people campaigns talk to, it’s the quality of the interaction. From Vox:
And, to actually affect voters, research shows that having an actual conversation is crucial. Canvassing seems to work best when voters who don’t care much about politics engage in a genuine conversation about why voting is important. So, when canvassers rush through scripted interactions, just trying to cram their message into voters’ minds, the impacts they leave are minimal — voters might as well have been sitting through a television ad. On the other hand, research has consistently found that authentic interpersonal exchanges usually have sizable impacts.
So when I say 100,000,000 for America, I mean this: we mobilize for victory by REPEATED, SUBSTANTIVE, PERSONAL, and SINCERE interaction with at least 100 million American voters. It is my conviction that this will be the foundation for a sweeping victory in 2020.
I will have MANY more suggestions in the days ahead. The task will not be easy. And no, we cannot rely SOLELY on canvassing, although I have come to the conclusion that phone calls are useless, even counterproductive.
We’re gonna have to leave it all on the field. This is going to take everything we’ve got. And here’s the punchline: