Most people remember what Covid did to the country but few of us remember what Covid did to the 2020 campaign. You see, the Trump campaign knew that it won on a fluke in 2016 and realized that it wasn’t likely to repeat that result in 2020 unless it changed things up. And this was before Covid.
Like many presidential re-election campaigns, the Trump campaign did a deep-dive into the re-elect campaigns of the past and sought to incorporate the practices it believed worked best from those that it had admired. It ”hired” Karl Rove, the architect of Bush (43)’s re-election campaign. It created a “Trump Victory Leadership Initiative,” which it claimed was modelled after “the fellowship program Barack Obama’s campaign pioneered in 2008 and 2012” but was really an outgrowth of the Leadership Institute and Morton Blackwell’s Youth campaign efforts for the Reagan Campaigns. And it borrowed heavily from the Obama campaigns:
As they build their program, Parscale and others on the campaign and at the RNC have been studying the book “Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America,” a senior campaign official told TIME. It’s not the first time Republicans have turned to Obama’s historic campaign for tactical guidance. In 2016, for example, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz gave copies of Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe’s book to his senior presidential campaign team, telling them to “nakedly and shamelessly emulate this.”
“Volunteering is how you win,” Brad Pascale reported to have said to introduce this effort. “Don’t expect just money on TV and [a] digital program is going to win this again.” As a result, “Trump’s campaign knocks on a million doors a week. Biden’s knocks on zero.”
I’ve argued before that this effort didn’t hurt Biden as much as you’d expect because he was running against Trump. But it did hurt Democrats, especially those running for Congress and offices lower on the ballot. And this year’s result may be the same. Maybe voters will come to their senses and send Trump packing again. Maybe Nov 8, 2016 was the only day Donald Trump could win an election. Maybe.
But this isn’t a “Do the least effort to win” election, is it? It’s a “Do Everything You Can to Win” election. Here’s the problem:
Headed into caucus night, both private and public polls found that a majority of undecided voters – those most up-for-grabs this year – were still unsure of whether Trump will be his party’s nominee at all. Even Biden’s internal polling, according to top campaign officials, has highlighted this trend, with recent surveys finding around 75% of the campaign’s targeted undecided voters do not believe Trump will be Biden’s opponent in November.
This is probably the result of voters, especially less frequent or less partisan voters, think both major candidates are just too darn old to be president or disapprove of a Biden-Trump rerun. Until those voters — a significant portion of the electorate — accepts the Biden v Trump match is inevitable, we aren’t likely to see the kind of voter support that President Biden feels he deserves.
Hope Springs from Field PAC was designed to set the stage here. We’ve been knocking on doors in the Electoral College (and Senate) Swing States with the kinds of interpersonal voter contact that is most effective in driving turnout. Over the past 3 years, we have knocked on almost 10 Million doors (9,912,746) with a special emphasis on GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote) in the places where it mattered. As Green and Garber argued, "Face-to-face interaction dramatically increases the chance that voters will go to the polls." Hope Springs is well aware that repeated interactions increase voter participation which is why we are so committed to Early or Deep Organizing.
In more than one state, Hope Springs volunteers have been thanked by voters (presumably highly partisan Democrats) at their doors for canvassing. More than once, volunteers have been invited inside voters’ homes because of their concern for them, whether because it was “too hot” or “too cold” to talk outside. We don’t advise volunteers to do that, but it has happened often enough to note. One of the last volunteers to tell me personally about his experience — this was in Ohio last Fall -- opened up his coat to show me his heated vest with heated mittens, an experience that has been permanently imprinted on my brain (i’ve told several Members of Congress who live in cold-weather states about this experience).
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors since 2021 in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the Electoral Battlegrounds in what has been called the First and Second Rounds of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are taking those efforts to the doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters with a systematic approach that reminds them not only that Democrats care, but Democrats are determined to deliver the best government possible to all Americans.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization
Hope Springs from Field understands that volunteer to voter personal interactions are critical. We believe that in-person voter contact that is interactive and volunteer-driven is key to success in 2024. But we need your help.
Following the data, Hope Springs volunteers are trained to understand that “Personalized methods and messages work better.” We use an Issues Survey to guide volunteers through their interaction with voters, even training them to show the questionnaire to the voter upfront (even allowing them to hold it), so they understand what we are trying to do at their door. “Interpersonal influence can be powerful mobilizing forces.”
Canvassing is not the only way to leverage the latter. In fact, we aren’t suggesting that canvassing is the only form of communications should rely on. We have seen first hand how a plethora of campaign communication with voters enhances the chances that voters will interact with us at the door. In our experience, we have seen voters more willing to talk to us, and more likely to open their doors in the first place, as the media (paid and earned) has increased their coverage of this race, and campaigns have communicated with voters, whether through advertising or direct mail.
In the recent NY-03 special election, i had an interesting conversation with a Long Island voter about his “wide exposure” to Fox News and how unbelievable he found it. “I trust you more than I trust them,” was how he put it. And, i admit, this kind of stunned me. So i asked why, “just so i can understand.”
“Because you’re a neighbor, a kind of friends-and-family plan.”
This attitude is not unknown to me, i just had never heard it put that way. In fact, the Washington Post recently had a Philip Bump piece on the subject. “Asked who they trust for election information, Americans were much more likely to say ‘friends and family’ than they were ‘poll results’ or the ‘news media.’” This is why we utilize relational organizing, and it comes out not just in canvassing or even our approach to Post Cards to New Voters. This year, we will expand the concept beyond the door (and post card). Make influencers of us all.
But the main point of this diary is that 2024 won’t be like 2020. We aren’t holding anything back this year (because we won’t have to — a global pandemic was a pretty good reason to be cautious and think about the health risks to volunteers and voters). We are all in.
Our volunteers have told us they want to double our numbers this year. We’ve knocked on 9,912,746 doors over the last three years and our grassroots volunteers are pushing for a goal of 10 Million doors this year. Before Labor Day. 10 Million doors knocked before Labor Day is set up a favorable “battlefield” for the Biden campaign “to romp over.” Volunteers say the darndest things.
It’s a big goal but it’s a big task. Hell, it’s a critical task. Here’s the thing. Voters are increasingly partisan, far less independent than they used to be. How they vote for president is much more likely to decide how they vote for Senate, Congress or even for state and local candidates. So while we are out there knocking on doors with positive messages about Democrats, the president or a specific Senator, the effect of the impressions we are leaving helps Democrats at all levels. (This is magnified by the fact that we insert the data into VAN and make the data public, available to any Democrat using VAN in the Fall.)
This year is even more important than ever. And we would appreciate your support.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization
You can follow that link for our mailing address, as well (for those who would rather send us a check). Thank you for your support! This work depends on you!