This note from TPM Reader DK doesn’t answer for us the questions we discussed yesterday about Republican GOTV efforts. But it does point to key questions to ask to find out more. And I found it just a fascinating window into the nuts and bolts of campaign field operations.
I’ve done GOTV for two decades, including my own campaign long ago. A few observations:
- It’s first and foremost a data challenge – you have to get your volunteers to the right doors with the right messages, and you have to take what they learn and use it to adjust the next knock or call. It’s equal part art and science and is not something anyone can just pick up and learn in no time. A key step is “cutting turf” – setting up a list of names and addresses for a volunteer to knock (or call) – you don’t just knock every house on a street, because you have to prioritize. Choosing which turfs to prioritize (you never get to them all, at least not enough times), choosing which names in a neighborhood or town or county to contact, using the data you get from the previous knocks to adjust your strategy for the next knock… that’s important.
- As such, I really wonder who these SuperPACs and such are hiring to oversee the GOTV on the ground. If they are hiring the same campaign staffers who would have done it when the Party was officially in charge, then it’s quite possible the practical impact of the change is minimal, because it’s those (usually young, largely unknown outside the party) staffers who have the institutional knowledge passed on to them. If these SuperPACs are bringing in new people who’ve never cut turf, I gotta wonder.
- That leads to the question of databases. Dems mostly use the VAN – Voter Activation Network – which is a rich data source with information going back decades. I sometimes knock voters where there are assessments from the Dukakis/Bush race. VAN has an app for your phone now, called MiniVAN, where you enter your canvass data as you go and it updates automatically, saving a TON of time on the data entry side. It also does mapping, so you can see exactly where you have to go and which houses you have to knock at. Pretty slick compared to the shoebox full of 3x5s I used in 2006. The GOP mostly uses NationBuilder, which is a perfectly cromulent platform. Did these SuperPACs and stuff also contract with NationBuilder? Again, if they did, then the impact on the ground game might be small. If they’ve got some kind of venture-capitalist-disruptor idea of building their own databases or whatever, then I will laugh very hard. [MiniVan, for example, will even update multiple times a day to show who has cast an early vote on your turf, so you don’t waste your time on those doors. If the GOP isn’t doing that they will waste a LOT of time.]
- All GOTV is largely aimed at low-propensity voters, especially now that the data tools are good enough to allow you cut very precise turf. I never get GOTV calls or doorknocks anymore, because the VAN shows me as a consistent and reliable Dem voter. Not worth wasting a canvasser’s time. But there’s a reason suburbs and cities get more attention from dooknockers – voter density. You get, I don’t know, one in three or four people to answer their door on a good knock. I love getting a turf in a big townhouse complex; I can knock 75 doors in two hours, might get 25 good conversations. Give someone a list from a rural county and they might need three hours to knock fifteen doors, driving from house to house, in and out of their car, talk maybe to four people… it’s radically inefficient. Better to phone the rural folks or send mail.
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