Supporting GOTV Canvassing

October 23, 2024

Photo credit: UNITE HERE

Since last Sunday’s post, hundreds of thousands of people have voted in battleground states. Interestingly, the party and demographic characteristics I noted in that post have not changed much. Democratic turnout in Michigan and Pennsylvania remain very high. Women are turning out in higher numbers nearly everywhere (Nevada and Arizona are notable exceptions). Georgia and North Carolina remain close, but there are no indications in the data that things are bad for Harris in these two states. It remains difficult to understand Wisconsin because of the lack of party registration there, but Ohio could be interesting if independents break for Harris. The Democratic share of the early vote there is 41%, while Republican share is 45%. Women make up 54% of those who have already voted in Ohio.

If you have been reading my posts over the past few weeks, you will know that I believe the polls may be wrong in a direction that will favor Harris. You can read more about that here, here, and here. I am not the only one making this argument. But there is something else that may be under-appreciated this year: the ground game. There is evidence that the unexpected strength of support for Trump in 2020 was due to a more robust canvass operation nationally. That year, thanks to the pandemic, Democrats largely avoided door-knocking in favor of texting, postcard writing, and phone banking. Republicans, on the other hand, hit the doors.

In-person canvassing is considered the best way to persuade and turn-out voters. It can also be more fun - or at least less stressful - that people think because when meeting face-to-face people tend to be nicer than on the phone or some technology like texting or social media, even when they disagree with you. Drawbacks are the time it takes to do this. Depending on where you are canvassing, it can be a lot of walking or driving or it can be difficult to get access to residential buildings. Nevertheless, face-to-face contact appears to be a more successful method than the others.

There were at least two places in 2020 in which Democratic supporters knocked doors: Nevada and Arizona. Biden won both states in no small effort because of the ground game there. The canvassing effort was led by affiliates of UNITE HERE, the union that represents hotel workers, casino workers, culinary workers, and workers in other industries such as manufacturing, textiles, and transportation. Both union locals and their 510(c)(4) nonprofit affiliates led the canvass efforts in 2020. The knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors - perhaps even millions - with their members and partners in community-based organizations across both states. The result was winning both states for Biden and a US Senate race (Mark Kelly) for Democrats in Arizona.

This year, the early vote returns do not look good for Democrats and the Harris campaign in Nevada and Arizona. While we do not know who anyone voted for, the party breakdown of the returns along with no advantage among women suggests the states are no better than even right now. This is where the ground game comes in. Worker Power, a c4 nonprofit affiliated with Local 11, has already knocked on over a million doors in this election cycle. I worked with the organization during the 2018 and 2020 elections and can attest to how amazing the work is they do. Recently, I was in touch with Brendan Walsh, Worker Power’s executive director (another Boston guy - we are everywhere), and they are working their butts off to turn out voters. They are facing a significant budget deficit and need your support. Drop what you are doing and send them a few bucks here. They will do the rest.

In Nevada, the Local 226 of the Culinary Workers Union (a UNITE HERE affiliate) is well-known for its ground game in the Las Vegas and Reno areas. It is essential that they get the support to turnout their voters again this year and they need your support as well. For them, donate to the UNITE HERE Fund at ActBlue.  This fund also supports door-knocking efforts in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina.

While the ground game may be especially important in Nevada and Arizona this year, those are not the only places where your help is needed to support canvass efforts.

Please make sure to prioritize donations to Worker Power and UNITE HERE Fund first. Those donations will go straight to supporting door-knocking over the next two weeks in two states where door-knocking will make a difference. The UNITE HERE Fund will additionally support such efforts in some other battleground states.

Below are recommendations for supporting organizing efforts by several other battleground states (and Texas, which could be close this year). Not all of the groups in these state bundles do GOTV work, but they all organize their communities. You can review the groups receiving donations and decide to bundle or give directly to those organizations.

Movement Voter Project has several states funds in which aggregate donations will be shared among several organizing groups in those states. The organizing groups in these state funds largely work on organizing and mobilizing voters.

You can find websites for all the groups mentioned for each state at the “donate here” link if you want to better understand what those groups are working on. You can additionally donate directly to any individual organization through their (i.e., the individual organization’s) website. But if you are doing so because you are concerned about MVP taking a cut of your donation, rest assured. It won’t; 100% of the donations made through the MVP state funds go directly to the organizations.

MVP DONATION OPTIONS BY STATE

Georgia

Donate here. Organizations receiving donations include: Poder Latinx; Asian American Advocacy Fund; Asian American Advancing Justice; Fair Fight Action; Geogria Equality; Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights; Georgia Shift; In Defense of Black Lives ATL; New Georgia Project and Action Fund; SONG Power; Mijente; Southerners on New Ground; Black Male Voter Project.

North Carolina

Donate here. Organizations receiving donations include: Advance Carolina; Carolina Federation; Down Home North Carolina; Durham for All; Equality North Carolina; Foraleza; Ignite NC Action Fund; NC Latino Power; New North Carolina Project; North Carolina Asian Americans Together in Action; Poder NC Action; Siembra NC.

Michigan

Donate here. Organizations receiving donations include: Detroit Action; Economic Justice Alliance of Michigan; MOSES; Michigan Liberation; Michigan Student Power Network; Michigan United / Michigan People’s Campaign; Mothering Justice / Mothering Justice Action Fund

Pennsylvania

Donate here. Organizations receiving donations include: CASA in Action; Working Families Organization; 215 People’s Alliance; CASA de Pennsylvania; Keystone Progress; Make the Road Action; One Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Stands Up; Pennsylvania United/Pittsburg United; Pennsylvania Working Families Party; POWER; Reclaim Philadelphia.

Texas

Donate here.  Organizations receiving donations include: Emerge Action – Texas; Jolt Action; Mi Familia Vota – Texas; MOVE Texas; Texas Organizing Project; Texas Rising; United Fort Worth; Workers Defense Action Fun; Working Families Party - Texas

Wisconsin

Donate here. Organizations receiving donations include: Working Families Organization; Black Leaders Organizing Communities; Citizen Action of Wisconsin; Freedom, Inc.; Leaders Igniting Transformation; One Wisconsin Revolution; Voces de la Frontera Action, Inc.; WISDOM; Wisconsin Working Families Party.

Additional Appeal

In the next few days I will be heading out to Philadelphia to do voter protection work. In addition to some early vote monitoring, I will be helping manage volunteers and observing the vote count on Election Day until all votes are counted. I do this work every election cycle as a volunteer (sometimes I do GOTV, sometimes I do voter protection). If you would like to help support me, please consider a paid subscription to this Substack. The money subsidizes my volunteer activity and gives me more time to work on writing. Thanks in advance!