Democrats' Ground Game

  By Jon Fuhrman

Thursday, October 24.   Those polls are going to drive us all crazy – up in Michigan, down in Wisconsin, tied in Georgia, wait, no, down in Georgia but up in Wisconsin!  They seem to change by the hour.  Are there any better predictors we might consider?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I think there are.  We have a variety of reports from the ground, in a number of different swing states, and we have actual results of early voting – at least by party breakdown, which is somewhat indicative of how things might turn out.

So what’s really happening on the ground?  Susan and I were in Las Vegas last Saturday, precinct walking in North Las Vegas, part of Congressmember Steven Horsford’s district (classified as a Lean Democratic area by most pundits).  We walked one precinct, got 94 not at homes, 8 people who had moved, one door slam, but we actually talked to 14 households, every one of whom were enthusiastic Harris supporters.  They knew early voting had started that very day, they were going to vote early (often with parents or siblings or friends), and were solid Democrats all the way down the ticket.

The list we were using was of the “dregs” – the occasional voters, folks who had not voted in 2020 or 2022, presumably only loosely affiliated Democrats or non-partisans.  Yet every one we actually talked to knew about the election, knew the Senate candidate, seemed to care about voting and felt it was important.

The logic the campaign trainers related was that for every 100 households of these low-propensity voters that we actually talk to, we hope to gain one vote.  To gain an edge of 10,000 votes (a bit more than the margin by which Sen. Cortez Masto won election in 2022), they set a goal of hitting 1,000,000 of these low-propensity households.  Out of our 100 or so, we identified 14 votes; the office staff was ecstatic.  Ours might have been a particularly good result, but other teams were also reporting good results.  A group of 40 volunteers had bused in from Colorado that day.  A group of 5 Congressmembers, including our own Judy Chu, was also out walking.  Other volunteers had driven in that weekend from the Pasadena United Democratic Headquarters and from other Democratic clubs in the LA area.

Moreover, not one person reported seeing any GOP canvassers.  We didn’t see any GOP door hangers or other evidence that their side had been in the area.  It should have been a prime target for them, but nary a sign to be seen.  This sort of disproportionate activity favoring our side is one key factor that will propel us to victory.

There have been similar reports from other areas.  PoliticalWire reported hearing from a Pennsylvania canvasser in Wilkes-Barre, smack in the middle of one of the “swingiest” areas of a swing state: “Wilkes-Barre is simply crawling with liberal canvassers, who can be identified by their Harris-Walz merch.”  They went on to note that there was “not a single Trump canvasser anywhere.”

In North Carolina, Mecklenburg County is a heavily Democratic area that has been plagued with particularly low turnouts over the last decade.  Politico reports there is a new, 27-year old Democratic County party chair who, with support from the state party, has energized the party.  In 2023, they flipped the entire town government of Huntersville, the most populous suburb in the county.  “The County party has upped exponentially its fundraising, its paid staff, its roster of volunteers and its canvassing and phone-banking.”

Ben Wickler, the Wisconsin Democratic State Party Chair (and my pick for a new Chair of the Democratic National Committee), was interviewed last week on MSNBC’s “11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle”, talking about the quality and intensity of the Democrat’s ground game in Wisconsin.  He noted that they have been grooming the same precinct organizers and canvassers for the last 6 years, folks who know their own areas and know their neighbors, and who will be key to their GOTV operation.

In contrast, the Guardian reported about paid canvassers for America PAC (the Elon Musk GOP group) who have learned how to do GPS spoofing to pretend they have knocked on doors when they haven’t.  Apparently, they are even sharing a how-to-fake-location video on the internet, to teach fellow canvassers how easy it is to cheat. 

In state after state, what I’m hearing is that our ground game is roaring on all eight cylinders, and there doesn’t seem to be any equivalent efforts from the MAGA side.  Of course, the fact that the Harris campaign has pulled in over $1 billion in contributions certainly helps the campaign afford that level of organization and coordination.

That may help to explain what seem to be fairly encouraging early voting reports.  In Michigan, about 1.25 million votes have been cast already (about 23% of the expected overall turnout).  Michigan does not have partisan registration, but the data modelers conclude that about 60% of the votes cast so far are likely Democrats.  Further, the “sporadic” Democratic voters are outpacing the “sporadic” Republican voters.  Overall, as of today, they calculate that likely Democratic votes cast outnumber likely Republican votes cast by nearly half a million.  That is an impressive firewall for both the Harris campaign and Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin.

NBC News has an early-voting tracking site (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/early-vote ) that shows data from every state, with partisan breakdowns where available.  In Pennsylvania, we’re up to 1.2 million votes cast, with 62% coming from Democrats and 29% from Republicans.  In North Carolina, Dems and Reps are tied at 34%, with 32% coming from non-partisan voters.  In Wisconsin, 42% are from non-partisan or unaffiliated voters, while 37% are from Democrats and only 21% are from Republicans.

In Arizona and Nevada, Republicans actually have narrow leads (less than 5%), but each has a substantial number of non-partisan voters as well.  Georgia is really close – 48% Republican, 46% Democratic and only 6% non-partisan.

Thus, it would appear that, indeed, the Democratic ground game is more organized, more muscular and more effective than anything the GOP is putting together, and we’re seeing the results of those efforts in the early voting numbers.  So chill out over those poll numbers, keep phoning and texting and walking precincts, and we’ll have a heck of an election night party at the Democratic Headquarters in Pasadena.