Universe of Data

Investments in technology by national parties have allowed campaigns to access voter databases that provide valuable information. What you do with that data is the science behind your campaign, and it will make all the difference as you keep it up to date. We'll cover what you need to know about forming your universe of voters, and how you can really learn about your district. Don’t assume you know your district simply because you live there. We'll cover the tips you need to know as you set out on your campaign. 

Learn more about Organizing to Win: The Art & Science of Running for Office - including free downloadable guides - by visiting OrganizingtoWin.com.

Transcript

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You're listening to the audio version of Jimmy Tickey's book Organizing to Win. The Art and Science of Running for Office. This book will teach you how to enter the political arena, manage a campaign, and run for office.

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Part 2. Universe of Data. After managing that initial mayoral campaign in my hometown, I did what any reasonable person in their twenties at the height of a recession would do. I quit my stable job in New York and immersed myself in political volunteerism back at home. I would attend community gatherings, make friends with those who worked for elected officials, run for office myself, and start managing local and state campaigns. I learned quickly that all good campaigns had one thing in common, data. In every campaign behind piles of lawn signs and boxes of printed literature is a treasure trove of data. Remember when I said the best candidate does not always win? Sometimes the campaign can be so well organized that it can offer cover to a candidate who is still learning how to excel in this space. We're going to talk about the science of campaigning, the tactics that, if utilized well, will ensure your campaign is reaching voters, raising funds, and communicating your message. A voter may not see every single thing your campaign releases, but they could catch a glimpse of an ad, hear of your candidacy from others, or see you from a distance at an event. Voter file. Investments in technology by national parties have allowed for campaigns to access powerful voter databases that provide valuable information. What you do with the data is the science behind your campaign, and it will make all the difference as you keep it up to date. If you are running with a major political party, you can gain access to their official voter file, which is the data system offering public information like a voter's name, address, age, basic demographic information, party affiliation, voting history, when they voted, not how they voted, and scores. A score is a rating assigned to you based on information analyzed. So let's say you are a Democratic candidate, you'll find there is a score for the likelihood a voter will support a Democratic candidate for national and state office, and even how likely they are to support an array of issues, like gun violence prevention legislation. When I first started getting involved, I thought the idea of scores seemed overreaching, but a good campaign needs to know something about their voters, and national parties are building this data for your benefit to make sound judgments about who to speak to in your campaign. While a score is not always perfect, it will suggest voters' behavior in general or in relation to a specific issue. For those on a shoestring budget, you can talk with your local election official for their list of voters, which can provide information without a cost or a nominal fee if they are printing it for you. This will give you basic information about voters and will still be helpful in your targeting. Targeting voters. Don't assume that you know your district simply because you live there. With your team, dig into the data and learn about the district's demographics and voter registration. There are a lot of voters to talk to, and you can break them down into several segments. Base Democrats historically vote in every election and always vote for the Democratic candidate. Lean Democrats usually vote for the Democratic candidate in elections. Unaffiliated or non major party voters, voters not registered with a major party. Lean Republicans usually vote for the Republican candidate in elections. Base Republicans historically vote in every election and always vote for the Republican candidate. For your race, we are going to create your own target groups of voters, whose support you will strive to earn. Base. You can rely on these prime voters to support you. They may be of the same political party, share your ideology, or belong to a group that you assume will be a strong supporter, and they always vote in your kind of an election. This is your foundation of support. Persuasion. These voters are not guaranteed to vote for you, so you need to speak with them in order to earn their support. They often cast a ballot in an election like yours, but they need to be persuaded to vote for you. Motivation. This is the segment of voters who rarely vote in a local or state race, but always do in a presidential year race. Often called low propensity voters, these presidential year voters cast a ballot every four years in the biggest elections. We'll talk more about this group later and how to inspire them to vote. Unregistered. These are people who you come across who are excited to support you, but they are not even registered to vote. These people offer potential to expand the electorate. Whenever you can, add new voters, which in large amounts can be surprisingly disruptive to your opponent's understanding of the electorate. Field plan. Remember your win number, the number you need to reach on election day? Well, this voter list you created is going to provide you with the ways to get to that win number. Too often, people think running for office requires talking to every single person in the district, but that is far from the truth for a campaign with a set amount of time to organize. Remember, different elections will command varying levels of turnout. In other words, how many people vote. The largest turnout will always be a presidential election. State elections, like a gubernatorial contest, will usually have lower turnout than a presidential election, and local elections will reflect the smallest turnout. Should that local election be a special election, like when a vacancy occurs midterm, turnout will be abysmal. Realizing this, it means that every vote really does count. After every election, I know a candidate who won or lost by literally a handful of votes. Let's break it down. Your district will have a lot of voters, but not all of them vote in every election. You will want to look at the elections that match your current election, exactly as we did with your win number, meaning comparing the race you are in with the exact type of election in your district in the past. So, if you are running for mayor, you are going to look at numbers from previous mayoral campaigns in your district. Pull those voters who cast a ballot in local elections like the one you are in, and that will give you the electorate that is likely to vote in this local election. Using that list of local election voters, you'll want to experiment with the data to find how you can get to that win number, which in a head-to-head matchup is 50% plus one. You would be right to start by removing the staunchest members of the other party, further targeting your base and persuasion voters. As we've outlined, your base voters are those who vote in your exact election and whose scores show they vote for your political party. In other words, they vote and they vote for your party. You will need to talk to persuasion voters, those who vote in your exact election, but whose scores show they are not always a supporter of your political party. Those voters, base and persuasion, are going to offer you the clearest path to your win number, ensuring your election. As with a campaign with a goal to win in a defined amount of time and with limited resources, you must prioritize outreach on your targeted voters. Even the most exuberant candidates will eventually realize that it is impossible to talk to every single voter. Let's say you have four months until election day, and you think you can door knock 90 minutes every day, knowing you will miss some days. And you can get to 30 doors an hour. That's 45 houses a day. This, of course, varies by district, from city buildings to country roads. Still, with these figures, in a week you're about to get to 300 houses. Over a month, it's 1,500 doors. And over that four-month span, it's just over 6,000 doors attempted. While that is incredible, it still may not be enough to reach your win number. One party dominant. If you are in a race where your political party dominates your district and the base voters alone guarantee your win, then you can likely focus on base voters and you'll be well on your way to winning. In fact, in that scenario, your challenge will be the primary election and not the general election. In this kind of race, you will appeal and get support from those within your party. Purple District. For many districts, you will need a combination of base and persuasion voters to win your election. This is where your hard work will pay off through a good campaign. In this case, your campaign will need to prioritize the persuadable voters, so you are talking to the people who will vote, but need convincing about your candidacy. If your campaign does this, then your local party can complement efforts by talking to base voters, knowing they will likely vote for you. Tough races. Even after targeting using the available data, you may be short of your win number. That means that even with base and persuasion voters, you still do not have enough support to win. Some districts are tough, in part because of political gerrymandering, the practice of drawing districts to benefit one party. Those are the tough races where more work needs to be done to get to that win number. You must bring more people out to vote, including motivation voters, and talk about the good you will do when in office through meaningful year-round organizing, which we will discuss. Here are a few ideas for how to inspire those motivation voters who seem to skip the elections that have the greatest impact on their lives, local elections. Have volunteers canv and discuss how important this election is. Mail a postcard including what's at stake and have a volunteer call them to follow up. Print a list and have key volunteers review it for friends and family, thereby using a relationship model where people hear from friends nudging them to vote in this election. Since these voters are presidential year voters, volunteers can connect federal action or inaction to local needs and how important this race is because of the state of national politics. Informing people the election will be close and that their vote could make a difference will resonate with voters. When thinking of your district, be mindful that political attitudes can change as people move in and out of a district. So they are not static, they are ever changing, and you need to keep your finger on the pulse of the district. Leverage influential groups. Interest-based groups, affinity organizations, indivisible chapters, and unions can be influential in a campaign if those members choose to engage in the race. Naturally, there can be overlap between members of that external organization and your local party, because there are similarities in the values of your party and that group. When you run for office, anyone can door knock for you, so engaging with these groups will be helpful. These groups can offer expertise on policy positions, bring awareness to your candidacy, and introduce new people to your campaign. Find organizations that have a natural complement with your candidacy, whether it's supporting union households, environmental policies, faith-based efforts, or civil rights, and get those members involved in your campaign by forming relationships with them. Since your values are aligned, they'll be helping your race and advancing issues they care about. Voter registration. Seek opportunities to expand the political landscape by registering more people to vote. A mentor of mine, longtime Connecticut Democratic Party chairwoman Nancy Denardo, would always ask people if they were registered to vote because she knew every single person makes a difference in a campaign. Never taking anyone for granted, she would tell me how she kept voter registration forms on her, so no matter where she may be, from a political event to the grocery store, she could register someone to vote. Now with technology, people can register to vote online with ease. Check your local and state rules around voter registration and always have voter registration forms or the appropriate website on hand to register people. Further, your campaign can have volunteers at community events to simply ask if people are registered to vote and have them complete the process to register. Your campaign can track new voters through the local registrar or voter's office or through your party's voter database. The information will have a delay in being entered, but at some point those new voters will be added into each system. Regularly, take those new voters and put them in two categories, those in your political party and unaffiliated voters, meaning they did not register with any political party. For those who belong to your party, send a letter welcoming them and inviting them to an upcoming event or meeting with your political party. For those who recently registered as unaffiliated, meaning no political party, send them a letter or postcard about what is on the ballot this year and why it's important to vote. Base and persuasion voters are your top priority, but should you have the time and funds or simply need to expand the electorate to get to your win number, these techniques offer paths to reach motivation voters, all while registering more people to vote. Combined, you could change the political landscape by adding new voters and getting low propensity voters, those who do not vote regularly, to cast a ballot. Your opponent may not know just how many people you are registering until it's too late for them to develop their own voter registration plans. Over the course of your campaign, you are speaking in layered ways with targeted individuals based on the data you have. These groups, whether base, persuasion, motivation, or newly registered voters, make up your universe. And if all goes according to plan, that universe will be 50% plus one or greater of the electorate for a head-to-head race. Your campaign will be totally focused on talking again and again to your universe with the goal of hitting your win number.

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