Reaching Voters

Meeting people where they are means speaking to them physically where they are: on a doorstep, at an event, online; and emotionally where they are: their perceptions, feelings, and frustrations. In fact, good campaigning is more listening, and less talking. Before we go out there and meet voters, remember we are in a fast-paced society, and people seem to be getting busier, don’t they? Placing a candidate in front of them—and getting a positive reaction—takes work, but it will make all the difference to winning your race. In this episode we will cover all the ways a candidate can reach voters. 

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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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Reaching voters. At this point, you have made the decision to run and win. Have a core team in place, determined your win number, and formed your universe of voters. Your campaign has taken shape, and it's time to speak to that universe of voters. Shake hands, meet people where they are, and listen to their concerns. Meeting people where they are means speaking to them physically where they are, on a doorstep, at an event, online, and emotionally where they are, their perceptions, feelings, and frustrations. In fact, good campaigning is more listening and less talking. Before we go out there and meet voters, remember we are in a fast-paced society and people seem to be getting busier, don't they? Placing a candidate in front of them and getting a positive reaction takes work, but it will make all the difference to winning your race. When you are carrying out voter outreach, tune out all the other things you need to do, personal, professional, or political. You must stay focused on that voter in front of you because in that moment, that's the most important element of your campaign. In fact, you would be wise to remember something about that voter so when you speak with them again, you continue to develop the relationship. Was their child going off to college? Were they doing some work on their house? Did they just join an organization in town? Good campaigns will use multiple ways to speak to voters again and again, creating a synergy across all efforts. This approach will make a difference in building a bond between you and the voter. Importantly, you need to ask them for their support. Never assume that a nice conversation will lead to you securing a vote. You must ask for each vote. Let's review the ways that you can reach voters. Phone banking. Let's say you have a volunteer who is willing to talk to voters but wants to stay at headquarters. In this case, phone banking is a good option for them. You will provide them with a brief script which will have talking points to read about your campaign, ensuring the most nervous volunteer can read through it. They can even practice with another volunteer to become familiar with the script before they start calling. You will provide them the information for who exactly to call using the universe established. You may consider having senior citizens call fellow seniors or have people call into their own precincts so they are talking with neighbors. As with all voter outreach, you can have printed lists or have it electronically available. There are virtual programs for a fee that can help, so talk to your local and state political party for suggestions. These tools aim to decrease the amount of time one spends waiting for a voter to answer the phone. The volunteer simply uses a laptop or tablet to pull up a voter list, one voter at a time with their name, basic information, and phone number. The program is synced with a phone, and they will call voter to voter. As they conclude the call and mark it complete, the next voter will answer. This happens because as they are wrapping up one call, the program is calling out to many households, dropping calls in the event no one answers, and only connecting volunteers to live individuals. By doing this, they can reach more voters than they ever could through old-fashioned paper sheets, living in voicemails and wrong numbers. The first time I used this, I thought I was a professional call center of one. When I first ran for office, my mom wanted to help, and so from her own kitchen table, she called 1,000 senior citizens in town, letting them know I'm Jimmy Tickey's mom. I'm not quite sure how much of my talking points she relayed, but she didn't need to. She was the candidate's mom calling fellow senior citizens. On election day, voters would happily approach me, hold my arm, and say, I chatted with your mom. Texting. You are probably familiar with national texts from a candidate you have never heard of and are left wondering why you even got on their list. Texting is used widely for national races and less so on local ones. There are paid texting programs that allow volunteers to use a service to text directly with voters, which can be helpful in races like yours. This could be a message asking for a vote, but even better is one asking for engagement. If used correctly, you can learn something about your voters. Say, for example, months out from the election, you text voters asking what's important to them and include options like fixing the streets, improving schools, and reinvigorating downtown. Those answers provide data that your campaign can use, adding it to your database. Say you texted a voter and they respond that invigorating downtown is their top issue. Later, when your campaign has a mailing on your plan to revitalize downtown storefronts, you include this voter and others like them who reported this was their top issue. These voters can be marked with the code so they are easy to pull and speak to in the future. Text banking, like phone banking, is useful for those voters who may never answer a call and may be hard to reach, particularly young people. When campaigning, include texting as it's a sure way to get in front of a voter. Mailings. Printed mailings have a short shelf life, often from the voter's mailbox to their trash, but they are a key component to a political campaign. If you are lucky, your mailing may sit on the kitchen table for a few days before being swept up. With that in mind, these important components of your campaign should have your picture, logo, slogan, and the date of the election, including early voting details. Additional content may be added, but you do not want to overwhelm the piece with text. Your first piece of mail should introduce yourself to voters, while later pieces should convey stances on issues using plain language. This is not a policy paper. This is a mailer to grab people's attention with a few points, so don't make it complicated. Further, targeted mailers can be sent to a segment of the list called micro-targeting. For example, your announcement to renovate the senior center can be sent to those 65 years and older, and perhaps your plan to address flooding in a specific precinct in your district will be sent to that geographic area. Micro-targeting in this way can be powerful and over time will create multiple layered communications. Letters to the editor. While the candidate is welcome to pen their own letter to the editor, it's more important to have someone not associated with the campaign write a letter. Ideally, that letter should hit at a time when the topic is most relevant. Say, for example, you release a senior tax abatement plan. That could be amplified by seniors writing letters to the editor and a mailpiece going out to seniors about the plan in sequential order, keeping the focus on this issue for an extended period of time. Having notable community members pen a letter is desirable as they may be well known, thereby validating your campaign. This could be business owners, respected members of the community, those involved in civic groups, or someone who has been in office before. Typically, those in leadership positions of a nonprofit, 501c3, will not be able to do so given their nonprofit status, but you can find volunteers who are not in the leadership of those organizations. House parties. You should have a coffee and, my parents said when I first ran for local office. What is a coffee and? Turns out it's a small house gathering where some of your friends and supporters host a coffee or drinks with snacks, and their task is to get their neighbors to attend. Think of it as a meet and greet friend raiser, not fundraiser, where you pull together small groups, getting community members to engage in dialogue in a personal setting. Your campaign should lay out who will host these events and then, using your universe, pull targeted voters in the area of each house gathering. Combined with the hosts inviting neighbors and your campaign sending it to others, you've created a segment of your list to communicate for this event. Hold these events later in the day when you can no longer door knock and advertise it for one hour so the expectation is set for the duration of the event. You'll be pleasantly surprised by the result, as it's a nice way to get to know neighbors, secure lawn sign locations, and practice public speaking in small groups. Your campaign can ask each attendee if they would be willing to host a similar gathering of people among their own networks, think book clubs, church groups, and parent-teacher associations. Postcards. While a more passive tool, if you have a volunteer who does not want to phone bank and cannot walk door to door, then put them to work with other efforts like a postcard program. Remember when we were targeting your universe? We spoke about those motivation voters who need some inspiration to vote in a local election. Develop a postcard program so volunteers can write a note and address it to targeted people like motivation voters as a first step toward getting them to vote. Lawn signs. Your campaign will place lawn signs at the homes and businesses of people who support you. In rural and agricultural areas, larger signs are put out showing support since homes are more spread out. Be sure to use the same graphic across all of your lawn signs for maximum consistency. And be mindful if there is a rule of thumb in your district about when lawn signs should go out. On my first campaign, I would hop in the car with friends and we drove my lawn signs all around town. As a first-time candidate, I felt like if I did not have more lawn signs than my opponent, I would never win. I now realize lawn signs show visual support, but lawn signs don't vote. Not to mention, opponents will likely steal some of your signs, so please do not obsess over the lawn sign games. On my largest lawn signs, I would drop off a fall mum plant to beautify the sign location, and the hosting family appreciated the gesture. Group Visibility. You can't knock on doors at 7.30 a.m., but you can have a group of volunteers waving your signs on a sidewalk or busy intersection as people commute, or at the local train station. While this is a passive and not targeted approach, this will get folks honking horns and cheering you on, and it's exciting for volunteers. Robocalls. Check local rules, but in many areas you can send a recorded message to homes that will leave a voicemail with the proper legal attributions, this is the paid for by information. This can be a well-known public figure endorsing you or even a direct message from the candidate to remind the voter when election day is. While not personal, they are inexpensive and a way to send a message to voters quickly. Lit drops. Rather than talking to voters, volunteers go door to door and drop off information about your candidacy, reminding them to vote. Sometimes this is done during the final days of a campaign. While it's still targeted to who you need to get out and vote, you are not engaging in conversation. This is a good activity for students and inexperienced campaigners to go out in pairs and still beneficial for the campaign. SWAG. Mindful of the scale of your campaign, your team may be interested in having your logo printed on shirts, pins, bumper stickers, and other merchandise. Volunteers can sport your swag around town, further increasing public awareness of your campaign. When all these techniques are used together, you will build name identification and create greater awareness about your candidacy. With repeated contacts with voters, people will not only recognize you, but your presence will evoke a feeling when they see you. You've begun to build a brand for yourself. What am I missing? That's right.

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The most effective campaign technique is door knocking.com. All rights reserved. Copyright Organizing to Win LLC.