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Congressional Field Debrief

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Saturday, December 2, 2006

 

Dave Barnhart, Dewey Square:

-Two buckets of campaigns: Those who were DCCC targeted and those who weren’t.

-Took on DCCC field project in August, which was 5 months too late (first lesson learned). Field is not something you can build overnight. Most of the districts R held and had R structural advantages.

-DCCC goal was to create more data-savvy campaign. Relied on modeling and polling. Tried to use this most on mail, second on canvassing turnout. Many places they didn’t get the models back soon enough to be useful to people on the ground. Some modeling was, therefore, a total waste.

-Main goal was parity with Rs. They had more resources and had started earlier. DCCC didn’t think they could sustain the field effort for three months; rather, they tried to bring it up in the final 21 days. Goal was to hit target universes with at least 3 flights of mail, 4 calls, 1 canvass hit before election day, once on GOTV weekend, once on E-day. Hit goal in 75% of universes, 85% hit them twice, hit all once.

-Currently looking at county-level data to analyze result.

-Turnout nationwide was 9.3% in competitive races. Targeted districts it was up 14.6% (hard to know how much is field and how much is other factors). In counties where Kerry received 65% of vote in 2004, turnout was +15%. In such districts was up 47.7% within DCCC targets. For R’s, such districts (for them) had turnout up around 9%.

-Rove has said 77,000 more R votes and the Rs would have held majority. If Dems had another 77,000 votes, we would have won another 18 seats. We can argue that we blew them out in the districts we won.

-Some groups that pollsters said were persuadable may not have been as worthwhile for persuasion as we thought.

-New registrants were strong for Ds.

-In 65%+ counties for Rs, they have only 9.9% turnout.

-Congressional staff, it depends to be their very first campaign. DCCC did not do a lot of training. It would have had to be early in the year for it to be effective. Many campaigns and parties did their own trainings on a local level. DNC and state parties have a lot of resources for self-training.

-There was no field desk until mid-September.

-Field operations vary wildly in quality, and sometimes terrible field plans win and great field plans lose.

-Support often depends of structure of the state party.

-Places that didn’t have volunteers on Primary Day didn’t on Election day. Primary day can reflect what happens on E-day. You have to build your own organization with your own loyal volunteers. You can’t depend on the party to just dive in after you win a primary.

-CMs didn’t want to do robocalls because of RNC calls; Dave argued that they think it’s you, anyway, so you might as well get your story out there. Robocalls more effective in context of other media with same message.

-IDed 20,000 prospects for volunteers from push-button robocall.

-Paid vs. volunteer canvass: there is a direct correlation between pay and quality of paid canvassers.

-72-hour program is much more hype than reality. It makes a very good brand. We ran stronger field operation in Northeast and D-friendly areas. If you don’t have the demographic resources, it’s much easier. With local D electeds, that builds a stronger local party and stronger volunteers, etc. Success builds success.

 

Jackie Bray:

-Field Director for Lois Murphy’s unsuccessful race. Field program didn’t lose, though.

-Really played in exurbs for GOTV and persuasion. Lots of drive & drag in more rural areas. To do it on that kind of scale was new, especially to SE PA. Election night returns show that to be successful.

-Biggest flop was that their data showed that R women were in play, but as R’s came home towards E-day, the Lois Murphy campaign wasn’tt quick enough to switch their targets. Relied too much on data from April and didn’t make adjustments for what happened over the summer and in the fall.

-Lois Murphy should have taken more responsibility for dropoff D’s and relied less on governor’s/coordinated turnout.

-It’s very hard to keep talent in field because we hire field last, it’s grueling work, and it’s not perceived as sexy. Field also doesn’t have the same support system as other departments like communications and finance.

 

Madeleine Wille:

-Field Director for Patrick Murphy for Congress.

-It’s important to get field organizers on the ground ASAP. Patrick Murphy’s FOs started in June and could work autonomously because they started early, but it would have been even better to have had them started in April. If you start them early, they can work more autonomously, which should be a field director’s goal. The Patrick Murphy campaign did this successfully.

 

Luis:

-Executive Director, FL Democratic Party

-State party had to start at legislative districts on up rather than the other way around because of the dearth of national party targets in Florida. Races relied on state party as much/more than national parties.

-People were much more responsive to robocall voicemails than those where they pick up. Seniors are good to take out of daytime robocalls because they are usually picking up during the day.

-Ran a six-day paid program. Did a 6-hour shift, paying $15/hour. Got a lot of folks associated with Af/Am legislators. More money for a shorter period attracted better individuals and they covered more turf.

 

Cardin for Senate:

-Paid canvass starting in July. Would go into areas where volunteers wouldn’t go, and they were 10x better. Used paid for both ID and persuasion.

-Election cycle after cycle there has always been a paid canvass, so campaigns sometimes don’t have a choice but to do it because canvassers expect to be paid.

 

Zack Space:

-Paid canvass recruitment through college campuses, newspapers, etc. Paid them weekly

-For accountability, they called 1s and 2s after turf was returned for the first few nights.

 

Jonathan Lyons:

-Patrick Murphy for Congress, Dewey Square

-Turned volunteers over into paid program. Two shifts daily. A paid program needs a separate paid canvass director. FOs should not have to deal with the paid canvass.

 

DNC-

-Training packets available from DNC. leonj@dnc.org to get packets.

-Wanted permanent field organizer structure, year-round

-Focused on dropoff Dems to support the midterm ticket


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