Notes from the Field #4 (Vancouver BC, Northwest Congressional Battlegrounds, etc) 10/23/22
Dear Friends,
What follows are my reflections (#4) about my experiences volunteering in political field campaigns, mostly in the US Northwest Congressional Battleground districts to understand the state of field organizing in races with very high stakes. If you would like to be sent #1, #2, and #3, email me tenantharley@gmail.com
This email includes:
Vancouver BC (Canada) Election Results/Organizing
Campaign Updates (OR-5 Jamie McCloud Skinner, WA-3 Marie Perez, Jo Ann Hardesty- Portland City Council)
Where are all the experienced trainers?
Relational Organizing- who is doing it?
1. Vancouver BC (Canada) Election/Organizing
In a brief break from US politics, last week I went to Vancouver BC for the city election. I have been mentoring a team of young organizers there over the last year, and this was their first time organizing a field campaign, for a left political party called COPE. This election was wild- there were over 150 candidates and several new political parties fielding large slates across the political spectrum. I honestly did not know what to expect.
The results were awful, and conservatives took over all levels (mayor, council, parks, school) of city government with solid super-majorities. What happened? In many ways it was not that different than what is happening in cities across the US. Real-estate interests pumped tons of money into the campaign, and mobilized concerns of increasing homelessness and crime (or perception of it) to cruise to an easy victory and oust progressives. Meanwhile, the left was fractured, and unable to counter the narrative effectively.
On the ground though, I saw lots of young people volunteering, knocking on doors, tabling on street corners, walking people to the polls. While leftist drama imploded this socialist party throughout the last campaign, this time the young group formed a positive team that worked well together with minimal drama.
Like the other campaigns I’ve been volunteering on, this group also did their best with almost no training from an experienced field organizer. The campaign manager was not an organizer but more of a political operative type. Nonetheless, this group did things better than what I’ve seen in most of ground campaigns I’ve seen in the states- most importantly they ASKED people to volunteer. A lot. And many answered the call. One organizer recruited 35 volunteers in a week, and another had 25 consistent weekly volunteers who rarely flaked for the last 6 weeks of the election.
After the election, the twitterverse erupted in the expected post-election toxic blame game, mostly by people who did not knock on a single door- all of a sudden everyone has opinions about how the campaign was run. But fortunately, this doesn’t seem to have affected the young organizers (yet) who have committed to continuing to organize.
My favorite moment was at the post-election party when it became clear that the results were catastrophic, one young organizer Jed turned off the screen with the results, and sung Rage Against the Machine’s resistance anthem- “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me”- everyone yelled in unison, and it immediately changed the vibe of the whole night. There will need to be a lot of resistance, and that will take a lot of organizers committed to fighting, and building the movement. Losing campaigns often can leave carnage in their wake, but this one seems to have built leadership, and strengthened organizers .
2. Campaign Updates (OR-5 Jamie McCloud Skinner, WA-3 Marie Perez, Joann Hardesty- Portland City Council
OR-5 Jamie McCloud Skinner - after being one a few people (and one of the only under 70) knocking on doors for weeks in one of the most important congressional races in the country, I stopped volunteering. It did not seem like there was any commitment from the campaign to talking to voters on the ground. But I was leaving the door open to give them another chance, but they would have to organize me. Call me. Or text me. Or send me an email. Something simple like “Thank you for volunteering, you are making a difference. This race is razor thin and there are only 2 weeks left, and the House is at stake, can you join us on Saturday?” I’ve received ZERO communication from the campaign for weeks- a race that is a reported 50/50 tossup. Recruiting volunteers can be very difficult, but one way to ensure that you don’t recruit people-you don’t ASK them.
WA-3 Marie Perez campaign on the other hand has a significant ground game. I am part of the “call squad”, 6 volunteers that have agreed to be responsible for organizing 20 volunteers each. We have goals, a spreadsheet, phone banks, and we are also door knocking. I call my list every week, and text them as well. I know if they were out of town last week, or if they showed up so I can follow up and see how they are doing. We are building a relationship. I also have added progressive friends in the area and recruited my hardest volunteer- my husband to knock on doors. He told me over dinner last week “I don’t like knocking on doors, I will only do it if I’m pushed.” It took two of us following up with him all week (and the rain to stop) to turn his “maybe” to get to “yes”.
I think our call squad needs to get a little better at getting creative every week- the same push every week can get stale- but we are now only 2 weeks out from the election, so it’s hard to not have urgency.
Jo Ann Hardesty for Portland City Council. Hardesty is a progressive black leader for decades who this election is being targeted aggressively by conservatives and the police. I really wanted to volunteer for JoAnn more, but I need to be pushed. I knocked on doors once for her, and occasionally I would get texts to phone bank. I told them I would like to walk in my neighborhood, then didn’t hear anything until last week, now I got a text that they are finally set up for that. They seem to have volunteers, and I think they need to be much more assertive with their recruitment. It’s like fishing, not every fish responds to the same bait. If you send me an email or text, I may see it momentarily, and then it will promptly get buried. If I get a phone call, then a text, then maybe another one in a couple days- that will show urgency. When I complained about not being organized by the campaign at a dinner party, a friend looked me in the eye and said, “will you join me to knock on doors for Joanne?” A direct ask from someone I know and trust is the best way to recruit me. I will walk for Hardesty this week.
3. Where are all the experienced trainers?
One thing I have been trying to wrap my head around in all of the campaigns I have been volunteering for, is where are the experienced trainers in ground campaigns?
I know there are lots of people who know how to run ground campaigns. And there are many recent elections that have run phenomenal ground campaigns. Where are the trainers?
In all fairness, I think this lack of trainers is also affecting unions and community organizations as well. But it seems more pronounced in political campaigns- maybe because of the temporary nature of it. Many of you who are reading this are very good field campaign trainers yourselves. Are you currently training people, or interested in training people? Your wisdom and experience is sorely needed. Some good field trainers are now politicians, others go into academia, and many more are in the labor movement- you can’t blame political campaigners for finding jobs with stable incomes. Campaigning can also burn you out. If you are one of these people, I’m curious, why did you leave? If you had the opportunity to train young organizers, even in a small way, would you?
There are also online tools that can scale up training and help fill the training gap. I feel like Jane McAlevey has been filling this gap by mass trainings. But she is not reaching the campaigns I’ve been working with. For example, it would not be hard to have a national zoom meeting with an experienced organizer for all levels of the campaign (field directors, first time field staff, volunteers) of the campaign to learn some tips they can take in the field.
4. Relational Organizing- who is doing it?
Another thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is relational organizing. Most ground campaigns consist of people (whether paid or volunteer) knocking on doors or calling strangers. As I’ve showed in previous posts, this can be very effective, but it’s even better if you can build an ongoing relationship.
I was trained in the precinct leader model, where you recruit a leader for a several block radius to take responsibility for talking with the same 200 people. The first time they knock, they introduce themselves as a volunteer who is their neighbor. And if they are trained and retained, they build relationships over the course of an election, or even better over many elections. Neighborhood precinct leaders still exist, but they are rare. Last year I was knocking on doors in a building in Brooklyn NY and I knocked on the door of Mrs. Jackson who invited me into her apartment. She told me she had been a precinct leader for decades, but had stopped because of some medical issues. I fired her up about the candidate I was working on (Crystal Hudson), and got her out of precinct leader retirement, at least for that election. She joined me on some doors, helping get great positive neighbourly responses, and then told me she could talk to everyone in her old turf.
I did a little experiment the day before the Vancouver election. I went on Facebook, listed Vancouver as my “current city” then searched for everyone in my “current city”. Went through the list- removing people already active in the campaign. I was looking for people who I knew who may be persuaded by me. I came up with 96 names- they came from many areas of my life- there were many from queer soccer league, the co-op where I lived for several years, and many Four Seasons hotel workers, which I represented for many years as a union organizer. There was also my hairdresser, and friends of my husbands. I then sent a text to each person- the body of the message was the same- and I added a sentence at the top specific to that person. An example:
“Hi Jerry! I’m in Vancouver, are you around next week? It would be great to hang out. Also, Saturday is Election Day in Vancouver. Have you voted yet? As you know I’ve been very active in city politics, mostly to ensure that the voices of tenants and workers are prioritized. I hope you will join me in supporting this diverse group of candidates:… Will you join me?”
I got about 20% response rate. Many thanked me and said they would vote for those candidates. This process took me about 2 hours, but I think it probably got a handful of voters. But I was just scratching the surface of what a true relational organizing campaign can look like.
Why isn’t there more relational organizing? I’m very curious about swipeblue.org. There are so many online tools where we are connected, how can we best use our networks to mobilize voters less likely to vote? And to recruit volunteers? Who is doing this well? Was this part of Stacy Abram’s success in Georgia?
I’m off to knock on doors in WA-3- with my husband- the first time we are knocking on doors together in our 17 years! Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Harley
PS- As always, your responses, advice, criticisms, encouragements and connections are welcome!