Deadline: ASAP and through November 6, 2018
Yep, last week sucked. And now we have the Honorable* justice** Kavanaugh. But there’s no crying in baseball, don’t give up at halftime, take a breath and come back out swinging. If you’ve ever said you’d contribute some day — that day is TODAY. The task is clear: we need to get control of at least one house of Congress on November 6. It’s time for EVERYONE to step up to canvass, phone, text, postcard, donate . . . all of the above . . . today and every day through November 6!
Here’s just some of what Indivisible East Bay members and friends, heroes all, did last week:
Canvassing in Sanger for TJ Cox:
IEB members Fiona and Carl, and CA-11 team co-lead Ted canvassed with SwingLeft in Sanger for TJ Cox, who’s running for Congress in CA-21. Read their report here. TJ is a charismatic and progressive Democrat running against incumbent Republican David Valadao. By day’s end, the entire group had knocked on 710 doors and had 174 targeted conversations, got 21 pledge cards and two vote-by-mail forms filled out, ending up with a 24% contact rate! The IEB trio even got three people to put up TJ Cox yard signs in very noticeable locations!
Canvassing in Reno and Manteca:
IEB member Mandeep writes: “I’ve also had an awesome time canvassing streets in Reno and Manteca, in addition to the phone canvassing I’ve been doing. I like looking people in the eye! Sure, most doors are not answered, and a few people are clearly right-leaning and don’t want to talk with you further (though even then, I’ve only had civil and polite exchanges) — but some folks are hungry for information on voting, how to get more involved, and are grateful that you’ve shown up at their door. Just a couple of these kinds of interactions in an afternoon of canvassing can really make your day, and make you feel it’s all worth it. And of course, it just intrinsically is, as in-person canvassing has been shown to be the NUMBER ONE way to have an effect on voters. And, as I say regularly — we happen just to have a country to save here. So yes — it matters. Always remember: the founders of your nation are smiling upon you as you walk the streets.”
Phone banking AND postcarding at Red-to-Blue HQ:
Double duty in Dublin! CA-15 Team co-lead LeAnn reports that it was “sitting on the floor room only” at the IBEW Hall in Dublin, where close to 50 highly motivated progressives filled up two rooms and the hallway during back-to-back postcarding and phone banking events on October 6. The union hall is being made available by CA-15 Representative Eric Swalwell and his staff to serve as the “Red-to-Blue” headquarters through the mid-term elections to organizations that want to help get out the vote in battleground districts across the country.
We wrote 400 postcards in support of Jessica Morse, who’s challenging incumbent Rep. Tom McClintock in CA-4; the crowd was big enough that there was also an opportunity to write an additional 50 cards for Harley Rouda, running in CA-48 against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
Phone banking overlapped with the postcarding and carried on into the afternoon; several die-hards opted to participate in both! IEB Governance Committee members Nick, Linh, and Ward joined a host of others to phone bank for Jessica Morse or for Andrew Janz, who’s running against Devin Nunes in CA-22, or for Iowa candidates J.D. Scholten (IA-4) and Deidre DeJear (Secretary of State).
Phone banking for Arizona Democrats:
Fifteen phone bankers gathered in Richmond, spreading out around the home and beautiful garden of CA-11 Team co-lead Kristen and phone bank superstar Tom.
A lot of new people were trained to use Hubdialer and quickly got to work talking to Arizonans, helping identify supporters of Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema and down-ticket Dems, and hitting the phone bank jackpot once in a while to sign up a volunteer. When we were using the system we did an average of 1,500 dials and had a 20% contact rate. Our partners, the AZ Democratic Party, would love to get more folks involved in calling to Arizona. Sign up here or email tpagan@azdem.org
Phone banking in Oakland for Issue Voters of Northern Nevada:
An enthusiastic crowd of 25 gathered at former CA-13 team lead Janine’s in Rockridge to call into areas around Reno. IEB phone bankers had whipped through the original database of Non-Partisan Voters in Reno and we were now able to expand to areas that our partner organization, Issue Voters of Northern Nevada, hadn’t expected to reach. Callers were able to either congregate (sometimes good for morale after a difficult or successful call) or spread out into more quiet areas. We called in the neighborhood of 1,200 households and reached the usual one in ten, or around 120 people. Our work making calls helps IVNN’s canvassing: they can target people we identify as “persuadables” who are still making up their minds, rather than knocking on every door, and canvassers will also be aware in advance of voters’ top issues that will motivate them to go to the polls.
Writing postcards to low-turnout Nevada voters:
And more help for Nevada! More than 30 IEB members and friends at our postcard party in El Cerrito wrote more than 350 postcards to a carefully targeted list of voters registered as “non-partisan” who didn’t vote in 2016. Scripts created by Issue Voters of Northern Nevada politely but firmly urged the addressees to vote, including: “If we don’t vote, we can’t complain. Make sure your voice is heard this year: VOTE!”
The party started shortly after the Kava-nauseous vote occurred, and we were all grateful to be among kindred souls taking direct action to fight back. Almost double the number of RSVPs showed up and IEB’s outreach team co-lead Toni worked miracles to provide more addresses to the eager writers.
Here’s what you can do in the days ahead:
Canvassing and phone banking are the top two most effective ways to contact voters and make the Blue Wave happen. We need your help!
- Find IEB phone banks and canvassing trips and sign up at out our “Volunteer to Flip the G-D- Congress” list & calendar, also easily accessible on our home page
- Sign up to get our weekly list of phone banks and canvassing trips
- Check out opportunities to canvass, phone or text bank, write postcards, and more, with these great organizations IEB works in coalition with:
- Join Indivisible Berkeley in phoning Nevada voters from home to help flip the critical NV Senate seat. Info & sign up here. Check out other IB events too.
- See the East Bay for TJ Cox events calendar to support the CA-21 congressional candidate.
- Canvass in CA-21 with Swing Left East Bay. Check upcoming events and sign up here.
- Knock on doors to help flip CA-10 for Josh Harder. Info & sign up here.
- Swing Left Contra Costa hosts monthly voter registration in Tracy (CA-10) on the 3rd Saturday of each month. Check their event calendar.
- Canvass with Working America AFL-CIO in CA-10 (Modesto) and CA-21 (San Joaquin Valley). You’ll get excellent training and can then sign up for volunteer shifts.
- Can’t canvass yourself? Donate to support one of the great groups listed above. You can even sponsor a canvasser in CA-21 by donating to Valley Forward, which helps employ people living in the district.
* Your results may vary.
** oh please.
2 thoughts on “There’s no crying in canvassing”