Elections 101: Why You Should Pay for a Field Program

Elections 101: Why You Should Pay for a Field Program

Being a field organizer for Organizing for America is a much bigger project than the title suggests. When I was first hired, I was responsible for running the entire field operation for Mercer, Lawrence, Venango, Clarion, and Forest counties. A few months into the campaign, Lawrence county was switched into another region, and I was given the east half of Crawford county and Warren counties to compensate. My junior staff consisted entirely of unpaid fellows and volunteers that I personally recruited, and I couldn't have done it without them.

My turf had two congressional districts (PA 3rd and 5th), a strong republican majority, and I don't even know how many PA Assembly seats. It was big. Even for GOTV (campaign lingo for "Get Out the Vote" - the final phase of an electoral campaign), when my turf shrank enormously due to hiring 3 new staffers, I still had 4 counties to manage, no paid junior staff, and no budget.

Let me repeat that again: I had no budget. I wasn't permitted to spend a single dime.

Fortunately, I didn't need to. That's not to say I didn't have resources. I did, but the costs are much lower than you'd expect for a field program. My overall GOTV operation for the final 4 days of the campaign included over 400 volunteer shifts recruited and 5 zero-cost staging locations for the volunteers to meet. The only expenses to the campaign were printing, phones, my (very low) salary, and internet.

If you're a candidate interested in running for office, consider how you can run an identical operation yourself:

Costs for a one-month GOTV field program

The costs for cell phone plans are getting increasingly low. The best method is to use an unlimited, prepaid service from a smaller carrier that uses a larger carrier's network. Such plans fall in the range of $30-$50/month. You can get by with 10 phones, especially since more and more volunteers are willing to put their own to use to help you out.

If you have your own printer, all you need is toner and paper. If you really, really want to distribute palm cards or leaflets, you can do so, but it's going to increase your costs, and the evidence I've read from Get Out the Vote (pgs 51-52 kindle edition), suggests that leaflets in general have a low effect on voter turnout. If you forgo your leaflets, your biggest cost will be printing out walk lists, which can actually get fairly expensive as your campaign scales upward. If you absolutely must have leaflets, I'd suggest printing them in-house over third-party.

Under both the low-cost estimate and the high-cost estimate, the largest cost is your field staff. Spending more on your field staff is a wise move. We have a tendency to work very long hours for fairly low pay. If you put in a $2,000-$5,000/month investment in a staffer, you can get one to work full-time to recruit and train your volunteers to be your entire field program. As the only paid staffer, I recruited over 400 volunteer shifts for a 4-day GOTV program. 

This type of program is entirely worth it. The best alternative to an organized volunteer canvass is to pay canvassers, who go at the rate of $10-$16/hour. When Green and Gerber calculated the cost-effectiveness of canvassing operations at $16/hour, the cost came down to $29 of labor for 1 additional vote (page 43 - kindle edition). While that may seem high, it beat out knockless leafletting $34/ 1 vote (pg 53 - kindle edition) or direct mail pieces $67/ 1 vote (pg 71), and was more cost-effective than hiring telemarketers or direct advertising (just read the book). 

If you can forgo the costs of hiring paid canvassers through recruiting volunteers, that's certainly the way you should go. No matter how you run your canvassing operation, you will have to invest in some overhead costs  in materials necessary for a canvass operation. As a single staff member, however, I recruited a large volunteer army. If you're looking to win an election, hire an organizer to do it for you. There are plenty of ex-OFA staff who did exactly the same thing as I did, and they'll do it for you, too.

Gerrymandering the Electoral College: Republicans Risk Much

Gerrymandering the Electoral College

There's a (bit more than a) rumor going about that the GOP is trying to rig the electoral college by assigning electoral votes based on congressional districts. It's serious enough that MSNBC did a story on it and Think Progress is up in arms about it. 

There is currently such a proposal being considered in Pennsylvania, and the initial thoughts about the severity of PA's gerrymandering are alarming; PA's 20 electoral college votes, if broken down in the 2012 election, would have resulted in 7 electoral college votes for Obama, and 13 for Romney, despite Obama winning the state by a comfortable 5% margin (current proposal giving remaining 2 electoral votes to popular vote winner). 

The problem with the assumption being made here is that if the electoral college had been gerrymandered for 2012, the election results wouldn't have gone the same way, and for one reason alone: resources. 

The 2012 OFA PA campaign was very heavily centered on Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Northwest PA for instance, encompassing Erie, Warren, Forest, Crawford, Venango, Claron, and Mercer counties were given less field staff than any one of the counties surrounding Philadelphia, and far less than any of the Philadelphia cross-section regions. For a good majority of the campaign (2011-2012), we only had 3 field staff for all of Northwest PA.

Under the winner-take-all electoral college system that we currently have, this breakdown absolutely makes sense. Obama carried over 85% of the vote in Philadelphia county alone, so it was essential to get as much turnout as possible in Philly and its suburbs to drum up popular vote support. If we had a congressional district break-down, however, our strategy would have been very different, and this is why Republicans would be very short-sighted to pass the gerrymandering bill.

If Republicans make the mistake of gerrymandering the electoral college, Democrats will make them pay by challenging every single one of their congressional districts. As it currently stands, the only truly lopsided victories in the 2012 congressional races were won by Democrats, who were gerrymandered into noncompetitive districts. A closer look at the 2012 congressional results reveals to me that the Pennsylvania Democratic Party actually has a lot of opportunities to make gains in congressional seats.

If Democrats somehow got a 5-7% swing in electoral results in some of the outlier congressional districts that had fewer resources, they would gain 5 more congressional seats, switching the results to 12 electoral votes for Obama, and 8 for Romney. This isn't even considering the fact that Obama outperformed many democratic congressional candidates in their home districts. In Venango County, for instance, Charles Dumas carried only 31.8% of the vote, while Barack Obama had 35.8%. 

Resources were certainly an issue in the 2012 elections for Democratic congressional hopefuls. Broken down in order by congressional district from FEC disclosures:

For the most part, the candidate who spent the most, won, and victories closely represented money spent. The the largest outlier appears to be the 12th congressional district, but it should be noted that Mark Critz spent over $1 million on a contested primary, whereas Keith Rothfus did not have a contested primary. I should also note that this chart represents only the money spent by the candidates themselves: third-party PAC expenditures are not represented.

There are a few districts that I find especially competitive on the face: the 3rd, 7th, 8th, 12th, 15th, and the 16th. With more resources, democrats could put up a larger challenge against Republicans, and possibly gain valuable seats in the house. Should Republicans actually make the mistake of gerrymandering the electoral college, any race within a 15% margin will see a surge of Democratic resources, including ads, ground staffers, and off-season coalition building. Seeing the large amount of resources spent by democrats in completely uncompetitive elections, it's clear that the resources are available for a shift in strategy. If republicans successfully change the rules in multiple states, we'll see a similar story in each of them, resulting in fewer congressional seats for Republicans, and maybe even enough turnover for Republicans to lose the House of Representatives entirely.

If Republicans really want to put these seats up for grabs, they're welcome to do so. Democrats would love the challenge, and they would make the Republican party pay - one way or another.