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| The Trump Campaign Knows Why Obama Won. Do Democrats? | The Trump Campaign Knows Why Obama Won. Do Democrats? |
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| Before Republicans send their organizers into early primary states, the organizers reportedly must read and pass a test on “Groundbreakers,” the story of how Barack Obama revolutionized campaigning by putting his faith in hundreds of thousands of volunteers. | |
| I was a top organizer in his 2008 campaign and trained thousands of the campaign’s staff members. The book’s authors and I fear that the wealthy elites on the left have less respect than ever before for the strategies that got Mr. Obama elected. If Democrats want to win in 2020, they must get back to investing in the power of everyday people through organizing. | |
| Republicans know how President Obama won, yet there is a contentious debate among progressives about how to run campaigns. One side says you engage your most excited supporters, organizing them into local leadership teams and helping them host trainings, house parties and voter registration drives so that they can build support and gather accurate data about their neighborhoods. | Republicans know how President Obama won, yet there is a contentious debate among progressives about how to run campaigns. One side says you engage your most excited supporters, organizing them into local leadership teams and helping them host trainings, house parties and voter registration drives so that they can build support and gather accurate data about their neighborhoods. |
| This creates the capacity for millions of authentic, person-to-person conversations about families’ experiences, and their hopes and fears — the kinds of conversations that can expand an electorate, energize a base and demobilize the opposition. Data and technology are tools to improve this work, not the machinery for controlling people. | This creates the capacity for millions of authentic, person-to-person conversations about families’ experiences, and their hopes and fears — the kinds of conversations that can expand an electorate, energize a base and demobilize the opposition. Data and technology are tools to improve this work, not the machinery for controlling people. |
| The other side, louder and better funded, says that data, technology and analytics should drive campaign strategies and voter outreach programs. So campaigns hire tech companies to create lists of potential supporters based on algorithms and statistical modeling. And they develop apps through which supporters are meant to blast, but not actually engage, their social networks. Staff members and volunteers parachute into communities to knock on doors and recite poll-tested scripts. | The other side, louder and better funded, says that data, technology and analytics should drive campaign strategies and voter outreach programs. So campaigns hire tech companies to create lists of potential supporters based on algorithms and statistical modeling. And they develop apps through which supporters are meant to blast, but not actually engage, their social networks. Staff members and volunteers parachute into communities to knock on doors and recite poll-tested scripts. |
| Over the past decade, the party elites — consultants, strategists and donors — have caught the data-and-analytics fever and largely abandoned organizing. This has meant that entire neighborhoods have been politically redlined out of engagement in our most fundamental democratic practice. | Over the past decade, the party elites — consultants, strategists and donors — have caught the data-and-analytics fever and largely abandoned organizing. This has meant that entire neighborhoods have been politically redlined out of engagement in our most fundamental democratic practice. |
| Those of us who have spent our lives talking to regular folks on campaigns now walk around neighborhoods with lists created by someone at a computer far away. We have skipped many doors and missed entire families because the data experts didn’t have addresses or phone numbers for poor people, young people, people of color or people who moved a lot — many of those who carried Barack Obama to victory. | Those of us who have spent our lives talking to regular folks on campaigns now walk around neighborhoods with lists created by someone at a computer far away. We have skipped many doors and missed entire families because the data experts didn’t have addresses or phone numbers for poor people, young people, people of color or people who moved a lot — many of those who carried Barack Obama to victory. |
| Going into 2020, Democrats cannot fall into the trap of being overly seduced by shiny tech-only tricks. They must get back to the hard work of pounding the pavement to organize the people who already want to vote for them. That’s how we’ll create the power to build a movement that attracts others. In fact, data from 2016 and 2018 show that organizing increases voter turnout more than any other single outreach method, including mail, TV and digital advertisements, and twice as much as contact from a stranger. | Going into 2020, Democrats cannot fall into the trap of being overly seduced by shiny tech-only tricks. They must get back to the hard work of pounding the pavement to organize the people who already want to vote for them. That’s how we’ll create the power to build a movement that attracts others. In fact, data from 2016 and 2018 show that organizing increases voter turnout more than any other single outreach method, including mail, TV and digital advertisements, and twice as much as contact from a stranger. |
| Part of the reason the debate has unfolded this way is because the story that took hold about how Barack Obama won, and has since permeated the voting industry, is that sophisticated data, technology and analytics twice won him the White House, not organizing or volunteers. That a few dozen tech nerds in the Chicago headquarters tipped the campaign to victory. This story, and the realignment of progressive interests and infrastructure around it, has baffled me and other top campaigners. | Part of the reason the debate has unfolded this way is because the story that took hold about how Barack Obama won, and has since permeated the voting industry, is that sophisticated data, technology and analytics twice won him the White House, not organizing or volunteers. That a few dozen tech nerds in the Chicago headquarters tipped the campaign to victory. This story, and the realignment of progressive interests and infrastructure around it, has baffled me and other top campaigners. |
| People won Mr. Obama’s campaigns. From the black beauticians in South Carolina to the white and black retirees in Pennsylvania to the Latinx supporters in Nevada, hundreds of thousands of volunteers knocked on doors and made calls from the primaries through the general elections. And Barack Obama saw them, spoke to them and loved them. | People won Mr. Obama’s campaigns. From the black beauticians in South Carolina to the white and black retirees in Pennsylvania to the Latinx supporters in Nevada, hundreds of thousands of volunteers knocked on doors and made calls from the primaries through the general elections. And Barack Obama saw them, spoke to them and loved them. |
| As the primary campaign heated up in 2007, my colleague Jeremy Bird and I trained and coached organizers in South Carolina to tell their own family stories and to identify community leaders by asking them to host meetings in their homes with their friends and family, to build and train volunteer leadership teams and to equip those teams to make strategic decisions about how to engage voters in their neighborhoods. | As the primary campaign heated up in 2007, my colleague Jeremy Bird and I trained and coached organizers in South Carolina to tell their own family stories and to identify community leaders by asking them to host meetings in their homes with their friends and family, to build and train volunteer leadership teams and to equip those teams to make strategic decisions about how to engage voters in their neighborhoods. |
| The strategy soon paid off. After an incredible win in the Iowa caucuses, the campaign lost in New Hampshire and Nevada. But on Jan. 26, 2008, the volunteers of South Carolina, who had organized block by block to cover the entire state, delivered the primary to Barack Obama with a 29 percent margin over the runner-up, Hillary Clinton, breathing oxygen into the campaign for the months ahead. | The strategy soon paid off. After an incredible win in the Iowa caucuses, the campaign lost in New Hampshire and Nevada. But on Jan. 26, 2008, the volunteers of South Carolina, who had organized block by block to cover the entire state, delivered the primary to Barack Obama with a 29 percent margin over the runner-up, Hillary Clinton, breathing oxygen into the campaign for the months ahead. |
| We replicated this experience in Pennsylvania. We registered more than 100,000 new voters in just over a month, shifting the electorate there and organizing an animated base that would deliver the state for Mr. Obama in the general election. | We replicated this experience in Pennsylvania. We registered more than 100,000 new voters in just over a month, shifting the electorate there and organizing an animated base that would deliver the state for Mr. Obama in the general election. |
| Then in the spring of 2008, the campaign leaders took an extraordinary risk. They allowed a few top organizers to hunker down in Chicago to design a field program that required paid staff to organize our base over the summer — predominantly black and young volunteer activists, as well as white and Latinx people who were proud to support a black candidate. | Then in the spring of 2008, the campaign leaders took an extraordinary risk. They allowed a few top organizers to hunker down in Chicago to design a field program that required paid staff to organize our base over the summer — predominantly black and young volunteer activists, as well as white and Latinx people who were proud to support a black candidate. |
| We decided to empower and animate our most excited supporters, rather than working around them, or even worse, betraying them in pursuit of the elusive white swing voter. Most other campaigns would have gone straight to paying staff members to knock on unfamiliar doors and make cold calls. | We decided to empower and animate our most excited supporters, rather than working around them, or even worse, betraying them in pursuit of the elusive white swing voter. Most other campaigns would have gone straight to paying staff members to knock on unfamiliar doors and make cold calls. |
| And we won. | And we won. |
| So I was surprised when, after the election, I came bright-eyed into a project where I interviewed senior Democratic consultants to help train campaign managers for the midterms. Here’s what they told me: We’re going to have an extraordinary backlash to President Obama’s victories, so we have to double down on likely white voters. After two cycles of terrible midterm losses, this was, again, the narrative after the 2014 elections. | So I was surprised when, after the election, I came bright-eyed into a project where I interviewed senior Democratic consultants to help train campaign managers for the midterms. Here’s what they told me: We’re going to have an extraordinary backlash to President Obama’s victories, so we have to double down on likely white voters. After two cycles of terrible midterm losses, this was, again, the narrative after the 2014 elections. |
| In the winter of 2015, I sat in a room of about 400 political operatives where Stan Greenberg, a pollster for Bill Clinton, made that very argument from the main stage. His polling data sliced and diced white people in myriad ways: rural/urban/exurban, married/unmarried, college educated/non-college educated, seeking the magic formula that would deliver victory in 2016. But a single spreadsheet column — “People of Color” — had lumped together black, Latinx, Asian-American, Pacific Islander and Native American voters. | In the winter of 2015, I sat in a room of about 400 political operatives where Stan Greenberg, a pollster for Bill Clinton, made that very argument from the main stage. His polling data sliced and diced white people in myriad ways: rural/urban/exurban, married/unmarried, college educated/non-college educated, seeking the magic formula that would deliver victory in 2016. But a single spreadsheet column — “People of Color” — had lumped together black, Latinx, Asian-American, Pacific Islander and Native American voters. |
| This problematic love affair between the analytics masterminds and those on the left focused almost exclusively on white voters is suffocating the Democrats’ base from the top down. As we get closer to the 2020 election, this is the mantra of many progressive political elites and labor groups, epitomized most by Third Way, a centrist think tank, and by Catalist, the dominant data provider for the Democrats and the left’s independent sector. | This problematic love affair between the analytics masterminds and those on the left focused almost exclusively on white voters is suffocating the Democrats’ base from the top down. As we get closer to the 2020 election, this is the mantra of many progressive political elites and labor groups, epitomized most by Third Way, a centrist think tank, and by Catalist, the dominant data provider for the Democrats and the left’s independent sector. |
| We’re so afraid of the leadership required to shape a new future that we’re turning on our own base. This retreat is augmented by a hunger for technocratic control that has only delivered further failure. The programs that organize data have come to control the programs that organize people as we eke out marginal returns and obsess over “votes per $1,000 spent.” But remember that Donald Trump won with only a fraction of the resources of Hillary Clinton. He knew he had to animate his own base and was good at doing it. | We’re so afraid of the leadership required to shape a new future that we’re turning on our own base. This retreat is augmented by a hunger for technocratic control that has only delivered further failure. The programs that organize data have come to control the programs that organize people as we eke out marginal returns and obsess over “votes per $1,000 spent.” But remember that Donald Trump won with only a fraction of the resources of Hillary Clinton. He knew he had to animate his own base and was good at doing it. |
| We will keep losing elections if we continue to campaign this way. In the decade after the 2008 election, Democrats lost more than 1,000 legislative seats in Congress and statehouses using a flawed political formula that targets white suburban and exurban vote flippers with bland policies and a marketing approach to campaigning. | We will keep losing elections if we continue to campaign this way. In the decade after the 2008 election, Democrats lost more than 1,000 legislative seats in Congress and statehouses using a flawed political formula that targets white suburban and exurban vote flippers with bland policies and a marketing approach to campaigning. |
| While the spirit of President Obama’s campaigns has withered inside the elite party establishment, it thrives in independent political groups because organizing has been the spirit of social movements for generations. | While the spirit of President Obama’s campaigns has withered inside the elite party establishment, it thrives in independent political groups because organizing has been the spirit of social movements for generations. |
| Young Latinx organizers with LUCHA and other groups in Arizona turned the backlash against a racist immigration law into an organizing infrastructure in 2010, registering hundreds of thousands of Latinos, who then ousted from office the legislator who sponsored that bill, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. They shifted the political terrain so that a Democrat won a Senate seat in 2018. | Young Latinx organizers with LUCHA and other groups in Arizona turned the backlash against a racist immigration law into an organizing infrastructure in 2010, registering hundreds of thousands of Latinos, who then ousted from office the legislator who sponsored that bill, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. They shifted the political terrain so that a Democrat won a Senate seat in 2018. |
| In Florida, independent organizing groups worked alongside Desmond Meade and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition to win a landmark ballot measure last year that restored voting rights to as many as 1.5 million formerly incarcerated people. | In Florida, independent organizing groups worked alongside Desmond Meade and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition to win a landmark ballot measure last year that restored voting rights to as many as 1.5 million formerly incarcerated people. |
| Since 2014, black and Latinx organizers worked to elect progressive district attorneys in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Tampa and counties across the country, with the support of Faith in Action Fund and Color of Change PAC. | Since 2014, black and Latinx organizers worked to elect progressive district attorneys in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Tampa and counties across the country, with the support of Faith in Action Fund and Color of Change PAC. |
| To win in 2020, we must flip the formula on how most strategists and consultants think campaigns are won and instead recognize that an organized and energized base is our most powerful resource, not a liability. That means investing now — not a few weeks before the election — in the development of black, Latinx and youth leaders, as well as hiring consultants and analysts who understand these communities. | To win in 2020, we must flip the formula on how most strategists and consultants think campaigns are won and instead recognize that an organized and energized base is our most powerful resource, not a liability. That means investing now — not a few weeks before the election — in the development of black, Latinx and youth leaders, as well as hiring consultants and analysts who understand these communities. |
| We need to use data and analytics to learn why so many voters of color and young people stayed home in 2016 and to figure out what would persuade them and their networks to vote in 2020. Movement donors and campaigns should fund the organizing (not just the door knocking). | |
| We must abandon flawed “voter propensity scores,” assigned before the election to predict a person’s likelihood to cast a ballot. These scores are like party invitations. If you weren’t invited to or didn’t show up to the last party, you don’t get invited again. Or if you have moved since the last party, so we don’t know whether you’ve ever attended parties, you won’t get one. | |
| Each candidate ought to build organizing into the DNA of his or her campaign, and the Democratic Party and independent donors should support this effort. That means hiring and training organizing staff early on. And campaign headquarters should value their data and experiences from the field as much as those of analysts. | |
| The kind of politics that puts people first, invests in organizing and delivers material change in people’s lives will always win. But “the Democrats had the playbook and walked away from it,” a Republican official told a reporter. We need to get back to the basics, before Republicans beat us at our own game. | The kind of politics that puts people first, invests in organizing and delivers material change in people’s lives will always win. But “the Democrats had the playbook and walked away from it,” a Republican official told a reporter. We need to get back to the basics, before Republicans beat us at our own game. |
| Joy Cushman (@joycushman) was the organizing director at the New Organizing Institute from 2009 to 2013 and the national campaigns director at Faith in Action from 2013 until recently. | Joy Cushman (@joycushman) was the organizing director at the New Organizing Institute from 2009 to 2013 and the national campaigns director at Faith in Action from 2013 until recently. |
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