Volunteers Are Difference-Making Cogs In The Election Machinery

By Sterling Davies | OBSERVER Staff Writer

When Mel Assagai flew to South Carolina to volunteer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, he met other supporters who also jumped in. During his week working for the campaign, Assagai met volunteers from Germany, Australia, and Great Britain.

Assagai, principal at California Policy Solutions, has gone on to volunteer for many other campaigns. In the process he has taken on a wide range of tasks, including going door to door asking people to cast their vote and handing out water to other volunteers. Regardless, Assagai recounts the energy and dedication that echoes throughout the supporters in every campaign he has participated in. “There is enthusiasm that is unlike anything else,” he says. “The volunteers are enthusiastic, committed, and reliable.”

Volunteers fill a crucial niche in a political candidate’s campaign. Dan Schnur, a professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, notes how volunteer engagement can give an early look into what election day might look like. “It’s impossible to predict with any reliability who’s going to actually vote on election day,” Schnur explains, “but if larger numbers of people are turning out to get involved in your campaign, it can give you some very valuable guidance on what voter turnout might look like.”

During the campaign, Assagai notes, the goal is not necessarily to persuade people to change their vote, but rather to draw the candidate’s existing supporters to the polls and persuade any hesitant or unlikely voters in the process. “You can be an immensely popular candidate, but if you can’t get your voters to the polls for the numbers you need to win, you’re going to lose,” Assagai says. “The game is really mathematics.”

With this in mind, volunteers can have a large impact on influencing others to cast their vote, especially as distrust for politics and the news spreads. David Townsend, a political and public affairs campaign consultant, explains how “it used to be that people paid a lot of attention to organizations. Not so much anymore … focus groups will say things like, ‘I don’t trust any of those [political] groups. I trust my neighbors.’”

Leveraging people’s trust for one another, canvassing becomes a tried and true method of supporting a political candidate. Canvassing refers to walking door to door in a neighborhood to persuade people to vote for the candidate the volunteer supports. While simple in design, this method is still “the most effective thing in political campaigns” Townsend says. “It’s everything. Everything we do in campaigns is to try to replicate that personal contact.”

When Assagai canvassed for city, state, and nationwide elections, he noticed that people were more open to listening to a neighbor rather than a political organization. “Your appearance on their doorstep might be the first time they’ve had anybody from that campaign reach out to them,” Assagai says. “That direct personal contact tends to drive voters to the polls the best.”

Assagai remembers being able to speak to 40 people a day and, on good days, convincing 10 to vote for the candidate he was volunteering for. While these numbers can vary greatly, the action itself becomes a catalyst for future efforts. “You may or may not be persuaded, but you will remember that someone came to your door,” Assagai says. “And that gets them to lean toward that candidate. Once you’ve done that, the other things, the other messages, can break through to that potential voter.”

In presidential elections, canvassing becomes more complex and difficult, especially in states such as California that typically don’t sway the outcome. This opens the door for phone banking as another effective strategy to support a candidate. Phone banking allows volunteers to make calls in hopes of persuading hesitant voters to cast their ballots and make their voices heard. As opposed to canvassing, phone banking allows volunteers from anywhere in the nation to make calls where they most matter, such as to voters in swing or battleground states.

Canvassing and phone banking might seem like outdated methods of volunteering, but they are still most effective because voters’ concerns and worries have remained relatively the same over time. “The issues don’t really change that much,” Townsend says. “They’re still bread-and-butter issues: What is the economy? Do I feel safe in my neighborhood? What’s going on with the schools?”

While phone banking and canvassing are more active ways of supporting a candidate, donating money has become a more convenient and increasingly popular way of showing support, even in a time of political distrust. With each presidential election, the amount of money raised continues to climb because of new ways to donate online. 2020 showed $1.8 billion raised between the Democratic and Republican candidates’ committees, a $600 million increase from 2016. As of August, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris had raised a collective $766 million before the spike after the presidential debate and the typical surge in donations from October to election day.

“The whole idea of fundraising using the internet has just blown open the doors on fundraising,” Townsend says.

Candidates use most of their donated funds on advertisements and media campaigns, which include TV, online, and social media ads along with mail and postcards.

The inner workings of a campaign are intricate and complex, and even though candidates spend billions of dollars on crafting airtight strategies, volunteers are necessary to spread the word to others and garner more interest and excitement through the trust people have for one another.