Data-driven doorknockers fan out through swing states

PHILADELPHIA — The sun is just starting to set in a neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania and Jihad Seifullah — in a bright red shirt that reads “All in this together” on the back — is in the process of knocking on 90 doors.

Seifullah is a state field director for Working America, the organizing arm of the AFL-CIO made up of non-union members. His goal tonight is to convince supporters of Hillary Clinton and Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Katie McGinty’s to go out and vote. Thousands of other canvassers in battleground states are doing the same thing for Clinton and their state's down-ballot candidates.

On a late September evening, he carries an iPad that has a list of the doors he needs to knock on, and who, at each house, he should speak to. Not every person who lives on the block makes the list.

In fact, at one point, the wife of a man on Seifullah’s list answers the door and is willing to talk with him. But her name doesn’t show up on his iPad and Seifullah has to ask her to bring out her husband. So why was her husband on the list but she wasn’t? It all has to do with data.

Seifullah was targeting a specific type of working class voter — tonight they lean Democratic, in other neighborhoods around the country they lean Republican — who has been placed on the list by Working America strategists.  They use information such as voter registration, previous election turnout and other data — like how much money the voter spends at the grocery store — to determine which residents are in their target universe.

Working America’s canvassing strategy is an example of the way door knocking has evolved with the use of data. Because of predictive modeling done back in the office, the canvassers walking the streets are not blindly knocking on every door they see. Now they know the type of voter they’ll be talking to and they have an idea of what to say ahead of time.

Working America Political Director Matt Morrison said that datasets on the neighborhood Seifullah is canvassing show the people he’s talking to have a high chance of being Clinton supporters. But “their voter participation — the likelihood they turned out — is less than perfect.” Morrison said this is the the perfect target. “That’s what you’re going for, is finding people who are supporters and mobilizing them.”

The analysis was correct. Every person Seifullah spoke to in the neighborhood supported Clinton (fewer knew who McGinty is, but most said they’d vote for Democrats down ballot too.)

But not everyone was excited about the former secretary of State. Over and over, the responses were powered by dislike of Donald Trump rather than a strong connection to Clinton. “I would vote for Hillary Clinton, even though I would rather vote for Barack Obama for a third term, but I will vote for Hillary Clinton because she represents much more of what I believe in,” Marybeth Glassman, a professor, 48, told Seifullah. “Donald Trump doesn’t represent one cell in my body.”

Seifullah made sure she’ll show up on November 8th. He also took her email address to reach out for future volunteer opportunities.

If Seifullah had been talking to Trump-leaning voters his strategy would have been entirely different. The goal then would have been to get the voter to consider Clinton or move into undecided territory.

Kristina Andreotta is the deputy organizing director with Citizen Action of New York, a progressive grassroots organization that also does canvassing. She’s been door-knocking for 15 years. Andreotta said when she first started, her team would drive with a photocopy of a neighborhood map, drop a canvasser off, count 35 houses on each side and then drop the next person off. The canvassers would knock on every door they were assigned and speak with whoever answered regardless of party affiliation or past voting history.

“The only technology we had at that point was the vehicle and the photocopy,” Adreotta said. "And now it's this highly intensive, comprehensive method that's used to decide who should be in the target universe of doors that we're knocking on."

Andreotta sees many positives related to the way targeting has advanced over time, but there’s also a part of her that longs for the days of being surprised at who answered the door. “On one hand it’s very exciting to go out and spend your evening talking to people who think like you and care about the same issues as you and you really start to feel the momentum, it feels good,” Andreotta said. But she also thinks targeted canvassing leaves out people who had the potential to be convinced.

“No one has been actively seeking out those middle-of-the-road voters who have been left to their own devices. That means that someone like Donald Trump can come along and tap into that anxiety and fear of abandonment and turn it into anger,” Andreotta said. “The downside of the very specific, tailored targeting is that the people you leave out are just up for grabs.”

She said she understands why voter targeting is used and sees the benefits particularly when people are short on time — like when an election is coming up — but she also believes there’s an opportunity cost.

“As much as there’s something gained in productivity and efficiency there’s something that’s lost in terms of really effectively planting seeds with all people in any given population,” she said. “It’s the opportunity cost."

Targeted canvassing is not just for the Democratic side of the political spectrum.

Susan B. Anthony List, an organization focused on getting anti-abortion lawmakers elected, has been door-knocking in battleground states to try and convince anti-abortion Democrats and conservative Hispanics not to vote for Clinton or down-ballot Democrats.

How they find them? Data.

The organization invested in polling and analytics to figure out who is most likely to be swayed by face-to-face contact.

“Susan B. Anthony List and our partner super PAC, Women Speak Out, have been on the ground in key swing states contacting pro-life voters unlikely to get to the polls unless contacted, as well as persuadable pro-life Democrats and Hispanics,”  spokeswoman Mallory Quigley told Paste BN.

“We’re taking a page out of the other side’s playbook by reaching these persuadable groups with information they haven’t heard before and, in the case of Hispanic voters, even speaking with them in their own language. We have more than 500 dedicated pro-life canvassers in the field and, because we’ve expanded beyond just low-propensity pro-lifers, our team has actually increased in effectiveness, hitting more doors per hour and covering more ground.”