Democrats Count On The Fine Art Of Field Operations : NPR

Democrats have had great success in recent presidential elections registering, targeting and turning out their core voters. Now they’re hoping to use that sophisticated field operation to to stave off defeat in this year’s midterm elections.

 

They’ll need all the help they can get because the Democratic hold on the Senate is looking increasingly shaky. The president is unpopular. So is Obamacare, and the number of vulnerable Democratic Senate seats is growing by the day. Several independent handicappers have recently moved several more Democratic seats into the “toss up” category.

 

Republicans only need a net of six pickups to take control of the Senate. And Democrats know that would make the last two years of President Obama’s term pretty miserable. Obama himself has been sounding the alarm at every fundraiser and party meeting.

 

According to Sasha Issenberg, the author of The Victory Lab, a good ground operation can add a point or two to the vote — tipping the balance in an otherwise tight race.

“Everything we know from basically 15 years of field experiments shows that high-quality, face-to-face contacts for a volunteer living in the same community as the voter is the best way to turn somebody out,” Issenberg said. “So there is a road map to doing this. But it is expensive and it takes a lot of staff, and a lot offices and infrastructures to recruit and train those volunteers.”

Democrats insist it can be done. They point to last year’s Virginia governor’s race, where Democrat Terry McAuliffe won by turning out more Democratic voters than in the 2009 Virginia governor’s race. But political analyst Larry Sabato doubts whether Democrats can repeat that feat in other states.

“They have not cracked that code,” Sabato said. “A lot of Democrats don’t think midterm elections are sexy and they don’t vote. What they might be able to do is what McAuliffe did — to marginally increase the relative turnout of minorities and young people who vote Democratic. So if, for example, North Carolina turns out to be a 1 or 2 percent race, that could make the difference.”

via Democrats Count On The Fine Art Of Field Operations : NPR.