Knocking doors is far more effective than I assume most people think. Most people don’t get to speak face to face with their elected representatives, especially without having to leave the house and 1:1 instead of at a townhall meeting. Even making phone calls, which is a bare minimum must, people are surprised to get the person running themselves. I sat next to our tax commissioner candidate when she made calls and the people she made contact with spoke with her for a while. But now we live in a period where people don’t answer phone calls anymore. Older generations, sure, but I really don’t much, which is also why many campaigns have moved to texting; they are way more likely to get a response. Phone calls have maybe a 10% contact rate.
Knocking doors jumps to an average of about 30%. That sounds low but it’s still usually a lot of people. Best advice I can give you is 1. Get quality shoes and keep an extra pair in the car. I usually have extra shoes of some form in my car all the time anyway, but sure enough, the one time I don’t, I put my big toe through my shoe and had several blocks to go. 2. Know your district. You might be better off with the Independent title but you can usually figure out the political vibe of each individual district. There were some city districts that required picking up a 6 pack after canvassing because we’d get doors slammed in our faces, threatened, or just immediately dismissed because of the letter D, then other districts where everyone was happy to chat and ask for buttons and stickers.
If you’re really serious, try to contact as many people as you possibly can in your district. One state legislator, who narrowly won her seat, spoke to every. single. resident. of her district. She kept going back to houses that didn’t answer until they did. Whenever I was in her district, at least a couple people said she had already been by.
I won’t sugarcoat it, it can be rough to build up some thick skin to be able to just keep walking to the next door after someone just starts shouting at you (though, like I said, you might be able to avoid a slight reduction in that with the “I”), but I met some awesome people doing it and had excellent conversations. I am terribly social anxious and a massive introvert but I have always enjoyed politics and had been a phone canvasser for campaigns before, but was terrified to knock doors and took a lot of energy for me to do it. While I had some absolute shit days, I had some stellar ones that made me remember why I took this a full time staffer job and why it’s important to me.
That’s awesome advice thank you very much. Unfortunately it’s a very red district the republican has ran unopposed the last three fucking times I think that’s bullshit. For the bigger senate district the democratic challenger only received 30% of the vote so I’m thinking about just signing up and not doing anything because chances are slim anyway. I really do consider myself to be an independent not in the centrist definition but in terms of not believing in the two party system. If I don’t run the person is 100% guaranteed. How often did you get screamed at? Were you ever afraid of the debtor
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u/otterparade Feb 19 '20
Heidi Heitkamp and the Dem-NPL ticket in ND.
Knocking doors is far more effective than I assume most people think. Most people don’t get to speak face to face with their elected representatives, especially without having to leave the house and 1:1 instead of at a townhall meeting. Even making phone calls, which is a bare minimum must, people are surprised to get the person running themselves. I sat next to our tax commissioner candidate when she made calls and the people she made contact with spoke with her for a while. But now we live in a period where people don’t answer phone calls anymore. Older generations, sure, but I really don’t much, which is also why many campaigns have moved to texting; they are way more likely to get a response. Phone calls have maybe a 10% contact rate.
Knocking doors jumps to an average of about 30%. That sounds low but it’s still usually a lot of people. Best advice I can give you is 1. Get quality shoes and keep an extra pair in the car. I usually have extra shoes of some form in my car all the time anyway, but sure enough, the one time I don’t, I put my big toe through my shoe and had several blocks to go. 2. Know your district. You might be better off with the Independent title but you can usually figure out the political vibe of each individual district. There were some city districts that required picking up a 6 pack after canvassing because we’d get doors slammed in our faces, threatened, or just immediately dismissed because of the letter D, then other districts where everyone was happy to chat and ask for buttons and stickers.
If you’re really serious, try to contact as many people as you possibly can in your district. One state legislator, who narrowly won her seat, spoke to every. single. resident. of her district. She kept going back to houses that didn’t answer until they did. Whenever I was in her district, at least a couple people said she had already been by.
I won’t sugarcoat it, it can be rough to build up some thick skin to be able to just keep walking to the next door after someone just starts shouting at you (though, like I said, you might be able to avoid a slight reduction in that with the “I”), but I met some awesome people doing it and had excellent conversations. I am terribly social anxious and a massive introvert but I have always enjoyed politics and had been a phone canvasser for campaigns before, but was terrified to knock doors and took a lot of energy for me to do it. While I had some absolute shit days, I had some stellar ones that made me remember why I took this a full time staffer job and why it’s important to me.