They sat out last year; now they’re stepping up
Feeling regret over 2016 and energized by opposition to Trump, Democratic activists descend on a GOP bastion
Dan Henrickson rapped on the door of a stucco townhouse on a cul-de-sac in the north Los Angeles County suburb of Santa Clarita and awaited his fate.
As a volunteer for the Democratic Party on L.A.’s Westside, the 63-year-old information technology consultant was still getting used to the awkward art of doorknocking — earlier in the afternoon, he choked on a sip of water just as a voter opened his door.
The man who answered this time looked Henrickson and his door-knocking partner up and down as they started their spiel. He asked them a single question: “Are you Democrats?”
The man shut the door when he got the answer.
California is mostly a friendly place for Democrats, but this patch of the state — where the suburban sprawl of Los Angeles comes to an end and the Mojave Desert begins — is still a bastion for the Republican Party and the political territory of second-term GOP Rep. Steve Knight.
The Palmdale Republican won reelection by 6% last fall, but because Hillary Clinton was able to beat Donald Trump by about the same margin in Knight’s district, Democrats consider the seat to have prime pickup potential. The stakes: control of the House in 2018.
Although that election is still more than a year away, Henrickson is part of a
group of liberal activists engaged in an urgent battle for voters in places like Santa Clarita. Undeterred by recent Democratic disappointments — four special election losses in GOP districts, including a very expensive one in Georgia — the California activists have taken the long-term view, focusing on districts where incumbent Republicans might be more vulnerable.
Rep. Karen Bass, a Democrat whose district stretches from South L.A. to the Westside, has been paying for buses and vans to ferry nearly 100 volunteers over the Sepulveda Pass into Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley to reinforce local Democrats as they start voter registration drives. Organizers say they have registered 80 voters in three trips so far.
There is no shortage of volunteers, many of whom are political neophytes newly invigorated by opposition to President Trump and itching to do something.
“In L.A., you kind of feel like you are in this helpless political bubble,” Zoe Ward, a 32-year-old student in UCLA’s film directing master’s program, said after scouring Palmdale for new voters on a recent Saturday. “Coming out here, it feels like my minutes and hours go further.”
The work is grueling but uplifting, especially for Democrats who feel guilty they did not do enough in 2016 to help their party.
Henrickson came away with nothing to show for his time in Santa Clarita.
“I am not a big fan of it, but you got to do something,” he said. “The next time this is going to be easier.”
Organizers say they don’t expect immediate results. Part of the goal is simply to let locals know there are other Democrats around.
The district is steeped in conservative Southern California history. Simi Valley is, after all, home to the Reagan Presidential Library. Knight’s father, Republican William J. “Pete” Knight, represented the Antelope Valley in the state Legislature for 12 years and was the author of a successful 2000 ballot initiative banning gay marriage in the state.
“We want to let [Democrats] know they are not alone,” said Christy Smith, a candidate for state Assembly in Santa Clarita who has joined the efforts. “For a long time they have felt like they need to stay inside their house with the curtains drawn and the doors closed.”
Mariah Craven, one of the organizers who canvassed for Kamala Harris in her successful U.S. Senate race last fall, said Democrats have to start somewhere.
“This entire thing is very experimental,” she said. “There is no model for doing it this early.”
As the party looks to other districts in places such as Orange County that elected a Republican member of Congress but favored Clinton for president, they see bright spots for Democrats. They say they are ready to replicate the registration and outreach effort there.
If Democrats want to flip Knight’s 25th District seat, they have to increase their numbers: 37.6% of voters here are Democrats, 34.8% are Republicans and 22% decline to state a party.
Some of the volunteers flooding Santa Clarita are naturals, and a few are professionals, at the art of building up the Democratic base.
Derek Bryson, a 56-yearold film editor from Culver City, sat on a park bench in Simi Valley clad in militarystyle hiking boots. He slurped down a protein shake. It was going to be in the high 80s that day.
His companion, Pamela Sparrow of Los Angeles, examined a granola bar and tossed it back on the table.
“Too salty,” she said. “That will dehydrate you.”
Both worked as paid field organizers for Clinton in Las Vegas, leaving California last year for a swing state that Democrats needed to keep to win. Joining them were Laura Simon and her 14year-old daughter, Sofia, from Los Angeles. Simon said she stayed out of politics in 2016, and regrets it.
“I come for her future,” Simon said. “We are not going to make that same mistake again.”
Bryson and Sparrow jumped out of their car on a tree-lined street in Simi Valley. Nearby, a shirtless man washed a raised 4-by-4 pickup truck.
“Every vote counts,” Bryson said to himself as they walked down the street.
Kris Rodriguez answered the first door they knocked on. The 25-year-old landscaper, clad in a T-shirt and sandals, squinted through his screen door and told them he’d never voted before.
“I really don’t care, to be honest with you,” he said. “I don’t know what party I am or what the difference is.”
Bryson switched to small talk about football, and after a moment Rodriguez took a look at the registration papers. A family member came over to help him. Bryson took a step back. After a moment Rodriguez returned the forms. He had registered as a Democrat.
Around the block, Bryson and Sparrow caught Erick Guillen on his way out the door. The 25-year-old lab technician was bashful when he admitted he skipped the November election. Politics makes him uneasy.
“I didn’t feel like my voice would be heard or make a change,” he said. But he reregistered to vote by mail, saying he didn’t like the way Trump’s tenure started. “I am gonna vote now.” The two were on a roll. Tracy Stevens, 52, seemed puzzled when he saw the duo on his doorstep. “I thought you were gonna bust out the Bible,” he said.
He’d never had political canvassers come knocking, and he took the opportunity to express his frustrations with the political system and how it “just doesn’t seem to matter” what people do to try to change things.
“I didn’t vote for this guy, but you have to support him,” he said. “A lot of people give up on the system.”
Sparrow waited in silence as he spoke. Then she invited him to attend the next meeting of area Democrats.
“We participate in the process when we don’t participate,” she said.
They wrapped up their tasks and met back at the park to see how it went for the others in the group.
Lisa Newman, a 55-yearold karate instructor from Simi Valley, suggested the outsiders get familiar with hyper-local issues to have better success with their efforts. Two out-of-towners in her group had been asked about vacant business space at the local mall during their rounds. When they were clueless how to answer, Newman had to intervene.
Meg Sullivan also struggled. The 58-year-old retired publicist from the tony Cheviot Hills neighborhood near the 20th Century Fox Studios said most of the doors she knocked on didn’t even open.
“Were we able to make a difference?” she asked. “I don’t know.”
Sullivan said she hadn’t as much as “lifted a finger” since 1972, when her mother took her to knock on doors for Democrat George McGovern when he ran against President Nixon.
Trump’s election changed that. “Never again,” she said, shaking her head.
“I do this for my mental health,” she said. “Just to have a sense that I’m doing something to combat this terrible tsunami that’s taking over.”
‘I am not a big fan of it, but you got to do something. The next time this is going to be easier.’ — Dan Henrickson, a Democratic volunteer, on the awkward art of door-knocking