As campaigns wind down, finish line near for grass-roots volunteers.
Finish line looms for activists after months of grass-roots activity
After months of grassroots activity, the payoff is in sight for political activists who have been organizing their parties’ so-called ground game.
These volunteers for weeks have been running phone banks, knocking on doors and driving voters to the polls — efforts that have already yielded a record early voting turnout.
“There comes a time when you quit trying to change people’s minds and you just activate the people you know are going to be your base,” said Texas GOP vice chair Amy Clark of Three Rivers. “That’s what everybody, universally, is doing right now.”
Ben McPhaul, executive director of the Harris County Republican Party, said his party spent all weekend phone banking, adding to the roughly 1 million calls volunteers have made since August.
“It’s never too late to make a difference,” he said. “We will be working our tails off until 6:59 on Nov. 8.”
The Harris County Democratic Party estimates they’ve made about 700,000 calls this cycle.
The Democratic Party also hosted a “tele-town hall” conference call
Wednesday evening with former presidential candidate Howard Dean, who encouraged a telephone audience to vote. In Harris County, the party targeted 120,000 people for invitations via robocall. A cohort of Democrats also will hold a breakfast Monday in Houston’s East End to ask voters to make a plan to vote on Tuesday, despite possible long lines.
Record early voting
In Bexar County and Congressional District 23, basic campaign efforts are augmented by an unprecedented air war — political ads on TV and social media. A record $14 million has been poured into ads for the contest between U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, and former Rep. Pete Gallego in the state’s most competitive and expensive congressional race and one of five targeted nationally by the political parties.
But door knocking remains the purveyance of campaigns. “It’s amazing to me that in 2016, with all the social media and all the technological advances, still the best way to make voter contact is in person, and that hasn’t changed since (Abraham) Lincoln,” Clark said.
Clark, serving a second term as the GOP’s state vice chair, said new volunteers continue to emerge as people show up at party offices and say “put me to work.”
“We have to find more phones. We have to find more chairs. It’s a good problem to have,” she said.
Across Texas this weekend, campaigns have been reaching out to any remaining potential voters. Through Friday, 4.5 million Texans had voted early or by mail in the state’s 15 largest counties, including nearly 1 million in Harris County, a record.
Targeting all voters
On a sunny afternoon in Pharr last week, Mary Gow knocked on doors, urging people to vote and checking them off her list of registered voters. When no one answered the door, Gow, the get-out-the-vote coordinator for ARISE, a community-based organization in the Rio Grande Valley, leaves fliers with voter information, including the nearest polling locations.
“We don’t tell them who to vote for, but we do encourage them to vote,” Gow said. “Compared to the last election, we’ve had a lot of people calling us to ask about getting registered and where to vote.”
Not everyone is engaged by this election, though.
“I won’t vote,” Elias Santoyo, 23, told Gow. “I’m not really for either candidate. They tell me if I don’t vote I don’t have a voice, but I really don’t like either of the candidates.”
Santoyo voted for President Barack Obama in 2012.
“I’ll vote,” said Alberto De La Cruz, 57, after speaking with Gow and her team of community organizers. “I’m going to vote for Hillary (Clinton), because the other guy is a little crazy, and he’s against Hispanics.”
The door-knocking phase of the campaign was winding down over the weekend, as preparations were underway for Election Day mobilization. In San Antonio, political activist Lourdes Galvan was lining up more elderly vot- ers to deliver to polling sites on Tuesday.
“At the street level, there’s a lot of excitement. A lot of people are upset with (Donald) Trump. … They are really upset and they call him all kinds of names,” said Galvan, a former councilwoman who serves as LULAC’s national vice-president for women.
“You’ve got to be on the ground. You’ve got to do the grass roots. They don’t want to hear you on the phone. They want you to go knock on their door and tell them” about the candidates, Galvan said.
Bexar Democratic Chairman Manuel Medina said the party’s efforts have improved since the last presidential contest.
“The big difference between this and past elections is we’re not only targeting likely voters, we’re targeting all voters. We’re knocking on all their doors. We’re pushing straightticket Democrat. That’s one reason we have turnout as high as it is this time around,” Medina said. The county’s early voting set a record, surpassing high marks set in 2008 and 2012.
“We have an army ready to go for Election Day,” he said. About 500 volunteers will be in the field, offering rides to the polls and promoting candidates at the county’s 303 polling sites.
Valley more competitive
Medina’s counterpart in Hidalgo County has been enthused by the turnout in the Rio Grande Valley.
“At last count we’re up close to 44 percent compared to 2012, and we’re actually a little higher than 2008 numbers, so I suspect we’re going to break records. Right now I think you’re seeing a lot of conservative and middle-ofthe-road people vote in the first few days, and then we’ll see more of the Democratic base coming out,” said Hidalgo Democratic Chairman Ricardo “Ric” Godinez.
High-profile Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, have swooped through the Valley to help the party’s effort.
“Most of the campaigns are safe, with the exception of the biggest race, (Texas House) District 41,” he said, where state Rep. Bobby Guerra, D-Mission, is in a close race with GOP candidate Hilda DeShazo.
In Cameron County, Democratic Chairwoman Amber Medina said the traditional campaign efforts continue, and while turnout has improved since four years ago, it could be better.
“What we’ve tried to do this time around is focus on those people who haven’t voted every single time in every election. We’re reminding them what’s at stake in this election, that we’re here if they need anything,” the Cameron chair said.
“I think this year more than any year people are saying ‘Wait a minute, this is going to affect me and my family. If I don’t do something about it then maybe something bad is going to happen,’ “Amber Medina said.
But Republicans in the Valley see much at stake as well, and they’re pushing hard to challenge the area’s legacy of Democratic dominance.
“Here in South Texas, you’ve got some Democrat candidates who are pushing their people, their politicqueras are pushing,” said Hidalgo GOP Chairman Sergio Sanchez. “But now that we’re building our party, we’ve created a buzz on the ballot. The big race for us is the District 41 race (between Guerra and DeShazo),” Sanchez said.
“We need some political competition, that’s the battle cry from our office,” he added.
Hurd ‘strike force’
Republicans from San Antonio to El Paso were busily working on Hurd’s behalf. Volunteers including members of the state GOP’s Mighty Texas Strike Force, were in the 23rd District to encourage them to vote Tuesday, when polls will be open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Gov. Greg Abbott will campaign for Hurd in Bexar County on Monday evening.
In Fair Oaks Ranch on Saturday, 20 GOP volunteers including college students from around Texas went door-knocking for their party. The group included strike force member Beryl Dowd of North Richland Hills, who was advocating for Hurd.
“It’s extremely important. I’m worried about what may or may not happen Tuesday,” she said.
Bexar GOP Chairman Robert Stovall also block walked for Hurd in Fair Oaks, buoyed by the high turnout so far.
“There’s always more to do. We need everyone to come out on Election Day,” he said.
The South Texas campaigning was just part of the strategies of the two major parties. Throughout the state, Democrats and Republicans were working the traditional get-out-the vote tactics. Volunteers last week made thousands of phone calls, offered rides to the polls, reached out and battled on social media.
They also dispatched homegrown stars around the state to fire up the troops.
While Democrats including HUD Secretary Julián Castro have been courting Texas voters for months, Republican luminaries including Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Land Commissioner George P. Bush have campaigned actively for the GOP.
Republican Party of Texas spokesman Mike Joyce said, “Basically, just every day until the election happens on Nov. 8, when polls close, we are going to be on the phones and walking all over the state” to elect Republicans “from the White House to the courthouse. That includes Donald Trump, and that includes the last Republican that you find on the end of your ballot, all the way at the bottom.”
Thousands of calls were being made daily from each of 20-plus offices in the state Victory 2016 effort that are doing phone banking, Joyce said, and county parties also have phone-bank operations. Bush, who chairs the GOP victory effort, joined volunteers phone banking for Hurd and Republican state Reps. John Lujan and Rick Galindo in Bexar County.
Under Bush, “Victory 2016 is hitting all its marks,” said Bush campaign spokesman Kasey S. Pipes.
“Victory has secured significant resources to help down-ballot candidates across the state. Victory has activated thousands of grass-roots volunteers around the state who will make 500,000 voter contacts in the last week of the campaign alone,” Pipes said.
“Victory is also implementing an in-state Texas strike force (through Tuesday) to help out in targeted races. And on Election Day, Commissioner Bush will be personally getting out the vote in several locations around the state,” Pipes added.
Abbott’s efforts, said spokesman John Wittman, include get-out-the-vote events such as one on Oct. 24 in Harris County and Monday in Bexar County. Abbott has led events and fundraisers in competitive districts around Texas along with his wife, Cecilia; a tele-town hall that he said would call 750,000 voters; digital (video) ads for more than a dozen state representatives; and a radio ad that will run more than 3,000 times in markets across the state.
Democrats, meanwhile, said they have a coordinated effort that includes the county and state parties and the Clinton campaign. They tout work they’ve put into building a voter database, sophisticated modeling of voter data and ensuring local leaders have the tools to mobilize their voters.
Appearances by Democratic draws like the Castros are tied to events aimed at voter contact, whether phone calls or knocking on doors, said Cliff Walker, campaign services and candidate recruitment director for the Texas Democratic Party. “We grind it out on the streets,” he said.
Groups including Planned Parenthood, labor organizations and Battleground Texas are involved in organizing events.
The Clinton campaign in Texas planned at least 150,000 calls in the last week of the race “that I know about,” said former state land commissioner Garry Mauro, Texas for Hillary chairman, with two-thirds of the calls being made to turn out Texas voters and the rest to other targeted states. Those are solely Clinton campaign calls and don’t include those made under the auspices of the party, said Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party.
“The biggest difference between us and the Republican Party right now is we can push for straight ticket and folks are proud to be pushing for straight ticket. Folks want to vote straight ticket. And the other party’s got a significant problem with that,” Garcia said.