Does this bring in money or votes? Newsletter 12
Hey there! 👋 I’m Leor, a digital organizer at the DNC (or the DNC Texting Captain, as all the cool kids and volunteers like to call me!). I help manage the text out the vote (TOTV) team, the DNC’s national voter contact program. And it’s my greatest pleasure to not-so-humbly brag about all the amazing work that our texters have done!Â
Feature:Â
TOTV comes to the DNC!
Being a national committee means that we have to think about organizing differently than if we were a collection of regional field offices at which volunteers could gather. And as such, one of the best ways for us to manage voter contact is by running a distributed organizing program. That’s why we began TOTV (text out the vote) at the DNC in 2018 -- with the intention of allowing volunteers to reach voters from the comfort of their own home! And in a few short months, the program was able to:Â
Send 15 million text messages via DNC-run programs to encourage voters to vote early, return their mail-in ballots, confirm their polling place, and go vote.
Send 1.6 million text messages on Election Day alone.Â
Run eight full-scale SMS tests to measure the impact of different messages in motivating people to vote, making us smarter for future elections.
We empowered volunteers to join us from wherever they were to sign on and do their part to help make sure things like voting information about vote by mail and a voter’s polling location are sent right to a voter’s phone.
And the program continues to grow! Since April 2020, the TOTV team has ramped up its efforts and sent 5.2 million text messages to voters all across the country to urge them to vote by mail.Â
Campaigning in 2020 and the Impact of COVID-19
Being able to text voters from your own home is more important than ever. Because of COVID-19, peer-to-peer tools allow us to continue the organizing work that we need to do to win in November while keeping volunteers safe.
Our volunteers sent texts to battleground states like Pennsylvania, where we reached 400k voters to urge them to request an absentee ballot. We sent texts to voters in Arizona, a state that Democrats lost to Trump by only 4% in 2016, and helped over 53,000 people enroll in the state’s Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL).
Over the last month, DNC volunteers sent over 2 million text messages to Florida voters alone. These efforts helped Florida Democrats open up a 300,000 voter advantage over Republicans in vote-by-mail. That’s 34x bigger than what the Democratic advantage was back in 2016.
Building a Movement, Together.
Not only does texting keep voters and volunteers safe, but it also sparks meaningful relationships and real conversations between Democrats from all over the country. Volunteers on the TOTV team are trained to reply to every single voter in our inbox, spend countless hours connecting voters to resources, share helpful links, clear up confusion about the voting process, and more!Â
The TOTV team is a grassroots program, powered by the people and for the people. I’m so thankful to get to work alongside these dedicated, passionate, and inspiring folks every single day. Thanks for being the best team in the country, TOTV!
Job opportunities:Â
The 2020 Coordinated Campaign is hiring for plenty of awesome digital organizing roles! Check them out (and apply!) here:Â
Regional Calls Manager, Midwest
Regional Digital Organizing Director, Midwest
Regional Digital Organizing Director, West
🧵Thread we think you should read (and retweet) 🧵
The DNC’s (amazing) Online Fundraising Director Clarke Humphrey joined the Biden for President team as the deputy digital director! Read more here:
Closing:
When you invest time in training, cultivating and working closely with volunteers, you can see the difference in the quality of program you are able to run. Our texting volunteers’ passion is unmatched, and watching their dedication to doing the hard work of talking to voters one by one and answering their questions so that we can turn Democrats out in November and do it SAFELY inspires me every single day. If you’re FIRED UP and READY TO TEXT OUT THE VOTE with the best team in the world, sign up to join our grassroots movement here!
Your TOTV Captain,
Leor Tal
Digital Organizer
Democratic National Committee
TW: @leor_tal